Every Sunday night in Chicago, a group meets at North Avenue Beach for a unique therapy. They scream out loud. Scream Club Chicago is a weekly meet-up where people come to release stress by screaming. The event is free, and more people join each week.
The group meets every Sunday at 7 PM near Castaways in Chicago. One mother, Mamie Amin, even brought her 5-year-old daughter to show her how to express tough emotions.
“We’ve had a lot of change in our life lately, and my daughter has been feeling a lot of feelings, and I feel like it’s a really good thing for her to see grown-ups handling all their sad, hard feelings in a healthy way,” Amin told ABC7.
Scream Club Chicago was started by Manny Hernandez, a coach who moved from Los Angeles. He explains why he decided to start the club.
“You never have permission to scream in the middle of your apartment, because the police will get called, so I decided to start something where people can meet up,” Hernandez said.
According to co-founder Elena Soboleva, it’s a “safe space” where no one judges. People feel supported and free to be themselves.
Xander Ruvalcaba joined once and now comes every week. He says shouting made him feel lighter and happier.
“I attended one day, and it made me feel happy at the end of it, getting all that screaming out of my system,” he said.
How does it work?
The session starts with deep breathing. Then, members throw biodegradable paper into the water. These papers carry written frustrations. After that, everyone screams into the lake three times.
Tears are common. Hernandez says life builds up stress and emotions we don’t always understand. Screaming helps let go.
“There’s things that happen in our everyday life that we don’t necessarily know how to deal with, and I think that we’re all just balls of energy of things that happen in our day-to-day lives, and we just hold on to that stuff a lot,” Hernandez said.
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