I just don't know, is the music I'm listening to when I'm down triggering me, or helping me?

I get weepy, openly crying to Christine Perri's Thousand Years (sadness for my love for my wife), Annie Lennox's Why (anger, hurt at my wife's non-acceptance), Christine Agulara's Reflection (heart hurting for my life).. music like this, goes to my heart, but I end up crying terribly.. I just don't know if it makes my dysphoria worse.. like a terrain wreck, I just cant turn away.. cant stop listening to it. in a way, it feels good to cry it out, but..

Do you do this?  Do you feel it too?  Does it trigger you, or help?

Paula

More than any other medium, music exposes what is deepest inside me. Often it relates to the sadness and losses and loneliness I have experienced. It's a familiar place that for some reason I want to visit from time to time. And yes, I too find myself crying.

As a child, I remember watching the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" and feeling so moved by that experience. Years later, I heard the musical score and began weeping uncontrollably. I really cant' tell you why. I have since downloaded that music to my computer, and I play it from time to time. And each time I do, I cry.

Music is my number one passion in life.  It's like the voice of my soul.  In many ways, it can lift me up and tear me down.  Either way, I like crying and getting my emotions out, but it can definetly be triggering as well. 

TKAM?  I have watched the movie, often, but never thought about the music to it, I will have to search and listen..

Soundtracks usually do it more than singles for me..  Forrest Gump.. tho Mulan, really is at the top of my list..

Christine Perri's Thousand Years has been on repeat for almost an hour and just .. cant keep from sobbing to it.. .. my youngest is upstairs still sleeping but likely she will hear me and come down.. my heart is breaking for my family, which I will likely lose soon, but this reminds me of my love for them.

I've always considered music to be my 2nd source of oxygen. I can't live without it at all, so much so that I've devoted the last 10 years of my life to music performance, production and engineering in various ways. I've always felt that music has the ability to unlock a sense of color in sound, and to anyone well versed in the art of what's called 'sightsinging', its like watching a masterpiece being painted with soundwaves. I sing very often at karaoke and when I sing it's like I've become a painter and the microphone is my paintbrush. I sing all types of songs, happy, poppy, upbeat, sad, depressing, angry... and every time I express the emotion the song conveys.

I use to listen to the song Chop Suey by System of a Down, and even though its a song about abusive relationships, I somehow interpreted it into my transition situation (before coming out or even accepting myself) and I would sing it in karaoke and cry every time, but get off the stage feeling better.

The thing about music is that it has the power to boost emotions, its like the Progesterone to your Estrogen (unscientifically proven to boost the effect, get it?? ) When you're feeling sad, listening to a sad song will increase the power of that sadness and allows you to more easily express that emotion and kind of "let it out." I read an article not too long ago that showed that people who express their emotions by singing along to a song or listening or playing a song that relates to how they feel, usually feel better afterwards. It's even been proven that singing to yourself or singing a song relieves depression. In that same instance, music holds a lot of memory in it, you will sooner remember a song that reminds you of that time you went to a summer beach house with your highschool friends before you can even begin to recall what they were wearing. Because music has such a powerful effect on our memories and emotions, its not unusual to be triggered by music, because when you think about it, every song triggers you (if you take the moment to not consider the word "trigger" so negative) because songs that remind you of happy things, trigger happiness.

So i guess i would say that the feeling you get from music is actually quite normal because its something that can trigger all sorts of emotions in all sorts of people.. even people who aren't even all that musically interested can listen to a song and be reminded of a simpler or darker place in time.

I remember when my first love broke up with me, I kept listening to Knocking On Heaven's Door (Guns'n'Roses version) over and over and over and over just crying my eyes out because it seemed relevant to how I felt like i was dying or like i might just do something stupid (I was just a kid at the time and i was dumb )

Conclusively; i wouldn't say that music is really a trigger as much as it is just the soundtrack for our memories, and like anyone else in life, we have painful memories and warm ones.
So consider that while we have many ways of remembering our memories, music will trigger how you felt in that memory and double the effect of that emotion.

Quote from: LittleEmily24 on May 20, 2014, 11:17:26 AMConclusively; i wouldn't say that music is really a trigger as much as it is just the soundtrack for our memories, and like anyone else in life, we have painful memories and warm ones.

I had to stop the song just to be able to see the kb long enough to type this out...

Soundtracks of our lives.. probably as good a description as any I've heard..  maybe a bit more therapy than a trigger then, tho they seem to go hand in hand.. Thanks Em.. that was good.   <3

Paula

Hiya Paula,

I don't know a lot about life and about how the world works, but I do know that what is often described as the "law of attraction" is as real, unforgiving and non-negotiable as the law of gravity or the principles of electricity.  If I fall off my chair, I know that I'm headed straight for the floor.  Gravity is simple and straight forward that way.

Attraction is equally simple and straight forward.  In my own life I've discovered that whenever I choose to focus on anything that depresses me and makes me feel blue, I become a magnet for more reasons and excuses to inspire and encourage depression and blues.  Seriously though, it isn't necessarily that my focus on depressing thoughts makes everything around me depressing in its very nature, but rather, if there is any reason to be depressed in my environment, I am sure to notice it and latch onto it if I'm already in a depressed state of mind; it can easily become a habit to see the worst in people, life, and everything around us.

If on the other hand I choose to focus on things that feel like appreciation, laughter, gratitude, and forgiveness, same as with depression, I suddenly find myself noticing more and more reasons and excuses to feel appreciation, laughter, gratitude, etc. 

Just like when I fall out of my chair, I will certainly hit the floor UNLESS an opposing force acts against the pull of gravity, the same is true of sadness and depression.  Depressing thoughts will beget more depressing thoughts making them bigger and deeper unless and until an opposing force actively shifts the focus into a better feeling direction. 

