Norah Hastings

Dr. Cassel

English Comp II

February 25, 2018

My song of healing

Music can help people in many ways. It can bring out emotions, memories that we like to keep hidden

away from everyone. I had a bad experience my senior year in high school, memories that I wish to

forget and things I wish I could change.

Everyone’s senior year in high school is supposed to be amazing and happy, mine was the exact

opposite. The beginning of the school year I had been having trouble at home. I wanted to go to a

certain college, I wanted to get a dorm and my stepdad, well he didn’t like that idea. Home was already

stressful with how often I butted heads with family member’s so school was supposed to be my small

escape for a couple of hours. School ended up only making it worse. Towards the middle of the year

depression had hit me bad, making me miss a lot of school and not wanting to get up and do anything. It

also affected my theater rehearsal’s, but I had made sure to keep up with my lines. That it what began

my senior year downfall.

It wasn’t until the end of the fall play that everything I had kept bottled up for months exploded. It was

like a tsunami of tears that rolled out leaving me grasping for anything that would make me feel better.

We had a talk with everyone in my theater group about not trying hard enough. Me, being how I usually

am taking every negative thing and pushed it on myself. It bubbled inside and I kept digging my nails into

my skin to keep myself from getting angry. I had so much going on and my fun, safe space was turning

into the place I despised the most. After the little talk it was like a needle popped the balloon that held

all my emotions in. I went back to the bathroom in the dressing room as quickly as I could, I just wanted

to be alone. I still remember how the second I shut the door my chest tightened as tears continued to
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fall. My face started to get tingly along with both of my hands as I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

My face was flushed, and eyes were red and puffy from crying, the burning in my chest was only getting

worse the longer I looked at myself. I was having a break down, in one of the worst places possible. My

breathing had quickened, and a fire burned inside my chest as I started to panic. My chest was tight

making me feel enclosed and making it hard to get oxygen. The room was slowly fading away as

blackness started covering my vision. My friend at the time, Monica, tried to help me, and I am still

happy she tried along with Garrett who was my boyfriend at the time. There I was laying on the ground

in the girl’s dressing room crying and panicking. I hated being so weak, I hated that everyone heard and

saw. Once I finally calmed down about 30 minutes later I went home. All feelings of anger, sadness was

past me, feelings of regret soon replaced them. Now the only feeling left was numbness.

Once again theater started back up, so we could do the spring musical. It wasn’t until a couple weeks

into it I had noticed a difference in how people were treating me. How everyone I had once called my

friend, Monica and Garrett included, had been treating me like I didn’t exist. To them I was someone

who was a baby, someone that was over emotional. I watched as they turned most of the theater

against me along with the director. Theater had been hell and it seemed like I was in the center of it. I

got a small role that musical and I wasn’t happy about it. I said some things I shouldn’t have and I

understand that, and I would apologize a million times for it. What I didn’t understand was why people I

had thought highly of, people I would do anything for had suddenly turned on me. I felt isolated in a

group that I had once called my small family. To this day I still don’t know the story I just remember the

feeling of my heart being twisted and the sick feeling in my stomach as I watched them all laugh

together then sneer at me. I was Vice president and I got kicked to the side. With everything that had

been going on in my life, I broke down again. I was trying so hard to be perfect, trying to have people to

like me again, it took everything from me. It ended getting me labeled as the girl the cries over

everything. It ruined me for showing everyone what I was hiding.

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I did have friends who stuck by me though. Mya being one of them. Mya has been my best friend for 3

years now and without her I have no clue if I would’ve made it through high school. She was the one

who would crack jokes with me before a show to make me laugh. Mya would listen to me rant about

everything that happened in my life. Home had only gotten worse with me deciding to move out and

live with my grandmother. I couldn’t walk out of my room without getting into an argument about my

life, about what I had set my mind on doing. I didn’t want to live there anymore it wasn’t helping me in

anyway, I just wanted to move out and go into adulthood with a fresh start. Mya was always there with

a hug and helpful advice. She was with me every step of the way until I graduated. It is even thanks to

Mya I had found the song that helped me.

