how does music come to you when you need it the most?

Lately I acquired a new song to become obsessed with — yes, the one attached to this post — and thought about finally writing a blog post about the relief I feel when a song that describes my thought process in...a little bit too specific way? suddenly emerges into existence.

The first time I felt this kind of relief was back at school, when Hot Milk released June Gloom — and I'm only thinking about the contrast of two words that the title consists of...right now.

I've been listening to that band for a while now, ever since they were just a baby band that no one from my circle heard of.

Yes, this added to the immense gratitude I felt towards these people when I first heard the song. I was going through the worst episode of my life — literally ostracized by my own classmates for...just being me? For calling someone's ableist behavior out?

Anyway, this song helped me. A lot. I got some hope for the better future, I got the positivity I needed the most at that time.

The rest of the music I cried to during high school years was pretty dark. Just like the poetry I wrote.

Just like...the song I'm going to talk about in this post.

My self-esteem right now is not as bad as it was during my teenage years, so there's just a tiny part of the disaster in my brain that this song describes. I feel relieved, because I found the words to talk about this.

Even if they're not mine.

Said tiny little bit of pain I still have is rejection sensitivity due to being neurodivergent. This is the exact same type of pain I feel when it decides to ruin my day out of the blue.

Even perceived rejection hurts. Yep, sometimes I do feel like it would have been better if I wasn't the person I am. If I was someone whose brain isn't wired differently, if I didn't have all these problems...

If I wasn't so easy to just discard and forget.

This is the way my brain fucks me up when it perceives some of my friends not sitting with me as their first choice, or not talking to me when another one of their friends appears. Or when a certain objectively minor fuckup feels like something very embarrassing to me.

It's that bad.

It's genuinely thinking that everyone is just pretending to like you or be their friend, and that they have some sort of a separate groupchat where they share some jokes or tell each other about anything funny or infuriating happening in their lives. Thinking that they're on the verge of sending you that "I'm sorry, but you're annoying as fuck and I hate how you talk and do things" message.

So, yes. I feel relieved to have this song in my playlist because I can cry to it as well. Because I have one more song that lets me just put my emotions out through crying. That lets me feel my feelings in much healthier way than I would have if music wasn't there for me.

And, of course, what's a healing process without something that also heals your inner child?

I have become obsessed with googly eyes after hearing one of the demos she released as a part of that big collection of them on streaming.

This particular song? Well, it's a lot to me, just like every other song of hers.

Plus, I can't just not talk about her, because, as I said earlier, her music helps me to heal my inner child and reconnect with it. It's as if I'm providing it a space to cry, to feel that childlike wonder, when it didn't have one before.

All three of these songs, and many more in my playlist, keep me in a stable condition and don't let me completely crash the fuck out.

And when a song comes into my playlist exactly when I need it, I feel like I have just discovered a pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow.