Music as Medicine

I'm going through probably the worse spell of depression I've ever experienced in my life, although to be fair, it might actually be despair more than depression. Despair is a terrible place to be too. I'm not really capable of talking though the reasons right now. My fingers are icy cold. I'm too emotionally and mentally exhausted too. 

What I want to do is share some music I've been listening to that fits my feelings. These artists inspire me a lot to embrace my feelings and use them for growth and motivation.

Aurora said when she was recruited to make music professionally she didn't think she wanted to do it, but her mother told her songs were like medicine to her, and they could be medicine for other people too. So Aurora decided to try making music professionally because she loved the idea of her music being medicine for people. Her mother was right. Music can be the best medicine of all. And her music has been medicine for me. Her youthful perspective helps me to see the world again from before I felt broken, and she and I are very much alike. She might be who helps me return to my youthful passion for building a life worth living.

Something about these Norwegian (and an Icelandic) ladies really resonates with me... And the British make really good music too.

(Please forgive some of the formatting issues - I give up on trying to control Blogger.)

Aurora - Your Blood

"When all inside you burns like a star

It's after you burn out that you are reborn again, reborn again

And maybe if you called out for help

Then I could help you outrun yourself

Come run again, come run again.

And I! I refuse to die. I refuse to die!"

Aurora - All Is Soft Inside

"All that I know

Lies within emotion

Words remain unspoken

Lead me through the dark

All that I see

Came to me in colours

Lasted for the moment

Lead me through the dark

All that I know

All I know"

Auora - Exhale Inhale

"Crawl beneath the earth

To feel the hunger and the thirst

If you could fly and be the bird

Then you would see the forest burn

My dear, come near

Do you understand what is happening?"

Kalandra - Brave New World

"Catch the wind and fight the storm

Through the fury we're holding on

Take your time but not too long

Make it worth the time you own

You woke a fire inside of me

Fanned the flame and made it breathe

You woke a fire inside of me inside of me inside of me...and sleep

Ignore all the burdens that you keep

Come whatever may

They could never harm you anyway"

Kalandra - The Waiting Game

"There's a fire inside me

Waiting for something

Waiting for something

Burning uncontrollably

If I do nothing

If I do nothing

I'm waiting for you

You're waiting for me

Afraid of what we'll find

If we let words run free"

Highasakite - Mother

"I need to call my mother

Hey, hey, hey, hey

Tell her I'm scared of the thunder

Hey, hey, hey, hey

I need to talk to my mother

Hey, hey, hey, hey

Mama, I'm scared to go under

Hey, hey, hey, hey"

Highasakite - Keep That Letter Safe

"It doesn't make all cloudy days worthwhile

It doesn't make much sense to walk that extra mile

To assign you properties that are not real

And throw all my former knowledge into the field"



Highasakite - Samurai Swords

"Someone else

Will love like a rainstorm

Someone else

Will drown in your long strong arms

I'm not present at all

I don't know how that feels"

Bjork - Joga

"All that no-one sees

You see

What's inside of me

Every nerve that hurts

You heal

Deep inside of me, oo-oohh

You don't have to speak

I feel

Emotional landscapes

They puzzle me - confuse

Then the riddle gets solved

And you push me up to this

State of emergency

How beautiful to be"

Bjork - Bachelorette

"I'm a fountain of blood

In the shape of a girl

You're the bird on the brim

Hypnotized by the whirl

Drink me, make me feel real

Wet your beak in the stream

Game we're playing is life

Love's a two-way dream"

Bjork - Hyperballad

"We live on a mountain, right at the top

This beautiful view from the top of the mountain

Every morning, I walk towards the edge

And throw little things off

Like car parts, bottles, and cutlery

Or whatever I find lying around

It's become a habit, a way to start the day

I go through all this

Before you wake up

So I can feel happier

To be safe up here with you"

Muse - Map of the Problematique

"Life will flash before my eyes

So scattered and lost

I want to touch the other side

And no one thinks they are to blame

Why can't we see?