Honestly, for me, I gave up on any notion of a "therapeutic" component to sadness and depression a long time ago.  I am way too susceptible to self-destructive thoughts and feelings to allow myself to go there.  I make a point every day of writing down lists of things I feel grateful for; I write lists of positive aspects about my life and about people, things and situations in my life; and I make lists every day of things I feel appreciation for.  And because my spouse turns up in those lists a lot, I leave them on the dining table for her to read every morning.  I've been doing this pretty much every day for nearly 7 years now. 

Not to say that I don't enjoy an occasional beloved sad song that makes me melancholy for a moment from time to time.  I love music dearly, and I have had WAY more than my fair share of sadness in this lifetime.  But when that sadness visits me (or anger, or hatred, or shame, etc.), I acknowledge it, honor that aspect of who I am and who I was, and then I go write a list of things that I feel grateful for (or I actively, consciously think about things that I feel appreciation for one after another.)  And before I know it, I've turned my sad mood around and created a lighter, happier mood. 

This just works for me.  I feel better when my thoughts are mostly positive.  Others enjoy being around me more (including my spouse) when my thoughts are mostly positive.  And don't even get me started on the health benefits of positive emotions versus the health risks of negative emotions.

As far as I can tell, when I feel better, my life goes better.  I don't have much control over a whole lot that goes on in my life, but I do have absolute control over the thoughts that I think.  It has taken some effort, but it has been a huge benefit in my life to train myself to focus on better feeling thoughts as much as I possibly can.

Sorry this is so long; I guess I'm just passionate about this subject.  I hope I helped rather irritated you.

Much Hugs!
Miharu

Quote from: Paula Christine on May 20, 2014, 10:36:52 AM
I just don't know, is the music I'm listening to when I'm down triggering me, or helping me?

I get weepy, openly crying to Christine Perri's Thousand Years (sadness for my love for my wife), Annie Lennox's Why (anger, hurt at my wife's non-acceptance), Christine Agulara's Reflection (heart hurting for my life).. music like this, goes to my heart, but I end up crying terribly.. I just don't know if it makes my dysphoria worse.. like a terrain wreck, I just cant turn away.. cant stop listening to it. in a way, it feels good to cry it out, but..

Do you do this?  Do you feel it too?  Does it trigger you, or help?

Paula

No, you are definitely not alone, and I think it both hurts and helps.  Sometimes when I want to let it all out, I will listen to something that I know is a trigger so I cry hard and am left kind of empty.  Empty is better than pain or being on the verge of tears for me.

This is highly embarrassing, but I was on hold last week with a supplier and Lady in Red came on the "hold music," I was in tears when the supplier picked back up.  It just reminded me that I am the opposite of what I wished I was and i just lost it.

I love Annie!  No More I Love Yous always gets the waterworks going for me.  If you are looking for a pick me up song when you are done letting it out, Brave by Sara Bareilles is the song I have been listening to lately to help me take steps forward with all of this trans business.  I also love Big Time Sensuality by Bjork, but most people hate her.  There is no way I will get through any of this without music, it helps me cry when I need to cry, but more importantly it gives me strength sometimes when I feel I have none left.

songs that make me cry are terribly difficult to find, so they are really inconvenient to use for triggering sadness when i feel like crying. but it does happen some times that i hear a song that makes me shed a tear, and whenever that happens, it happens because i was feeling very sad at that moment but had no way to "let it out".

but when i feel like killing someone, music can be really helpful. the right kind of music will calm me down. when i was younger, i liked nightwish. then i moved on to maximum the hormone for a fury that pretty much nothing could quench. some times i'd even turn to eroguro (not music. those who don't already know what it is should abstain from googling it) just to get rid of the feeling so i could manage to fall asleep.

lately i've found that onoken's music can calm me down really effectively when i need to clear my head a little, and hirasawa susumu's music is good for contemplating anger.


anyway... i have experienced the therapy that music can provide. just thinking through things until they don't take up all of your thought, is quite good self therapy. music can help with this, and may also reveal other emotions than the most apparent ones. i'm not too sure about the triggering part. music does trigger emotions, but i'm not sure if it can trigger them in a damaging way, unless you heard or listen to a certain song or genre in a traumatic situation or time of life.

i suddenly came to think of this really old tradition of singing your emotions. no need for words, the melody will find you when you sing with your heart. to wallow in pain for a short moment is a good thing if you also know how to pull yourself out of it afterwards to go on with life. much better than to keep feeling down for days and weeks because you won't allow yourself to feel your emotions properly.

Can't make your feelings go away by ignoring them.

Quote from: Paula Christine on May 20, 2014, 10:36:52 AM
Do you do this?  Do you feel it too?  Does it trigger you, or help?

Yes, I do this too (minus the crying). It does both. When I want to listen to music like that, I've already been triggered and it helps bring those feelings out in a cathartic, much more healthy than attacking someone, way. Often, the music helps me move on to another perspective. It also helps me feel less alone.
I like the music as a second oxygen description.

When I feel down, I hop on my piano or keyboard and let it out there, playing whatever I feel that lets out my emotion.

Listening to stuff triggers me more - as I tend to pick stuff with lyrics that make me dream of a skittles and marshmallow world...

I listen to music that makes me cry or makes me crazy sometimes because it's an acceptable outlet. Like I'll feel intense stuff that's confusing and can't be expressed publicly, and later when I'm alone with headphones I can trigger myself carefully and fall apart without any collateral damage. I feel like it helps. I can see how it could get out of hand if done compulsively or in the wrong setting.