Sucker4LoveBSides: How Music and Mix-Tapes Saved my Life

I have a soundtrack for Every Moment

Photo by Stas Knop from Pexels

I have a secret to tell you. I have not always been good at managing my emotions. When I was younger I would lash out with violence when the feeling of anxiety or fear became too powerful to handle. As I got older, I realized that you could not resort to violence for everything, so I worked on developing a venom tongue that could keep me safe when I felt my most vulnerable. It took me a long time to realize that this behavior was just as toxic as using violence. Because words, although they don’t cause physical damage, can be just as harmful.

When the feelings took over, the most frequent victim of those bad habits was me. I tried cutting, hitting myself, and even refused to eat once. When I wasn’t inflicting physical damage I would pummel myself with insults. and negative thoughts. The worse I treated myself, the worst overall I felt. It was a cycle of harm being used and amplified by me and me alone.

I was constantly falling into depressive states that lead to me getting into fights in school, or kicked out of class for mouthing off to teachers and other students.

After years of not knowing how to deal with all of my pent-up feelings and emotions, I discovered the beautiful sound of music. I don’t mean to imply that I had never heard a single musical note. Music has always been a huge part of my life. I had my entire day planned around the schedule of Hot97. I would start my day with their morning show hosted by Ed Lover, Lisa, and Ray, from there I would go to school, but be home in time for Wendy Williams from 3 pm-5 pm, then do the 5 O-Clock Free Ride with DJ red alert, and then be locked in for Angie Martinez’s 6-8 Block. However, as plugged in as I have always been to music, particularly rap, this is the time I truly began to pay attention to lyrics.

Once that happened, I began to discover artists who could perfectly articulate all of the emotional turmoil that I constantly felt in a three- five-minute track. Songs that vocalized my rage, and ballads so beautiful, they brought me to tears allowing me to purge the hurt in a way that was fulfilling. I’m not lying when I tell you that music saved my life. During the height of my teenage years, when my home life lacked stability and I was an emotional mess, music was the only thing that kept me sane.

I remember having a particularly horrible day, nothing had gone wrong, I just hated myself and everything about my life. It was one of those days I used to have a lot as a kid, everything felt dark and I was struggling to find a reason to live anymore. If I died, no one would care, I was beyond being hurt by that, I had accepted it. I don’t remember what was going on in school that day, but our guidance counselor, Mr. Sinkfeld, gave me a ride somewhere. As far as I knew, he didn’t know how much I was struggling, and we had never discussed it. We got In his car, and when he turned on the engine, Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 2” started playing, it was the first song on the album, “A Dream.” In the song, that featured R&B singer Faith Evans, Jay rapped about talking to the Notorious B.I.G. In a dream, and in the conversation, Biggie told Jay, “Hov remind Yourself, nobody built like you, you designed ya self.”

The song hit me like a ton of bricks, it felt like Hov made the song for me. I asked Mr. Sinkfield to borrow the CD, then I burned a copy for myself as soon as we got back to campus.

With the help of an ungodly amount of blank CDs, a slow but steady internet connection, and a home-built personal computer ravaged by Limewire viruses I started putting together mixtapes to appease any mood I was in. I would compile all of my favorite songs into a single playlist then burn it onto a cd. When things were at their worse I could always drown my sorrows in a song, no matter what I was going through there was a track that could help me through it.

The mixtapes didn’t stop the pain or the depression, but they did give me a healthy outlet to manage it. What’s beautiful about it is that something I would use to manage my depression has become an activity that allows me to bring myself and others joy. Mixtapes saved my life, and I’m sure they have saved plenty of others.