A little into college Mya and I had found a musical called “Dear Evan Hansen”. The musical itself has a

good message and the music is amazing and captures emotion of the listener. A song came on my

Pandora one day, by the end of the song I was in tears as memories of the past year had flooded my

mind leaving me no room to hold back emotions. “Words Fail” is a song about a boy who did something

he regrets, how he wanted to pretend he was something other than what he really was. A couple of the

lyrics in this song is what makes me tear up the most. “I never let them see the worst of me/ What if

everyone saw/What if everyone knew/ Would they like what they saw/ Or would they hate it too?”

These lyrics hold so much meaning for me. I let everyone see the worst of me and they all turned their

backs on me. They all hated me. I kind of answer the question every time I listen, and it hurts. The song

brings back the heart twisting feeling and the loneliness that I felt throughout my senior year. Weirdly

enough, “Words Fail” has helped me cope with memories of senior year, helped me forgive some people

and move on with my life. “Step into the sun.” Is the lyric that ends the whole song and when I think of

the sun I think of what lies ahead for me. I need to forget about the darkness, forget the toxic people

that were in my life. I needed to step into the sun and focus on the road ahead of me.
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I am forever going to be plagued by that terrible year. I still wish I could’ve held on a little longer, hidden

some emotions and tried to be happy. Mya is still sticking by me and I still am grateful to have someone

like her who continues to be here for me. I just hope I can help her finish her last 2 years through high

school like she helped me. “Words Fail” has helped me move on from grudges I kept inside, and it will

always be a bitter sweet song to listen to. A question that I continue to ask myself is, why does music

evoke strong emotions?

Malini Mohana wrote in psychcentral that music can be like an illusion with all the different components

that go into one song. Beats from the beginning of songs can activates the cerebellum which then goes

to the amygdala. It synchronizes the music with pulses in the cerebellum which is what explains the

unconscious urge to dance. Music can bring up certain feelings or images that are not necessarily

memories. These emotions and images can be related to synesthesia. Synesthesia is a sense impression

that is caused by one sense or body part that stimulates another sense or body part. Professor Daniel

Levitin explains how our brains emotional sensors are connected to our language and memory centers,

all are included in processing music. A synesthetic experience can happen because of how they are all

connected.

That helps explain the intense feeling of loneliness and regret by listening to the song. Those feelings

then brought up the memory of sitting alone in a corner of the stage watching everyone from afar. It

was the way the music built up and how each word was a pulse that urged my emotions on. I had my

own synesthetic experience.

Finnish researchers did a research on musical stimuli and how it associates with cognitive activations in

the cerebellum. What they were able to find is music affects the auditory senses, but it also affects large

scale neural networks. When we listen to music it triggers somethings in our cerebellum and cerebrum

that supports the idea of music being related to music. As tonality and rhythm are seen to be associated
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with emotions. The timbre process is correlated with mind wandering and creativity. Processing the

timbre is an audio process, a sound that is continuously heard from a musical instrument.

Robert Snyder, a composer and chair of sound program for the Chicago Art Institute, explains how music

comes from implicit memories which lie outside of our consciousness. Different parts of the brain are

used to recall implicit and explicit memories. Explicit memories are the ones affected by Alzheimer’s as

implicit are harder to damage. Implicit memories are more durable and related more to emotions. Since

music and certain memories are both implicit it explains why certain music has a way of bringing forth

memories and emotions.

With this research I was able to conclude that the reason I get so emotional over a few lyrics is because

of the way it is written affects my auditory systems. That then turns on sensors in my cerebellum where

unconscious thoughts happen and brings forth implicit memories that store strong emotion. Thus,

making me emotional as I listen. Music is truly a magical thing, it helps people with many mental

illnesses. I know it’s done magic for me and my depression and I hope music continues to help others

with their troubles.

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Work Cited

Bergland, Christopher. “Why Do the Songs from Your Past Evoke Such Vivid Memories?”

Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-

athletes-way/201312/why-do-the-songs-your-past-evoke-such-vivid-memories.

psychcentral.com/lib/music-how-it-impacts-your-brain-emotions/.

www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140417-why-does-music-evok.