That when we bleed, we bleed the same"


Muse - Explorers

 
This is a lullaby plea written for his son...

"Free me, I'll free you

Free us from this world

We don't belong here

It was a mistake imprisoning our souls

Can you free me, and free me from this world?

(Free me, free me

Free me from this world)

(We don't belong here)

(It was a mistake imprisoning our souls)

Running around in circles, feeling caged by endless rules

Can you free me, and free me from this world?"

Florence and the Machine - Free

"I'm always running from something

I push it back, but it keeps on coming

And being clever never got me very far

Because it's all in my head

"You're too sensitive", they said

I said, "Okay, but let's discuss this at the hospital"

(As it) picks me up, puts me down

Picks me up, puts me down

Picks me up, puts me down

A hundred times a day

Picks me up, puts me down

Chews me up, spits me out

Picks me up, puts me down"

Florence and the Machine - All This and Heaven Too

"And the heart is hard to translate

It has a language of its own

It talks in tongues and quiet sighs

And prayers and proclamations

In the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures

In short, shallow gasps

But with all my education I can't seem to command it

And the words are all escaping, and coming back all damaged

And I would put them back in poetry if I only knew how

I can't seem to understand it"


Tom Odell - Best Day of My Life

"Laying on the car

You've got stars

I've got scars

They don't see

Think today is the best day of my life

Last night all I wanted to do was die

Right now I'm just happy to be alive"

Tom Odell - Sad Anymore

"I don't want to be sad anymore.
Look at all the happy people, baby, what are they doing that I ain't doing?"

Chronic Fatigue is not "Boring"

Someone asked me recently how I'm not bored spending hours alone with only myself daily. 

First, no. The nature of chronic fatigue is to not have the energy to do much. It's not boring to be fatigued. It's like being lost in a meditation that I can't wake up from on my own. Time doesn't feel the same as when I have energy to work with. Time doesn't feel linear, it feels like something that I have to remember exists.  

Second, do not underestimate my ability to dream for long hours, even without falling asleep. If I had it in me, I would write novel after novel about my dreams. Many, however, are in very slow motion. I experience many images that last me for... who knows how long? It's not boring, it's allowing me to stay alive with my feelings while I can't physically participate.  

Third, even if I was healthy enough to take on the world like the rest of you act like you are (are you really?), I'm naturally very introverted. I'm not anti-social. I love to make deep connections with people, even if they are not lasting. I draw my energy from being alone, whereas people drain my energy. I have always needed to spend time alone every day to be with myself. 

Fourth, what does it matter? This is my process to allow myself to successfully come out of my shell and use my energy out there in the real world. I'm not turning to pot, alcohol, heroin, pain kills, and other substances. I'm just resting. I'm just zoned out. I'm not turned on, and I don't want to be. How can it be boring when I'm shut off?

Fifth, do you know what happens when I don't get to be boring and be alone for hours daily? I fall apart and crumble away until I'm completely unresponsive to people. The headache, the throbbing in my ears, the heartburn, the gut ache, the fibromyalgia, the chest pain, the endless internal screaming for mercy... I simply cannot over spend my energy without my body protesting hard. So I ask again, what does it matter to you, if it means I can be present and engaged with you when I am alert?



But... there is this incredible thing called the internet. I feel like I have the ability to be more myself online than in reality. The internet removes the stimulation that drains too much of my social energy in person. No body language, no vocal inflections, no eye contact, and no environmental stimuli. I can laugh without expressing it. I can take my time to think about a response instead of just react. I can watch a video of someone or listening to their recording as many times as I want to really absorb what they're saying. I can lay down in bed without having showered and my hair a hot mess while having the time of my life talking with people all over the world without seeing each other. How many evenings have I spent too exhausted from my day to physically do more than lay in bed, but still have a desire to connect with someone, so I join my friends in my mobile game?

And the beauty of the internet is that when I've reached my limit of what I can handle, I just put my phone down and close my eyes. I don't have to explain that it's time to go. I don't have to watch someone get angry with me for zoning out while talking to me. I don't have to physically walk away. I can just set my phone down. 



