Currently Listening to . . .

How my fixation with music pulled me away from self destruction

Illustration by Jasmine Gallman | VOX Staff

Jasmine Gallman | VOX Staff

We want to save your life…” Like a message from a close friend, these words traveled through my TV screen and pierced me, filling me with newfound confidence and courage to live. Looking into Gerard’s intense, brown eyes as he spoke, I made a small promise to myself that I wouldn’t let his statement fall onto deaf ears.

Gerard Way, Frank Iero, Ray Toro, Bob Bryar and Mikey Way, who form the band My Chemical Romance, pioneered their own revolution in music. They inspire music lovers like me to do something worthwhile and risky in our lives. Their music and fire-laced interviews have helped me find determination to be a respected rock journalist — and someone worth remembering.

But, like all revelations, there’s the sad match that fell and ignited this all ...

World War Me
If a past version of me transcended the boundaries of time and sat before me, I would write on her palms and forehead tiny messages in bold red ink:

• PROCEED WITH CAUTION
• HOLLOW VESSEL AHEAD FILLED
WITH EMPTINESS
• EXPIRATION DUE SOON

And she would look at me with acceptance and do nothing to contradict my actions. Her eyes would see past me into a future full of grief and heavy sorrow, and she would marvel at the glorious, deceptive alternative of disappearing. There would be a small note. She’d say to herself: I am truly sorry for who I am. She’d say that there was always a lingering ache to do better to strive beyond all she had ever done — no matter how wrong or stupid.

The reason behind the apathy I felt was greatly rooted in my desperate need for hope. My mom and I were constantly arguing. She never listened to me, and it seemed she felt, as an adult, she didn’t have to. “I’m not one of your little friends,” she’d snarl at my tears and then ramble on about how much of a failure I was sure to become.

Facing the frightening roads of the future, I didn’t think I had any potential. I was a failing student built on the wills of masochism. What talents, what reserve of value could I muster to make myself presentable to the world? Unable to escape the hurt I felt because of my mother’s lack of acceptance, I was determined to banish my sorrow in the bloodiest ways possible.


(This is) the Collapse
I remember the first time I cut myself. I stood over a sink in the basement at my great aunt’s house and watched my blood swirl in the water, dancing amongst tiny ripples. Pain shook me, and an overwhelming relief swept over me. Finally I was punished for being a little wretch. At last, there was something I could do about this skin.

But the feeling of achievement never lasted, and the ritual quickly evolved from just a few scratches a week to a plethora of gashes each night. My self-punishment had grown religious and out of control. Even now as I type these words, I feel I am understating the situation. It’s almost impossible to crawl back into my past mind and communicate just how horrible self-injury was for me. Reading my old journals reveals the many letters from a ghost with whom I am no longer familiar:

I’m a liar. I’m not okay. I lie to make you feel better, and it works better than anything I have ever done. It’s instant, absolutely satisfactory. You smile, and you look relieved. You can go to sleep thinking you’ll see me in the morning. The truth would make you cry and make you itch with sympathy. Your throat will tighten with disappointment. You’ll stare into my eyes and look for the truth. You don’t want this, so I’ll feed you lies. They can’t hurt you. They lay you in comfort and leave me free to stay insane.

Now, these words reach me in bewilderment and pull me back into the broken shell where I once lived and died. They hang over me, pressing heavily down on my shoulders, pushing me further into hell. They haunt and hit me with sorrow, scaring me as I think about how close I was to doing something stupid and so terribly wrong. I was lost, and ironically enough, unable to capture the right words to share my suffering with others. I felt muted.


The Missing Frame
Luckily, my voice didn’t have to be my own. I remember sitting in the back seat of my mom’s car last summer. As we explored the streets of Buckhead, I stared idly out the window. Mindless pop music blasted from the stereo as my mom drove absent-mindedly, once again oblivious to the turmoil I was fighting inside. I slumped in my seat, convinced nothing could wake me. It was a day like any other — one that drew on me with no promise of an end. I didn’t expect to hear the words that would awaken me from my zombie stance:
“I tried so hard and got so far/ But in the end it doesn’t even matter/ I had to fall to lose it all/ But in the end it doesn’t even matter …”

I was immediately entranced by the lyrics to “In the End,” by Linkin Park. Someone somewhere had written the exact words I had struggled so hard to say and delivered them to me almost personally. Finally, I knew I wasn’t alone. Someone who was facing the darkest of his fears was holding the same emotions I hated to admit. The song put a microscope over my hidden feelings. The title alone encapsulated me.

I was insatiable. Triggered, I wanted to reclaim every emotion I had restricted myself from feeling in the past, so I went rummaging through the aisles of countless CD stores. I handpicked several titles by Drop Dead Gorgeous, Bright Eyes, Kill Hannah, From First to Last, A Fire Inside, Alesana, Underoath, Jack Off Jill, and My Chemical Romance. I grasped the small discs, feeling as though I was holding different testaments of my life. Yet I was never satisfied and always craved more lyrics, more musical notes to ingest.

The Internet became another haven for my cravings. I would sit in front of the computer screen, darting my eyes from Web site to Web site, looking for new bands over which I could obsess and spend money. It didn’t matter the genre or the image portrayed. All I wanted was to taste a true connection to how I felt. Countless hours of searching and listening have built a continuous monument of appreciation for music. The long list of artists each represent a profound step toward my completion of a new and beautiful me.

Awake and Unafraid, Asleep or Dead
I cannot pinpoint a definite line of happiness I’ve taken from music that would be the end all, be all to my struggle. I am still haunted by addiction with self-injury and tempted to fall back and let insecurity take reigns over my life. To be fair, I don’t believe there will be a time when I can honestly proclaim that I am cured of my urges to destroy my well-being. There will always be that choice to bleed and disappear; however, music offers me a crutch to lean on and supplies a venue for my frustrations to leak outside of me. It is because of music that I push forward and harbor the desire to create something phenomenal using my writing and artistic abilities. Most importantly, music has taught me that it’s fine not to be perfect — that it’s OK not to be OK.
As My Chemical Romance sings in “Famous Last Words”: “I am not afraid to keep on living/ I am not afraid to walk this world alone/ Honey if you stay I’ll be forgiven/ Nothing you can say can stop me ... going home.”

Jasmine is a certified delinquent at North Atlanta High who wants you to wish her luck in furthering her search for amazing bands to obsess over.