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How Music Connects to Our Sadness

Why We Should Pay More Attention

By Cierra HarknessPublished 5 years ago 8 min read
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As a person suffering from depression myself, I understand how hard it is to feel like nobody is on your side. I have felt I do not have many people to turn to that I can fully trust with my issues. The people I have trusted my problems with have complained about how I was using them as some sort of outlet to dump everything on. So instead, I decided to turn to music. I am not very good at making music, but I occasionally just make little snippets of songs that probably will not get anywhere, but they make me feel better, personally. It does not necessarily have to be sad, but incorporating sadness in it helps channel the emotions in a healthy way. Because of this, music has made a huge impact on my life, and that is only one reason of many as to why I believe music can help with depression.

So, as we all know, music is, simply put, a series of notes arranged into specific patterns to create a song (of sorts). It does not have to be a specific song, it can just be a little tune or jingle, like a ringtone. These said patterns are what creates, quite literally, the music to our ears. Though of course, we all have our personal preference of genre; jazz, rock, synth, whatever fits to our liking. In other words, “Musical sound waves are structured into time and space. This structuring makes musical sound unique and identifiable” (“Music" paragraph two). It is not clear as to where music originated from, but it’s been around for years upon years. Some studies say that, “Evidence suggests that music may have begun to emerge even in the prehistoric era” (“Music" paragraph 4). Imagine dinosaurs playing the bedrock version of a mandolin made out of sticks and vines.

Some may ask “is there a specific type of music that helps with someone who has depression?” And, yes, actually there is. Studies show that listening to sad music when you are feeling down makes you feel better, gives you a sense that you are not alone in whatever you are going through, as one article says, “The authors of that study suggested that sad music provides a substitute for the lost relationship. They compared it to the preference most people have for an empathic friend—someone who truly understands what you’re going through” ("Does Music Affect Your Mood?” paragraph 10). It is a way of channeling that sadness into something other than having an emotional breakdown or in darker circumstances, harming yourself. It lets you feel a little freer, and a little more rejuvenated. And come on, who does not like listening to their favorite jams? But, of course, some things have their downsides, and sometimes, perhaps music may not be enough.

There are the people who believe the complete opposite could be said for music helping make depression better. There have been studies made on some teen suicides, and some were seemingly caused by listening to sad emo music. For instance, in an article it was stated, “in 2007 two teens in Melbourne committed suicide after months of posts on a social media site that documented their fascination with emo music along with their downward trajectory of negative thinking” (“Sad Music and Depression: Does it Help?” paragraph three). And other studies show that perhaps sad music only makes people feel worse, especially if they are liable for depressive states, as they said in the same article, “We found that rather than feeling better after listening to sad music, people with high scores in rumination reported feeling more depressed” (“Sad Music and Depression: Does it Help?" paragraph eight).

However, in relation to those claims and while they may be plausible, that does not mean that they are probable. Suicides happen frequently, and not all of them are “caused” by the sad music people listen to. More often than not, there is a deeper reasoning behind why someone would commit suicide. They may just feel that the music was their only outlet (this is referred to as catharsis, meaning it is a process of releasing emotions, which most of the time works well), but when that was not working enough for them, they could not handle the sadness any longer and decided to end it. It is not, per se, the music that is at fault, it is that nobody else understood their pain. Nobody else bothered to look deeper into it.

I have seen this many times before and have been victim to it as well; a lot of people tend to brush depression off, especially now. It will come off as bad, but depression has seemed to become a trend. I mean that as in, a lot of kids do not take it seriously and are not serious about their depression, and often times can be seen almost happily announcing that they want to die. Actually depressed people keep silent, as not to bring others down with their sinking ship. That is why it is so important to pay attention to what depressed people do and what they listening to, because there could be so much more going on with them that meets the eye. See, we often times turn a blind eye to some depressed people. As they bring up in this article, “Those suffering do so 'in silence,' which they 'break' when they describe what is happening to them. If they speak about it calmly, in a composed way, we’re more likely to applaud them as brave." But if their distress is more palpable, and their account lacks coherence, we often stop listening and instead whisper under our breath that they are “unwell” or “in crisis” (“The real reasons we are silent about depression” paragraph one). Granted when the episodes are not as bad, we are more calm about talking through our problems. But when we hit just the right amount of stress, we seem to go ballistic. That should not be ignored, if we, ourselves, are known for such toxic and negative behavior, somebody shoulder hear us out, and music is one way of doing listening in on the details.

