A Step in the Right Direction

My life was changed today.


Yesterday, some guy in a Metal band named Justin Foley posted a response to the University of Melbourne's claim that Metalheads tend to have higher rates of depression on Metal Sucks. Today, the professor that published the original article, Dr. Katrina McFerran, posted a response to it. and I feel its response to him has changed my life. Let me first give you a bit of background (I'll try and keep it as short as possible).

I'm (obviously) a Metalhead, and I have been since roughly middle school. I have also struggled with depression for about as long as I can remember, with the past several years in particular being the worst. Since I was a little kid, I've always just imagined I was going to be working with animals without giving anything else much of a thought up until I started seeing my therapist a couple years ago (long story short, she has really inspired me to get into psychology), and now I'm changing majors. By the way, I'm a senior at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.

I have been seeing various therapists throughout my life and I've been with the first (and only) one I've ever liked for about two and a half years. Because of her input and my own personal interest in psychology, I know that a huge part of overcoming depression is simply being aware of what's going on. However, that just didn't really mean anything to me before, and thusly I have remained depressed fairly consistently. 

Fast forward to today. I am currently taking elementary statistics and wasn't much of a fan of it until today, when we began discussing hypothesis testing. Prior to that I didn't see any real point to stats, but then all of a sudden we're writing sentences in class! That seemed odd to me, but for the first time in class for a while, I really understood what was going on for a change, which felt nice.

Once I returned home from classes today the first thing I did, as per usual, was hop on my computer and get on Metal Sucks. However, the response to Justin was the first post on there at the time. I read the first little bit that Metal Sucks usually posts of any given article, and instantly it resonated with me a lot more. I delved deeper. While I was reading the response, it seemed different than the standard post on MS; something in it really struck a (power) chord with me (pardon the pun). There was more substance to it than normal (not that I'm trying to bash on MS, but it felt more academic in a way). I could see how to apply the statistics I learned today to psychological testing and I found that absolutely thrilling.

As I read on, it seemed more and more clear that changing my major is the right path for me, and also it looks like I may be deciding on pursing applied statistics as a minor), which gives me an actual direction for really the first time ever. Then something happened. I smiled. And I felt genuinely happy for the first time in months. To slightly alter an Arch Enemy lyric: "Behind the Smile, I feel something." It got to the point where (I feel silly for admitting this, but this is a huge deal for me) I cried tears of joy. This is the first big break and sight out of my depression I'd seen in years, despite all my hard work trying to escape it.

I feel, and have felt, that while I love music and Heavy Metal - listening to and playing music is my greatest passion in the world - I agree that it can definitely lead to depression. The musical aspects of it are phenomenal, and music certainly can play a role in healing as many people are aware, but the psychological portions (hearing particularly violent lyrics, for example) I'm sure can have a negative effect on the psyche. All these events today allowed me to see that and it blew my mind, especially the huge coincidence that they happened on the exact same day.

Check out the response if you can, please. I can't wait to read the actual peer-reviewed article. And by the way, I've been listening to mostly non-Metal today.