Frenemy’s chorus always reminded me of a memory that refused to be forgotten—somewhere between a panic attack and an epiphany. Like it decided to write itself, spiraling like a mind that was so worn down by quiet wars that it needed to finally scream out loud.

I don’t believe Mindy was ever trying to make a statement with this piece. At least, not at first. The lyrics felt like a journalistic plea for survival, just a way to make the inner fight feel less senseless. The song was born in that space between who she was tired of being and who she feared she might never become. And for anyone that hears it, the echoes linger long after the melodies have stopped. What’s admirable is that instead of running from it, she turned toward it. As if to look her disorder right in its eye and say, “If you’re going to stay, you might as well help someone else feel a little less alone.”

The instrumental arrived months before the voice ever decided to speak. Mindy carried it with her for nearly a year, living with the sound like it was a roommate she couldn’t evict. Some songs demand urgency. Others demand patience. She knew immediately that this one required precision. And another feeling she wasn’t ready to embrace yet: pain. The modern artist in her wanted to rush her, but she knew that wouldn’t be an option. It couldn’t be an option.  This wasn’t a song that needed to be cleaned up to make it easier. It needed to stay a little cracked. A little challenging to hold. The pieces are what make it real—alive, even.

Like any artist who isn’t used to bearing their soul to this degree, her first instinct was to hide behind metaphor. Masks. Monsters. Murder. The kind of creative misdirection that’s easy to cling to when the truth feels too raw. She flirted with the idea of light and darkness: becoming the villain, then the hero, then something in between. But the risk of the point being misunderstood kept tugging at her. This wasn’t about glamorizing the scar—it was about spotlighting the fact that it will always remain an open wound that will need to be constantly monitored. There are enough stories that turn the “bad parts” into the beast. She wanted something different. Something that allowed all her parts—split, stitched, and struggling—to still feel human.

So, ultimately, what emerged was a conversation, not between characters to hide behind, but between masks that share the same face, between the person she is when things are quiet and the one who shows up during a BPD flare. It wasn’t about choosing one over the other. It was about showing how both exist, how both love, how both hurt, and how terrifyingly easy it is to confuse the two.

With those pieces in place, the vision evolved organically, painfully, collectively. Other artists stepped in—not to rewrite the vision but to translate it, to hold it up like a mirror and say, "This is how the audience might see it." A good team doesn’t just execute a plan—they safeguard the truth behind it, one that can thread the needle between vulnerability and clarity without losing the thread of either.

But it still cost her something.

She hated being the version of herself that wasn’t performing. Hated having to sit in the exposed, “normal” skin. The side of her that wasn’t masked or poetic. The side that just hurt and mocked the artistic side of her. It was new for her to have to be every version of herself in something—the hero, the villain, the bystander, and the mirror. And like a mirror under too much pressure, it broke her into pieces in ways she hadn’t expected.

But the break was the point.

Because what the audience got wasn’t a stylized metaphor or a sanitized confession. What they got was her—raw, hurting, radiant. Not a symbol, but a person. And for the first time in her artistic career, maybe being a person was enough.

No corners were cut. Nothing was softened to make it more comfortable. The discomfort was the point. So much so that in the end, what remained was a work that didn’t just say something—it showed it to her and all of us.

A song stuck in her head, gifted to us. A monster and a mask behind the mirror. A truth cracked so wide open that we could all hear its splinters until it no longer sounded like destruction, but rather… healing.

Written by: Jaiden Hord

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