I do not necessarily mean that we should take time out of are days to listen to every single thing someone else listens too. But maybe when you have a few extra minutes, just pop that song on your playlist and keep working. You may very well see what exactly is going on in someone’s life and how they feel. They could be struggling at home or maybe struggling in a personal relationship. Maybe ask them later when you see them, "hey, are you okay?" but be subtle about it. Depressed people are typically afraid of saying things they think no one wants to hear and then become closed off. To further explain, “The suicidal ideations and intrusive thoughts that accompany severe depression are not the same as the intent to kill yourself. They are, more often, the latent sense you’d be better off dead and that you are simply lacking the ‘courage’ to end your life. The depressed person will not say this to friends or family, often through a noble sense of not wanting to upset, panic or distress them.” ("The real reasons we are silent about depression” paragraph eight). So, while we understand talking about things may help a little bit, and therapy may help in some aspects, we just choose to avoid it entirely. That is the reason why paying such close attention to little things, like their favorite songs, is almost crucial.

All in all, what I hope to achieve in claiming this, and explaining how music can help with mental illness, like depression, is that perhaps we can delve deeper into what exactly may be going on with our peers. Their taste in music may reflect how they really feel deep inside, except they do not know how to show it. They possibly never had anyone to turn to, or they may feel like their issues are not important enough to go over. We all know how toxic of a mindset that can be, and the less we put our minds to helping others through their troubles, the more suicides are liable to happen and the more negative mindsets are going to pop up. There are a lot of signs of depression, but since music can convey so many emotions that we, ourselves, are almost incapable of doing, maybe that would be a good starting point to look into when trying to find reasons why someone is the way they are.

Works Cited

“Music," paragraph two (“Musical sound waves are structured into time and space. This structuring makes musical sound unique and identifiable”).

“Music," paragraph four (“Evidence suggests that music may have begun to emerge even in the prehistoric era”).

"Does Music Affect Your Mood?” paragraph 10 (“The authors of that study suggested that sad music provides a substitute for the lost relationship. They compared it to the preference most people have for an empathic friend—someone who truly understands what you’re going through”).

“Sad Music and Depression: Does it Help?”, paragraph three (“In 2007 two teens in Melbourne committed suicide after months of posts on a social media site that documented their fascination with emo music along with their downward trajectory of negative thinking”).

“Sad Music and Depression: Does it Help?”, paragraph eight (“We found that rather than feeling better after listening to sad music, people with high scores in rumination reported feeling more depressed”).

“The real reasons we are silent about depression”, paragraph one (“Those suffering do so 'in silence,' which they 'break' when they describe what is happening to them. If they speak about it calmly, in a composed way, we’re more likely to applaud them as 'brave.' But if their distress is more palpable, and their account lacks coherence, we often stop listening and instead whisper under our breath that they are 'unwell' or 'in crisis'”).

"The real reasons we are silent about depression”, paragraph eight (“The suicidal ideations and intrusive thoughts that accompany severe depression are not the same as the intent to kill yourself. They are, more often, the latent sense you’d be better off dead and that you are simply lacking the ‘courage’ to end your life. The depressed person will not say this to friends or family, often through a noble sense of not wanting to upset, panic or distress them”).

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About the Creator

Cierra Harkness

Hello, I'm just a 23-year-old artist and animator trying to let out emotions with something outside of art. Idk what all I'll post here lol

pfp by averysadpencil on artfight >w<

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