I have times when I'm so blood deficient that I'm not social for weeks at a time. As if chronic fatigue isn't enough, I have a problem with endometriosis causing me to bleed heavily during ovulation too. Imagine bleeding for half of every month. I think any person would feel exhausted by this too. I'm going through this right now. 

I tend to feel extremely heightened emotions during these times. I don't want to be social, but I do want to play out my emotions and experience them deeply. It's a lonely feeling because I don't want to engage with another person to feel these emotions, partly because it takes energy I don't have, but also because I'm afraid they won't be able to feel the emotion I need to feel with me. If they can't make me feel how I want to feel, they'll only drain me further. So this is why I turn to music. I can be extremely selective and picky, choosing to only listen to songs that fit what I need to feel. 

Today's song? Well you see, someone on youtube made a video of the same song playing for an hour. It couldn't be more perfect for what I'm feeling today. The mood of the song is exactly right. (Forgive the F bomb in it - but it's one of those appropriate uses, not an excessive, boring, and rude usage.)

"What A Day, What a Life, Ahhhh"

Oh, just think about how much I could be writing about! What a year. What a drain. Energy vampires around every corner. They suck me dry of the desire to write about it. I do have a desire to share this with you all though.

I know I have written about music many times here. Music is incredibly important to my mental, emotional, and spiritual health. There are several artists who speak to me that I love and adore, but London Grammar is the one band that produces the sounds that speaks about me. They are the sound I would produce if my body was a musical instrument. Want to understand how I'm feeling on the inside? There's always a London Grammar song for that. Have you seen those devices that amplify the energy that plants emit, and it sounds like ambient music? Well, London Grammar is that device for my body.

"What A Day" in particular right now.

I want to break this down for you, because I think this is a great way to explain what I feel like most of the time.

It starts with Hannah's higher head voice breaking down into a low vocal fry soft scream, which she uses to state the mood. Then the slow driving beat of the piano, and her low voice slowly erupts into a type of subtle scream with her "ahhhh." Slowly the drums carry the driving beat forward while the piano sounds more erratic if you pay attention to it.

The textures of the various beats from the piano, drums, and later the guitar perfectly fit my heart beat and adrenaline. They mingle together like they're at odds with each other. They express the current that keeps flowing in my body to keep me going. Do you hear how they sound unsettled, never quite resolving into a comfortable sound? I have that type of forced drive always coursing through me. But even though the tempo is not slow, do you hear how her vocals sound slow, dissociated, and not matching the beat? How her vocals are a different current on top of the foundation? That's my inner voice. Very low energy, despite that drive below the surface, and what I express comes out as a soft wandering frantic anxiety. It takes the majority of the song before she sings an actual melody with coherent phrases, and then it's short lived before she breaks her vocals down again into the pleading soft screams. Do you hear how this song expresses the evening at the end of a long hard day, when cortisol levels should be dropping so you can wind down, but you just can't let go to actually rest? That's the state I live in 90% of the time. I'd like to see you function like a normal human being when this is your best energy level.

Music Discovery: London Grammar

Oi vey... I've been struggling to manage all the changes in life. My mental endurance is low. I have been wanting to share, but by the time I get to my computer I'm just too drained. I'm too drained to want to express, talk, to even think about it. It's better to lose myself in a good game or music instead. That's how I came to this post.

I just discovered the band London Grammar. They fit my energy levels really well. Emotive and has depth, but slower trip hop/ rock. I want to share a few songs by them that resonate with me.

