Blue Monday? Let Music Be Your Medicine!

Seeing as today is Blue Monday - supposedly the most depressing day of the year - I wanted to write a blog about one of the best ways to boost your emotional and physical well-being: Music.

More and more studies are showing that music has benefits way beyond mere enjoyment.  Listening to a song that we love can cheer us up when we're in a grump.  Playing an emotional ballad when you've got a lot of pent-up feelings can be the catalyst to finally letting those feelings out (and it's fair to say that most of us start to feel at least a little better after a good cry).

But it's not just listening to music that can have an effect on our deeper well-being.  Recent reports claim that doctors will soon be "prescribing" the arts to patients suffering from loneliness, mental health issues or even dementia, such is the positive impact that playing an instrument or singing in a group can have on a person's well-being.

It's a subject I passionately believe in.  Music has always been an outlet for my emotions, as well as something comforting that I throw myself into when the world feels bleak.  Breaking out a favourite album on a bad day is like snuggling down under a warm duvet; it just makes you feel better.

But passive listening can only go so far.

In the past, when life has been difficult, I've been known to resort to "YouTube karaoke."  I could never explain it, but somehow, belting out a ballad had the power to unleash all the emotion I'd been bottling up, but in a way that felt positive and powerful.  And once the sad songs were over with, I'd inevitably end up warbling away to some uptempo tunes.  Without fail, I'd end my personal karaoke session feeling much better than I had when I started it.  

Nowadays, I sing with a chorus and I've learnt far more about how music works to boost your health - not just your mental health, but your physical well-being, too.  Did you know, for example, that singing teaches you the correct way to breathe?  Believe it or not, there is a wrong way.  And for someone like me, who suffers with chronic asthma, it's pretty important that I know the difference.

Not only has my lung capacity improved since I joined said chorus, but my posture is definitely better, too.  That's because one of the number one things you learn is that standing in a saggy, slumped position won't help you sound good when you sing.  Once you've realised that you need a good posture for singing purposes, you frequently find yourself remembering your "singing stance" for when you're standing in a long queue, or doing anything that requires you to be on your feet for long periods.

The mental health benefits were less unexpected; of course singing in harmony sounds amazing and therefore makes you feel amazing, because you're a part of it.  Singing is a fantastic stress-reliever, too.  It's hard to fret about family or worry about work when you're busy trying to nail that tricky key change.

And then there's the social aspect.  

Joining any kind of group - be it a choir, a band or a sports team - means that you're getting out of the house (and hopefully out of your own head space) at least once a week and talking to other people.  It gives you the opportunity to broaden your social circle and make new friends.  Inevitability, that group mentality leads to a feeling of support and closeness; you are part of something.  You are one of the family.

Look, I'm not about to say that joining a choir or doing some karaoke is enough to cure depression (or any other illness) all by itself.  Obviously, seeking professional medical attention when you're in any way unwell should be your first port of call.  But if you're just looking for something to boost your well-being, there is a lot to be said for allowing music to be your medicine.

It certainly worked for me.

I Need A Little Time...

I'm not very good at taking time for myself.  It's funny, because I really thought I was.  I'm good at binge-watching TV shows on Netflix, with a scented candle lit and a big bowl of popcorn on my lap.  It's just, I've recently discovered that that's not entirely the same thing.

Because often, whilst I'm watching TV, I'm also checking my phone, to see if anyone has texted.  If someone has, I feel the need to reply right away, because I know how much I hate it when you message someone and they either never respond at all, or they take days to do so.  I feel that need to reply even more if the person texting has some kind of problem they need to talk through, or if they might be feeling lonely, angry or just fed up.  

And, whilst I'm half-watching TV and checking my phone to see if there are texts I need to reply to, I'm also checking Twitter, to ensure that the abuse-awareness account I run isn't being forgotten about.  

Before I know it, my "Me Time" has turned into "Me, You, Them And Whoever Else Time."

Normally, that's actually pretty fine.  I'm a people-person.  I like to have other people around me.  I like being in touch with people.  But my problem is, I have a habit of putting other people first.

