Playlist

I was a music major in college, a double major in music and psychology and then acquired an advanced degree in a specific area of psych in graduate school. Inside me - somewhere deep where the Real Me resides - I am an artist wrapped in scientist's clothing. Music has always been a source of inspiration and healing for me. During my darkest moments this playlist would sometimes help me dissociate, other times it kept me grounded. For much of my life, I didn't know the difference between the two.

Over the past year I have disappeared into this playlist for hours on end - at night to keep the demons at bay or to draw them close; in the car to force my brain into functional form or to numb/zone out so that I could survive another day; in dark moments to dangle my fragile self in blissful suicidal ideation or else to zing me back to life.

This playlist is both my oubliette and the source of stabbing remembrance. I play it when I need to feel, and when I need to not feel. Sometimes the music is my only way to feel, the scalpel reopening my gaping pain. Above all, it helps me to know this is real; this is really happening. The story, the memories, the truth, my truth. And in this knowing and remembering, I have survived.

My soul would forever weep without music to express the pain which has imprinted itself far beyond where language can reach.

You can listen to my Dissociation Playlist in its entirety on YouTube, or each song is listed and linked individually below.

Alice In Chains - Am I Inside
Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely
Alice in Chains - Brother
Alice in Chains - Right Turn
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Zero 7 - In the Waiting Line
Radiohead - Codex
Radiohead - Give Up the Ghost
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Plumb - Cut
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
Flaming Lips - One More Robot
Kenna - Hellbent
Unkle - In a State
Pink Floyd - Breathe/Run
Gary Jules - Mad World
Coldplay - The Scientist
Radiohead - Morning Bell
Mad Season - River of Deceit
Nirvana - Lithium
Pixies - Where Is My Mind
Radiohead - Climbing Up the Walls
The National - Afraid of Everyone
Alice in Chains - Don't Follow
Nirvana - Something In the Way
Junip - Don't Let It Pass
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Alice in Chains - I Stay Away
Evanescence - Bring Me To Life
Radiohead - Last Flowers
FC Kahuna - Hayling
Air - Playground Love
Placebo - Running Up That Hill
Massive Attack - Angel
Alice in Chains - Rotten Apples
Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Radiohead - Let Down
K's Choice - Butterflies Instead
Pink Floyd - Learning the Fly
Lower Dens - Truss Me
Flume - Insane
Sarah McLachlan - Do What You Have To Do
Plumb - Need You Now
MercyMe - The Hurt & The Healer

I added some of the later songs as my healing progressed. There is a noticable difference in the nature and tone, a milemarker of sorts along my pathway to recovery.