"Strong"

♫And a lion, a lion, roars would you not listen?
If a child, a child cries would you not forgive them?
Yeah, I might seem so strong
Yeah, I might speak so long
I've never been so wrong♫



"Bones of Ribbon"

♫Take determination
Take whatever you need
'Cause your body's made of metal
And your skin, it isn't real♫



"Sights"

♫Keeping your strength
When it gets dark at night
What are you made of
Water and glass
Keep it in your sights now
It's keeping you up
Keep it together
Keep it together♫

"Wild Eyed"

♫Sun suffocate the atmosphere
But I'm safe with you far away from you
Another fire through another open door
It's what I'm living for♫

Blood Deficiency (Chinese Medicine)

In Traditional Chinese Medicine there is a concept called "blood deficiency." It doesn't necessarily mean that a person is lacking actual physical blood. If you would like to learn what it is, I suggest this article. In western medicine it often presents as anemia or chronic fatigue, but other wise healthy people can experience it.

I regularly fight blood deficiency. It causes me to fall away into the core of who I am, living there, unable to really connect with the world around me. I become distant, irritable, very guarded, and often incoherent. My thoughts and emotions feel highly intense and heightened due to living in them, but I have no energy to express them. There's no strength with which to pour that emotional experience into art, conversation, or work. So I appear outwardly cold, uncaring, dazed and confused, and perhaps even unloving. The truth is that I love hard and fierce, but if you want me to show it you'll just have to watch for the finer details in how I do spend my energy. If you give me time to be alone, let me recharge, and be very selfishly focused on my own needs then you'll see me come out of my cocoon and wanting to invest in you again. Until I'm once again drained. When people take a little from me every day, I never recharge, and you won't see me turn into that butterfly that is who I really am when I have full strength.

So you must understand that I have to pick and choose who I give my energy to very very carefully. For years I tried to maintain this blog, be active in Facebook support groups, be an attentive wife and friend, and give my best efforts to my job. It wasn't working for me. People kept taking more from me than I had to give. I now have accepted that my body has decided to control who I can give any energy to. Don't misunderstand. If I were well, I would treat every person in my life as equally important. I'm not well.

I have two versions of being trapped in this state. One version is that I can't tolerate outside stimulation. I don't want TV, music, people, or other distractions. I just want to be in silence. In this version I tend to be calm and submissive in my dreams, where I live. I can't step into reality, my dreams are always in my vision. I just let my natural desires and instincts play out in these dreams, and normally I find I'm just giving up and giving in to anything.

The other version is the one I'm in now. I crave music that reflects my emotional state, to the point of playing the same few songs over and over and over. I want to be fed what I want to feel, not made to produce those feelings on my own. I want my food to comfort and warm me. I'll drink hot herbal tea constantly. I want to have deep basal desires met, maybe physical touch, emotional, spiritual... like I'm hurting for not having my cravings filled. I want a very deep conversation with a person online to connect my soul with someone else I fully trust (no small talk or work talk or I will scream), but not in person. It's easier to type than to speak, and I'm not burdened with the need to show facial expression or body language online. Thankfully I have made a couple of online friends who are the same wavelength as me most of the time. I don't need a selfish conversation - often I just want to ask question and listen to them, but this sort of connection is like food to me. I selfishly need it as fuel so I don't go crazy. 

Either way, you may see the trend that I just can't fully exist in reality. It wouldn't matter how good my life is, I wouldn't be able to engage with it. No matter how many times I say this, people don't know how to respond. Some people think they can just force reality on me. Others just act like I didn't ask them to leave me alone. Some try to help me - and I do not want it. Help means work, which drains and only makes me worse. It means I have to respond with gratitude, and that response can drain me. Think of me like a cocoon. I'll come out and engage with you when I'm ready. 

No matter the version I feel, my physical symptoms are often the same. Poor digestion, bloating, blurred strained vision, light sensitivity, worsened POTS, low blood pressure, painfully freezing purple toes, joint stiffness and aches, aching heart from being over worked, muscle tension and pain, swollen tongue and tight throat, feeling 100 pounds heavier than I am, pale lackluster skin with huge bags under my eyes... and this time, I've been bleeding very heavy for a week during the middle of my cycle. All that bleeding prevents me from healing and improving.

