People deal with mental illness in many different ways, and I- who has struggled with mental health my entire life - find music to be one of the best medications out there. When I am having a bad day - be it an anxiety attack, depressive episode, or just a mundane bad day - I put in my headphones and put on a song called ‘Better Off Dead’ by Sleeping with Sirens.
It sounds like a weird choice, especially if you know the song, but it was the only song that made me feel heard, that made me feel I wasn’t alone in what I was feeling. I connected with the girl they were singing about because in that moment, that girl was me - a girl who was struggling with the demons in her head and tried so hard to just be enough for those around her.
I needed someone, anyone, to make me believe that I wasn’t crazy for feeling what I was feeling. ‘Better Off Dead’ did just that, and it saved me from a lot of dark nights. Music can’t solve everything, I know that, but at least for me, for those 3 minutes and 4 seconds, I wasn’t alone.