On Musical Feels

I'm one of those people who is prone to high emotion when it comes to music.

I get shivers when listening to particularly beautiful harmonies or a finely crafted medley in counterpoint. I act out songs I'm singing or singing along to. I get excited when I hear a song or melody I love.

And of course, I cry when I hear a touching tune or lyrics, or if I feel a song magically (or purposefully) synchronizes with my own life experiences.

Tears can be for many reasons, though. They could be happy, sad, nostalgic, bitter, just plain cathartic, or any combination of those.

One song has stuck out to me in the past little while. I've only heard it a handful of times in the last 6 months, being a little ate to discover it. I had heard a parody of it and liked the tune, so I checked out the original. I didn't know what the song was about, and I wasn't familiar with the band, so I really didn't know what to expect. What I ended up with was a half-listened to indie rock song that had me huddled into a weeping ball of feels in the corner of my bed. I've listened to this song 4 times in the past 6 months, and every single time, was reduced to tears.

All it took was a couple of lyrics to rip my soul out to bleed all over the carefully-crafted, perky, intellectual outer self that I show to the world:

"Look into my eyes
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide
Don’t get too close
It’s dark inside
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide

I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how"

Regardless of what the song was actually about, to me, it bared the little dark part of me that I'm ashamed and afraid of. The fact that I truly and really feel like I'm unworthy of love. And no matter how many wonderful friends tell me that they care, or how often I see family, I feel on the outside.

Even those that I love seem to always have people that they love more. All my friends have other friends that they like better than me and would rather hang out with, all my family members have other family members that they love more than me that they get along better with than me. And I don't have any of that. I don't have a best friend or a boyfriend. I don't have any family members that I truly bond with, that I feel would have my back no matter what. I'm absolutely certain that in every single relationship I have, I've either somehow done something horribly wrong to make me less worthy of their affection, OR there is something wrong with me that they just don't deem me worthy. Whether this is actually true is irrelevant, but I certainly feel that way.

And here's the strangest thing of all: *I* like me. *I* think that I'm a smart, reasonably attractive young woman with tons of excellent qualities. For some reason, I just don't think anyone else sees that. Maybe that's ultimately my fault, maybe it's not, but either way, it's become habit to assume that I belong on the perimeter, only getting the occasional scraps tossed to me out of sympathy or pity.

So what do I do? I shut myself away at home with the only person I know for sure enjoys my company: myself. I don't let people come close to me. I don't go out. I back away, convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with me which is why I never seem to be good enough for other people. I put on a smile to cover the hurt. I do my darndest to logic away my sad feelings. And most destructively of all, I self-soothe with food and fantasy.

And that's the worst thing of all. I've built an extra layer of "stay away, and for God's sake don't hurt me" in the form of an eating disorder and escapism.

I never have to force myself to go out to social events, because thanks to near-daily binge eating, I usually feel too sick to go out anywhere. AND it's highly unlikely that anyone will ever come over to my apartment, because I'm so busy eating and escaping into books, movies and video games that I do not have time for housekeeping. Messy house = no people.

And you know what? Nobody had bothered to try to break through these barriers. Don't get too close; it's dark inside. And on those rare occasions when I've tried to invite someone special in, I've been ignored, or worse, hurt so badly that that I shut up again, more tightly than before.

I've tried in the past to get help to pull myself out of this dysfunctional thinking, but the sad fact is that I have no incentive to do so. I'm not so sick that I can't be a contributing member of society, I don't wish to harm myself, and aside from minor weight gain and digestive upset, I'm not actually hurting myself. And the only one my bad eating/housekeeping habits affects is me. And I know from past experience that leaving my shell leads to hurt...

Oh, I'll go out to perform in burlesque shows, and compete at the Masquerades...because those are places I feel I actually have something worthwhile to offer people: in the form of entertainment. People appreciate entertainment, and so it's something I can give to others to maybe (?) feel like I'm worth something?

So where does all this leave me? Sitting alone in my apartment, unable to listen to a stupid indie rock song without bursting into tears, and trying to connect to people the only way I seem to know how: through a computer screen. A medium that lets me stay comfortably far away from anyone that might actually get close enough to see my demons.