The acupuncture bed is my favorite place to be each week. Acupuncture is a fine art, the practitioner and skill level really does matter. I start with having cupping done, and the warmth it brings to my back is one of the best feelings in the world. It helps my muscle tension, but it also helps me take a deep satisfying breath. I often cough from the raw feeling of breathing air into the bottom of my lungs after cupping. Then come the needles. Sometimes my body fights the effect and my heart rate sky rockets - my qi moves quickly and can feel like anxiety flowing through me for a while until I finally deeply relax. Other times the needles kill all the anxiety in me, allowing me to fall deep into soul and stop feeling my body at all. I have the best imagination and dreams in this state. 30 minutes of deep pure relaxation and comfort that can't be replicated by any drug. I've had out-of-body experiences, and that feeling is more therapeutic than anything else in the world.

It's hard for me to write this. The person I am when I'm well and healthy would be embarrassed by this. I'm careful about how I present myself so that I can get along with everyone. I like to know who people are, and I like to show how much I care. When I'm healthy I guard any dark, anti-social, depressed feelings I have from others so I can just show them love and care. I'm a highly empathic person, but I've turned that empathy on myself and away from others. I'm studying myself like I'm another person desperately trying to connect with this person I see in me.

The best thing you can do is let me guard my energy. Don't take it personally. Taking it personally will tug at my empathetic nature and drain me. It's not about you. It's about me being hardly alive. I'm a flicker of myself. Don't put that light out. 

Music for Dark Moods

I want to do another post on the music I've been listening to that has been helping me deal with depression and exhaustion. Since the surgery my mood and depression has been really unstable. I've also had to spend too much energy on projects that have worn me down, making me need to pull away from people and just be inside myself. I often don't want to listen to music when I'm that tired because it's stimulating, but this time, with all my mood swings, music is helping me stay centered even when I don't want the stimulation.


1. Whole Album: Beck "Morning Phase."
Beck is an artist that I enjoy socially and in small doses on my own, but overall doesn't really fit who I am as a person as well as other artists do. This album is so tranquil though. It's so relaxed, so at peace with the world, and such a calm and optimistic way to start my day. It's about the morning - that wonderful feeling of waking up rested before starting the day. I don't experience the waking up rested part often, but this helps me feel like I know what it feels like. :) This album is free to stream on Amazon Prime.

2. Whole Album: Evanescence "Synthesis"
Evanescence is a band with a lot of songs I've always thought I would like if only they didn't have incredibly boring metal guitars in almost every song. Amy Lee writes powerful melodies and sings so beautifully, but the guitars sound the same in every song. Well, she decided to come back with this album. It's mostly rearranged songs from her previous albums, with a couple new songs. This time the songs are full of what I love about their music and none of what I disliked. She hired an orchestra and the band isn't focused on producing the metal sound. It's beautiful - orchestral to create a big full sound that portrays the power in the songs better than the metal guitarists could. It's a mature Evanescence, an evolution of the band I was always hoping for. I absolutely love every second of this album! If you have Amazon Prime the album is streaming for free.

If I can point out one song in particular on this album that I've been so drawn to. This comes from an older album, and the original version is just... blah. This version brings the song to life (pun intended for fans lol.) "End of the Dream"


Why must we fall apart to understand how to fly? I will find a way, even without wings.

"Imaginary"

Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge. The nightmare I built my own world to escape. 

"Perfect Imperfection"

I want to lift you up into the light that you deserve. I want to take your pain into myself so that you won't hurt. Don't you dare surrender! Don't leave me here without you, because I could never replace your perfect imperfection.

"Lithium"


Lithium, don't want to lock me up inside. Lithium, don't want to forget how it feels without. Lithium, I want to stay in love with my sorrow.

"Hi-Lo"

(Can't link to music video...)

Don't you know we could be high or low, you'll never fall beneath me. And I gave up on you, but I never forgot you.

