Coachella, Justin Bieber, and the Power of Staying: Why Support Shouldn’t Be Conditional

I went to Coachella for the first time this year, and if I’m being honest, it didn’t look the way I imagined it would. Somewhere between the walking, the heat, and wearing the wrong shoes, my body gave out before the night did. I ended up back at the hotel, feet aching, overwhelmed, and crying. Not exactly the highlight reel you see online.

I missed Justin Bieber’s set in person, but like many, I watched it afterward. And what stayed with me wasn’t just the performance; it was everything surrounding it. The years of public scrutiny, the visible struggles with mental health, and the reality of what it means to keep showing up anyway.

I also came across an interview with Hailey Bieber where she said, “How could you leave someone at their lowest?” That question stayed with me, not just as a reflection of their relationship, but as a broader commentary on how we treat people who are struggling.

Because the truth is, our systems, and often our communities, are not built to support people at their lowest.

I remember going through my first heartbreak and being told by a family member, “You can’t keep crying, otherwise your friends will leave you.” I never forgot those words. Not because they were true, but because they revealed a belief that people who struggle become burdens. That their pain has an expiration date.

But my experience showed me something different.

The people who stayed weren’t the ones who told me to stop feeling. They were the ones who sat with me in it. My friends didn’t leave, I grew closer to them. And over time, I grew apart from extended family members who couldn’t hold space for that version of me.

That distinction matters, not just personally, but systemically.

Too often, mental health is treated as an individual responsibility rather than a collective one. Policies focus on short-term intervention rather than long-term support. We invest in crisis response, but underfund prevention, community care, and sustained healing. We expect people to “get better” quickly, to return to productivity, to be easier to hold.

But healing doesn’t work on a deadline.

What we see in moments like Coachella, even in something as simple as a performance, is the visible outcome of invisible support systems. People don’t just “bounce back” on their own. There are people behind them who stayed, who advocated, who created space for them to fall apart and come back together.

And not everyone has access to that.

That’s where policy has to do better.

We need systems that don’t abandon people once they become “too much.” That means expanding access to long-term mental health care, funding community-based support networks, and building trauma-informed practices into workplaces, schools, and public institutions. It means recognizing that healing is not linear, and designing policies that reflect that reality.

At its core, this is about shifting a narrative: from “fix yourself” to “we will not leave you.”

At SAMA, that’s the foundation of the work. Creating spaces where people are allowed to be at their lowest without fear of being abandoned. Where support isn’t conditional on how quickly someone heals.

I didn’t get the Coachella experience I expected. I missed a set I would’ve loved to see live. But I walked away with something more lasting.

A reminder that staying is a choice.

And it’s one we need to start building into our systems, not just leaving it up to chance.