Yes, I know.  That sounds like a humblebrag.  "Oooh, I'm just soooo selfless.  I put myself second aaaaall the tiiiiime."

But, I promise you, I'm not trying to sound like that.

I just mean that if someone's need seems to be greater than mine, I will put my own needs second, in order to accommodate theirs.  I tell myself that it's a nice, compassionate and mature way to be.  But, in reality, it's not always helpful.

Because, in deciding that my feelings are less important than everyone else's, I end up doing a disservice to myself.  I end up feeling guilty if I tell someone that they've made me feel hurt or angry (and, sadly, recent experience in that area has made me feel like I should never voice those feelings again).  Indeed, sometimes I end up swallowing those feelings entirely, rather than risk a negative response to them.

I end up pushing myself to be there for everyone else, whilst ignoring my own feelings.  My gut reaction to seeing someone I barely know on Twitter saying that they feel sad or lonely, for example, is to offer them my inbox as a place to rant.  To offer my metaphorical shoulders to cry on.  But too often, what I really need, is someone to talk to, myself.

What happens when you bury your own needs and feelings?  They start coming out, elsewhere.  You get short-tempered with people who have done nothing wrong.  You feel absolutely furious with people who have (anger just starts gnawing at you like a dog with a bone).  You start feeling the physical symptoms of stress.  For me, in the last 4 weeks, that's meant a worsening of my asthma, a return of the griping stomach pains I'm on medication to prevent, lack of decent sleep leading to exhaustion and a desperate wish to escape.  To literally anywhere.

Thankfully - and it seems bizarre to use that word in this context, but go with it - I'm having counselling, as a result of the grief I'm still going through because of losing two of my closest friends in the world.   So, I was able to talk these feelings through with my therapist, this week.  Her advice?

Go off the radar, a little.  Stop trying to be there for absolutely everyone but yourself.  Put Emma first, for a while.

It's alien and weird.  All week long, I haven't sent a single text to anyone, asking "how are you?"  Not because I don't care about any of the people I usually get in touch with to ask that question.  But, because I recognise how thinly I was spreading myself.  How much I was ignoring my feelings in order to try to put everyone else first.  

Because if anyone had texted me that question, had I been brave enough to answer it honestly, I would have had to say: "I'm not okay."

The fact of the matter is, you can't be all things to all people.  And you can't be anything to anyone, if you're not looking after yourself.

It's not selfish to say "I can't do X," or "I don't want to do Y."  It's perfectly reasonable to feel a negative response to something and to express it.  And it's not a character flaw to step back from the world and concentrate on fixing yourself, first and foremost.  Because nobody else can: you have to recognise what your needs are, what your problems are and what you can do to sort them out.  Nobody else can do it for you.  And, in realising that, I finally realised that I can't fix everyone else's problems, either.  Offering a stranger the chance to "DM me, if you ever need to talk" is kind and thoughtful, but there is no pressure on me to cure anyone's woes, because I can't.  

I'll always be someone who likes to please people.  I'll still be someone who offers her shoulder for strangers and friends alike to cry on and who tries to go along with what others want to do, because I don't like letting anyone down, or making people feel like I don't care.  

But I can't do it, right now.  I need to fix my own stress.  I need to concentrate on what I want and what I need.  I need to fall off the radar, just a little, and fill my life with things that make me feel happy.

I need a little time to put me first.  

And that's okay.

Do You HAVE To Forgive In Order To Move On?!

Giles, I love you, but I'm about to pick apart this argument in spectacular fashion.

Sooooo...  I've talked quite a lot on this blog about some pretty personal stuff that's happened to me in my 33 years on this planet.  I've discussed the abusive relationship I was in and the recovery process I underwent whilst piecing my life back together, afterwards.  I've talked about bullying and the frankly horrific experiences of it I had at school.  But in all that conversation, there's something I've never really touched on and the reason for that is because I'm well aware that in doing so, I'm going to be positioning myself directly opposite a lot of other people and potentially opening myself up to a whole heap of "OMG EMMA, YOU ARE SO WRONG," which I simply don't have time for, in amongst the serious business of my day to day life (dossing about on YouTube counts as serious business and don't tell me otherwise).  The trouble is, I'm one of those people who can only keep things inside for so long, before they burst forth anyway.  So, rather than end up having some kind of weird brain explosion, I figured it would probably make more sense to say this as rationally as I can, at a time of my choice.  And that time, ladies and gentlemen, is now.