3. Darren Hayes, but not a particular album. You probably know him as the lead singer of Savage Garden. He has an extensive solo career, but it never exactly came to America because the record producers wanted nothing to do with him after he came out as gay. He has some bad music out there, such as the song "Creeping Up On You." Who writes a song about stalking someone? But the rest? Very heartfelt. He sings full of emotion and passion without compromising good pop vocal technique. Lyrically he gets into the heart of any matter with masterful writing. I don't normally listen to this type of pop music because it's usually far too simple and meaningless for my tastes, but he's special. What I like most about him is that he tackles depression head on. He doesn't sing about it for sympathy, to explain himself, or to give the world an excuse for being depressed. He sings about the reality of depression, exposing it for what it is, and learning to live positively with it. Most of his music is about relationship struggles, which I don't have in my life, but I can still relate to the rest.

"Darkness" (Honestly probably my favorite song at the moment. Can't stop listening.)

I am famous for my generosity, they say I am the kindest. It is easier to give than receive love, give than receive love.

"Taken by the Sea"

Fall, I took a fall, I took it easy. On the surface I was perfect, but down, way down below, I started believing I deserved it. Was I worthless? Sinking like a rescue boat washing right over me, vessel is struggling, waving both my hands in the air. Then the blindness of love, then your arms all around me...

"So Beautiful"

And if all the world was perfect I would only ever want to see your scars

"Stupid Mistake"

I made a stupid mistake and my world crashed down all around me. I made a stupid mistake and I threw it all away, threw it all away...




4. Florence and the Machine, whole album "How Big How Blue How Beautiful" and several songs off other albums. Florence Welch is a mixed bag full of wonderful song writing with a band that isn't always tight or perfect, and with a beautiful heavenly voice that isn't trained well enough to always sound its best. Somehow, even though my standards are high for quality pop and rock music, this doesn't bother me, because her songs aren't simple. Well, some of them are, but she makes them good in other ways. She is a woman who has dealt with addictions (including sex addiction that's prevalent in her lyrics, not something I relate to), and she knows how to tackle her mental health through song writing. I'm not like her in many ways, but she knows how to speak to my soul. She has music for when I'm stressed out, angry, burned out... and most importantly, when I'm trying to tackle my own issues. Here's a sampling of her songs that have helped me:

"Sky Full of Song"


Hold me down I'm so tired now, aim your arrow at the sky. Take me down, I'm too tired now. Leave me where I lie... 

"Shake It Out"


And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off!

"Falling"


Sometimes I wish for falling, wish for the release. Wish for falling through the air to give me some relief. Because falling's not the problem, when I'm falling I'm at peace. It's only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief.


"Blinding"

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself has been undone... 

"Various Storms and Saints"

You'll find a rooftop to sing from, or find a hallway to dance. You don't need no edge to cling from. Your heart is there, it's in your hands. I know it seems like forever. I know it seems like an age. But one day this will be over. I swear it's not so far away. 


5. Emiliana Torrini. She's an Icelandic singer with a beautiful soft voice, and she knows how to write musical poetry. She can describe a scene like no one else. There is a different mood on each of her albums. Some of her songs get incredibly dark in subject matter (singing about a homicide, for instance), but some expose the simply beauty of the world and make it grand. I don't always connect with her when I'm in depressed dark place, but I like pretty much every song she's ever written.

"Blood Red"

I want a car in red, without a roof, blood red. Goes so fast my lipstick runs downriver. Instead I stay a while longer. So restricted. I know too much, I'm so affected, the winding hours belong to strangers. 

"Birds"


Lend me your wings and teach me how to fly. Show me when it rains, the place you go to hide.



6. Muse. I've talked about them before, don't need to repeat. But they have a brand new song out that is perfect for my mood. I love it so much.

"Something Human"
https://youtu.be/azAEHCQgcUI

Blogger won't let me embed the link to it, sadly and very annoyingly. But if you're into 80's stuff and fast cars and werewolves then you'll love the video. It's epic! And the song is so spot on about my need for escape.




There are other artists that I can connect with too, but I've talked about them before. U2, Muse, Jack White... I wanted to highlight that I've been listening to these artists a lot this summer. As if it's been winter.

Do you have suggestions for me? Let me know who helps you through dark times please. :)