Emotional dysregulation and listening to the War on Drugs

To what extent does music have the power to make us feel better?

Throughout my life I have enjoyed listening to melancholy music and sinking into the deep sadness that seems to reside in my gut.

I think this started in my late teens. I recall answering my bedroom door to my housemate in halls with a tearful expression and some kind of powerfully sad music blasting.

“I'm just thinking about my step-dad,” I explained. He was ill in hospital, and it wasn't clear he was ever coming out. She smiled sympathetically.

“That music won't help,” she said gently, and I felt affronted. Because it was helping. Wasn't it?

Since I quit drinking and worked on finding healthier coping mechanisms I have started to question my use of music to manipulate my emotions.

I pause before listening to the very sad music that I love, consider whether it will be helpful.

And I wonder what part has my penchant for music to kill yourself to played on my struggles with emotional regulation…

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I still love the Smiths and Morrissey and Radiohead, but I can't relate to the sad songs in the same way I used to. I'm not sure I could tolerate the deep dive into the sadness hits that I used to make regularly anymore.

It used to piss me off when friends suggested that the music I was listening to was making my sadness (depression?) worse. But could they have been right?

Listening to the War on Drugs last night, I was as taken as ever with the beautiful, swampy music, but a part of me chirped up unkindly to some of the lyrics.

Untreated addiction and mental health, that part of me thought as the lead singer crowed about suffering.

I remember going to see the band live. There was a story about how Adam Granduciel had emerged from a period of depression and anxiety with this career-making album.

I sympathised with him and possibly felt helpful. Would I, some day, emerge from this sad, anxious, heavy-drinking phase with a book that the world would adore?

It's a fairly damaging narrative. We are back in the territory of the suffering artist. And it's messed up.

I don't know if Granduciel got help in the midst of his depression, but if he did there’s little mention of it. From the Guardian article you would assume that this gorgeous album saved him.

In my experience, learning how to feel better and take care of yourself and make healthy choices is gruelling but worthwhile work.

Making art has a place in that process, but it should be on the periphery. Pressure to produce, to make suffering count, is damaging for the spirit.

Narratives like the one around Granduciel's victory with Lost in the Dream keep people stuck in the mire. Self-medicating with alcohol and working into the night, hoping that if they can just keep going they will emerge with a killer album and all the suffering will have been worth it.

We need new stories of creativity. To hear how spirituality and healing and communing with the gods can nourish and feed talent. How friendship and family and walking in the forest can inspire masterpieces.

I suffered for years partly because I had bought into the idea that it was somehow heroic and meaningful. Or maybe I chose to see it as heroic and meaningful because that helped me get through.

I told myself I didn't want the conventional (used as a pejorative) trappings of modern life because I knew at a deep level that I couldn't manage and maintain them.

It wasn't until my 30s that I began to see beneath my own lies on this. As I dealt with my drinking problem and mental health issues I found that I did want those things. I had just been afraid I couldn't have them.

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I no longer go on Spotify sprees in which I spiral into the saddest songs I know and sink into a blissful aching melancholia. It's not as satisfying without wine (and untreated depression.)

And I've noticed that upbeat music can really help lift me out of a flat mood. Familiar music can make me feel secure when I feel paranoid or scared or anxious. I have begun to use it more wisely to regulate my mood.

So can music be a part of emotional dysregulation? Or is it just a symptom? How do you use it? And has this changed over the years?

I'm glad for the Lost in the Dream album but it's hard to listen to the level of pain there these days without wondering if the artist has tried seeking help for their issues. Honestly, I found myself rolling my eyes at certain points.

Like my friend in halls who said firmly, the music isn't helping.

I hope that Granduciel gets more pleasure out of playing it than he got from making it.

And if you are locked in the suffering, then reach out to a trusted friend or family member. Try AA or Smart if you are in active addiction. Help is available.

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Chelsey Flood is the author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE University. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love at Beautiful Hangover, and autism and self-compassion at Polite Robot. She is also working on a new YA novel.