A Playlist for People Who Are Told They Internalize Too Much

BY LYDIA A. CYRUS

Since you probably thought you were the only one. I made a list for you:

1. Come In Please – Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

2. Fan The Flames – Sheer Mag

3. Farmer From The West – Joshua James

4. Heartbreak Town – Dixie Chicks

5. Things Happen – Dawes

6. Hands of Time – Margo Price

7. Can’t Stand It – Wilco

8. Beware of Darkness – George Harrison

9. A Promise To Keep – Brandi Carlile

10. The Ruling Class – Loose Fur

11. Will The Wolf Survive? – Los Lobos

12. You Worry Me – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats

13. Foxhole – Television

14. I Can’t Help You Anymore – Aimee Mann

15. Violet – Hole

16. As Ugly As I Seem – The White Stripes

17. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing – Garbage

18. Hope of a Lifetime – The Milk Carton Kids

19. The Promise – Sturgill Simpson

20. Wolf Like Me – TV On The Radio

21. Dark Necessities – The Red Hot Chili Peppers

22. Party Police – Alvvays

23. Sound of Lies – The Jayhawks

24. Fake Roses – The Lone Bellow

25. If Still It Can’t Be Found – Joe Pug

26. You Got It Blue – Lucinda Black Bear

27. Taught To Lie – Samantha Crain

28. Worry All Your Life – Sera Cahoone

29. After All – Dar Williams

30. Mary – Patty Griffin

RELATED: My Aimee Mann Liner Notes

It’s hard for me to pick only one song by certain artists, from certain albums. I would say that George Harrison’s All Things Pass and Hole’s Live Through This are my favorite albums and have served as important support beams in the reconstruction of everything. I would suggest starting there. Listening to the Jayhawk’s album Tomorrow The Green Grass is also a fine place to begin again. Aimee Mann, Brandi Carlile, Wilco, and TV On The Radio are some of my absolute favorites as well.

I’ve been working so hard in therapy on myself that I forget I didn’t always go to therapy. I took it on the chin and then I took Prozac for a while and it wasn’t enough. I told my first therapist that I thought I had PTSD and she laughed at me. My second therapist had me tested for it and I was right all along. My third therapist and I work each week to get it right. This week my symptoms of depression and anxiety are lower. He says that’s part of the ebb and flow of it. Sometimes they sky rocket and sometimes they disappear and I have to trick myself into going to therapy anyway. You have to keep going. For every day I thought I was fine there were days when I missed class and cried in my bed for hours. Days I didn’t eat anything or brush my hair. Days when all it took was one unkind word for me to give up. All of these kinds of days exist all at once.

I put my puzzle together a little each day. Some times I make great strides. For example, I recognize my avoidance behavior. I don’t like to go back to places where bad things have happened: The English building, the avenue where I had my first accident, my grandmother’s house. I obsess over social media and often fear something unkind is being said about me. All it took was for someone to do it one time and I never forgot it. I know this is also true: If I’ve lived through a trauma once I’ve lived through it a thousand times over. I raised myself as a child in a home where I was pushed away. My father always says I don’t have friends. So it’s no wonder for much of my life I’ve made friends with the wrong people. I’m getting better at that. Then I project my trauma too. I’m convinced everyone is waiting for me to leave the room so they can breathe, so I’ll be gone. I think this because for much of my life that’s what happened to me. It doesn’t mean the people I love behave that way. It means I have trauma brain and I’m trying. I’m doing the best I can and I trust that everyone else is too. And that maybe this playlist is a small gift I can give that helps, that heals.

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Lydia A. Cyrus is a creative nonfiction writer and poet from Huntington, West Virginia. Her work as been featured in Thoreau's Rooster, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Albion Review, and Luna Luna. Her essay "We Love You Anyway," was featured in the 2017 anthology Family Don't End with Blood which chronicles the lives of fans and actors from the television show Supernatural.

She lives and works in Huntington where she spends her time being politically active and volunteering. She is a proud Mountain Woman who strives to make positive change in Southern Appalachia. She enjoys the color red and all things Wonder Woman related! You can usually find her walking around the woods and surrounding areas as she strives to find solitude in the natural world.  Twitter: @lydiaacyrus