Brain explosion narrowly avoided, but here are some of the contents, anyway.

Let me preface literally everything I'm about to say here, by highlighting the fact that I am a very forgiving person.  There are people in my life that my closest friends and family members can't forgive because they've hurt me badly in the past, but I'm not someone who believes in holding a grudge, so I tend to think "well, okay, I'll give this person another chance" more often than not.  That's not to say that I'm a total pushover, but I also don't believe in giving up on people too easily.  We're all human and we all make mistakes and besides, I'm not blameless; I'm certain people have had to forgive me for things, too.  In the matter of small arguments, little problems and everyday mistakes, then sure, we should be forgiving and forgetting, because the alternative is to let the really silly little things people do that we perceive as "wrong" build up in our heads until we start getting enraged about it all and that's clearly not good.  So, for the most part, I'm pretty forgiving and I hope the people in my life will forgive me when I do or say something a bit stupid, too.

Can't resist a big but...

BUT there is one thing that drives me battier than a bell tower in a Dracula story and that is the idea that you can't truly move on from a seriously traumatic experience until you've managed to forgive the person who caused it.  

Nope, no, non, nein.  I'd type "no" in the Greek language of my forefathers, but I think you've got the point.  

The suggestion that we have to forgive someone who's caused us enormous pain in order to be able to move forwards with our lives is just ludicrous and wrong.  Like I said, I don't believe in holding onto a grudge and I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go through life hanging on to hate or anything like that, but forgiveness is categorically not something that has to go hand in hand with successfully moving on from a dreadful experience.  

Take me, for example.  The very last time I saw my abusive ex face to face, he looked me straight in the eye and told me: "I know exactly how I've treated you and I'm not sorry, because you were weak enough to let me do it."  

In the four and a half years since I left his house that day, I have done everything I can to move forwards with my life.  I've had support from an abuse charity, I've tried online dating (epic fail), I've gotten myself to an emotional place in my life where I no longer blame myself for what happened to me and I like who I am.  I've written a book that's very loosely based on my experiences and it's getting 4 and 5* reviews on Amazon.  I've succeeded in putting myself back together again and whilst what I went through changed me and will always be a part of me, I consider myself to have moved on.  

Do I forgive my abuser?

People choose their behaviour.  All that "but I had a sad childhood and I don't know any better way to behave" rubbish that people like EL James like to pump into fictional characters, in order to explain away their horrendously douchey behaviour is just a flimsy excuse that has no place being passed around as truth.  Once again, for those at the back: PEOPLE CHOOSE THEIR BEHAVIOUR.

Remember the last thing that my abuser said to my face?  "I know exactly how I've treated you and I'm not sorry."  Well, that became even clearer two months later, when he angrily texted me out of the blue, after thinking that I had attempted to warn off his next victim (I hadn't).  Somehow, probably because I was still very raw, confused and messed up about the whole thing, we ended up in a text conversation, in which I apologised for my behaviour in the relationship.  Like I said, I was messed up and I'd been massively manipulated by him for almost two years, so I wasn't thinking straight.  His response to my apology was to agree that I was to blame for everything, but to tell me that he wasn't going to have any hard feelings about it.  

GEE, THANKS.

And yet there are people out there who truly believe that despite all the work I've done to move forwards with my life and all the positive changes I've made since I walked away from him - dedicating myself to raising awareness of abuse, writing about it, speaking to the press etc and just generally becoming a more confident person - that I can never truly be thought to have moved on, because I don't - can't - forgive him for choosing to abuse me and for acknowledging that choice and yet blaming me for it.

No, no, no, no, no, no, nooooooooooooooo.

