‘I’m Gonna Miss Him’ (Exclusive)

The Riverdale alum is currently planning the upcoming Don’t MiND Me Gala, taking place in Palm Springs on Friday, March 8. Don’t MiND Me is a mental health nonprofit started by the actress and her family to battle the stigma around mental illness, while also providing care to those in need.

At this year’s event, Amick will reunite with some of her Twin Peaks costars to honor Lynch, who passed away from complications of emphysema the age of 78 last month. Lynch was a longtime proponent of transcendental meditation, which Amick told TooFab is “such a beautiful tool for our mental health.”

“It’s gonna be beautiful. It’s gonna be amazing,” she shared of the planned musical tribute, before reflecting on her loss.

“I’m gonna miss him. I would pick up the phone quite often and just call him up and share what was going on in my life or my career and get incredible love and advice. And it feels weird to not pick up the phone and tell him what’s going on,” she told TooFab. “We’ve stayed close, the Twin Peaks cast and crew, over the years. We’re just a family and this brought us all together again.”

While the musical performance was already planned before his death, “now that we’ve lost David,” she added, “I think it’s bringing even more meaning behind us coming together.”

Lynch’s son, Riley Lynch, will also accompany the performance on guitar.

“I think it’s going to be very special. And the David Lynch Foundation has been really supportive and great partners of ours from when we started Don’t MiND Me, we worked very closely with them,” continued Amick. “And transcendental meditation is such a beautiful tool for our mental health, and once you learn it, it’s free for the rest of your life. They’re doing really important work there. So it’s great to just constantly come together and support one another.”

While the Twin Peaks cast members see each other often, they last reunited on screen back in 2017 for the show’s third season, dubbed, Twin Peaks: The Return. In the wake of Lynch’s death, being able to work together more than 25 years after the original series means that much more now.

“It was so great. Oh my gosh. I think we were all just floating on could nine through the entire filming,” she recalled. “David Lynch and I would look at each other every once in a while and just start like bawling. Like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re doing it. We’re back together again.’

“We’re so lucky that we were able to come back together and I feel like we did it in a way that wasn’t … it morphed into something a little different … it was the perfect continuation of, I think, David and Mark Frost’s mind,” she added.

Also being honored at the event are Amick’s Riverdale costar Molly Ringwald — with an introduction from her on-screen son, KJ Apa — as well as Ashley Carter, the late Aaron Carter’s twin sister.

The fundraiser comes as Amick, her family and foundation are planning to open their very own treatment facility in the desert, after the actress’ son Sylvester’s own struggle with substance abuse and mental health. Sylvester was officially diagnosed with bipolar-1 in 2012, after two years marked with waves of mania, treatment centers and hospitals.

He’s now 18 months sober and despite a moment of “destabilization” last year, Sylvester is not only doing great, but is an accredited peer specialist helping others with mental illness.

“It’s beautiful to see. It’s something he will always navigate and we as a family will always navigate and support him,” she shared with TooFab. “And there’s going to be a lot of great times where he’s accomplishing a lot and then sometimes there’s gonna be some challenges that come his way, but it’s really as a family supporting him through those ebbs and flows, which we all go through.”

“Seeing him in this really amazing journey and beautiful journey and it’s brought so much meaning to his life to be able to give back and help someone else through,” Amick continued. “And I’m very proud to see it happen and wanna do everything that we can on that supportive family side as well and help families through.”

Now, Amick hopes to help even more people by using her platform to “make positive change,” alongside her plan for a recovery center, Mental Health Recovery of Palm Springs.

It was Sylvester going through “a really deep psychosis and manic episode” in 2021 that served as the spark for the Don’t MiND Me Foundation, before they then launched a crisis intervention scholarship fund to help even more people. Last year, they decided to take things to the next level, coming up with a plan to open their own campus at the old Desert Sun newspaper building in Palm Springs.

“We’re gonna turn that into an overall treatment campus, and it’ll bring you all the way through all levels of care. So all the way from crisis to stabilization, sobering center, detox, all of those crisis level of treatment, which is so needed because we have very few psychiatric hospitals,” Amick explained.

“If you’re lucky enough to get into one when you’re in crisis, you’re discharged way too soon. They’re turning beds over because they wanna get the biggest insurance,” she added, saying their center will not only provide space for stabilization, but also longer-term residential care.

“And then all the way out to supportive services to help you beyond your year of treatment or whatever that might look like,” she added. “So this very inclusive and that we’re gonna help with vocational skills, nutrition, education, and all of the add-on therapies.”

Calling it a non-profit wellness campus, Amick promised “we won’t have to turn people away for financial reasons” — saying the process of making the project a reality so far has been “great.” She added that they’ve applied for a big grant and will find out whether they received it in May.

“We’re in agreement with buying the building, we’ve locked that down and our upcoming gala, March 8th, is really focused on raising those funds,” she added. “Because we need to come up with 10% match money to qualify for the grant.”

For more information about Don’t MiND Me, check out their website here.

To purchase tickets for the Gala, click here.