I live my life positively.  I love my friends and family wholeheartedly.  I follow my dreams, however unattainable they sometimes seem.  I am not sitting in my room at night, rocking back forth, eaten up with disgust and hatred over this person who caused the worst trauma of my life.  I've moved on.  I'm okay.  I just don't forgive him, that's all.  It's not a big deal; I'm not going to try to track him down and firebomb his house or anything.  Unless a memory is triggered, or I'm actually talking about abuse specifically, I don't even think of him that often, anymore.  That's just part of the whole "I've moved on" thing.  Forgiving him has just never been necessary in the recovery process.  Acknowledging what he did was pivotal. Learning where the red flags were was incredibly important.  But forgiving him?  Not so much.

I mean, think about what we're saying when we tell people to forgive in order to move on.  Are we seriously suggesting that the woman who's been raped should be able to forgive her rapist, or she'll never move forwards with her life?  Or that the parents of a teenager driven to suicide by bullying should forgive the bullies, or forever be seen as living in the past?!

There is nothing wrong with forgiving someone.  If you're able to forgive those who caused you serious emotional distress or physical harm, then more power to you.  But we should never be suggesting that all people who experience the worst kinds of trauma must forgive those responsible.  That's dangerously close to victim-blaming for my liking ("hey, put yourself in their shoes; your feelings aren't valid").  And in cases where someone has shown utterly no remorse for their actions, it seems pretty disgusting to be telling the survivor of a traumatic event: "Remember, you're not moving forwards if you haven't forgiven the person."

Just don't say anything even close to that.  Ever.

As long as a person isn't living with an unhealthy level of anger that eats them up and causes them additional emotional harm, it is perfectly possible for them to move forwards without being forced into forgiving someone who's traumatised them.  It's holding onto the pain and not finding a suitable outlet that keeps someone from getting on with their life.  It's being stuck in the anger/sadness phase that will hold a person back.  But those phases are passable and once you get them out of the way, you're back on track towards becoming you again.  People talk about forgiveness as though it's a magical cure-all that will make you some kind of shining beacon of survival.  It's not.  

The only person you have to forgive, post-abuse, is yourself.  Because you weren't to blame.  Whether or not you choose to - or are able to - forgive your abuser is another thing entirely, but not doing so doesn't mean you get stuck in a trauma cycle forever, or that you somehow didn't survive and are now incapable of ever putting yourself back together again.

Someone once even told me that I had to forgive my abuser, in order to "prove" that I'm "the bigger person."

NEWSFLASH:  I'm a better person, because I'm not the one who chose to abuse someone else.  Additional newsflash: I'm literally five foot nothing.  I will never be the "bigger" person, unless I wear massive heels and everyone else is sitting down.

To summarise, Giles is right to a point: forgiveness is a compassionate act and people do need to be forgiven when they've done something stupid and you don't want to destroy your relationship - in whatever capacity it exists - with them as a result.  So, if you and I have an argument and you say something really hurtful in the heat of the moment, the chances are that I'll forgive and forget in time.  I would want the same understanding shown to me, after all.  But if you choose to abuse another person in any form, they don't owe you forgiveness.  They don't have to forgive you in order to move on.  To suggest that they do is to overlook the massive effort it takes to get over something traumatic and life-changing.  It's akin to saying "you're not really over those third degree burns you suffered that time, because you haven't taken to lying in a vat of hot oil every night."  It's absurd.

Every day, I make an effort to be proud of who I am.  To be kind and considerate of other people.  I don't feel any overwhelming bitterness about what I experienced.  In fact, in a weird way, I try to take positives from it and see that it showed me how strong I'm capable of being and taught me to recognise abusive traits in other people I meet.  I live my life as best as I possibly can.  I've moved on and I've managed to do that, despite living with the knowledge that my ex was well aware of what he did to me and felt no remorse for it, whatsoever.  That took effort.  But I did it.  I did it because it was more important to forgive myself than it could ever be to forgive him.

So, let's stop telling people who've experienced trauma that forgiveness is the only way to move on.  Being happy, learning to have faith in yourself and not holding on to bitterness or rage: THAT'S how we show we've moved forwards. 

No "F-word" required.

And I don't have to forgive you.