I never know what kind of rabbit holes and laneways my music is going to take me down each night. I would describe my taste as very “emo” tonight, but I’m not headbanging to heavy metal. No, it is much darker and moodier than that.

Those who experience dissociation, the emptiness and identity disturbance that comes with BPD, and even the agony of persistent depression would probably recognise these things in the first song, “Valley of the Dolls” by Marina.

“Living with identities
That do not belong to me”

“Pick a personality for free
When you feel like nobody”

“I die slow”

My interpretation of the “valley” where “we sleep” is the place at the back of our minds where the alters who are not fronting rest.

Tonight’s second song is “Stay Down” by Boygenius. It is another song about dissociation, and feels even moodier than “Valley of the Dolls”.

“I’m in the back seat of my body
I’m just steering my life in a video game”

The third song is “How To Disappear Completely” by Radiohead. Now this song takes the night to a whole new, depressing level. The video’s bad resolution is perfect. It so accurately depicts what it’s like to live in a constant fog, where nothing around us is sharp. This is how I experience the world around me: just a huge blur.

“That thereThat’s not me”

These lyrics remind me of the time I started screaming and ripping apart my old clinic’s waiting room when they told me they were changing my case worker who I loved. I lost all sense of self-consciousness and it didn’t even feel like me. These lyrics remind me of all the strange and very out-of-character things I have done over the years.

“This isn’t happeningI’m not hereI’m not here”

I remember feeling this way at the age of seven. I would ask myself over and over, “am I really here?”

“I walk through wallsI float down the Liffey”

These lyrics remind me of the kind of dissociation where we leave our bodies. We can no longer feel anything. It feels like you can put your hand through your body. It feels like we are a ghost.

The music video depicts something very horrible which has led the singer to dissociate like this, and perhaps needs a trigger warning. Both the song and the video are truly horrific.

I end tonight’s crescendo with one final, crashing chord: “Daydreaming”, another song by Radiohead. I really have found a kindred soul in Radiohead, somebody whose life has broken them just as much as it has broken me. In the music video, the man wanders through a seemingly endless series of doors and scenes, everywhere from hospitals to beaches. While we are constantly on the move, there is this terrifying sense of being trapped at the same time. Change, as I once said, has been the only constant in my life. For some reason I find this song and its music video the most distressing of them all. It reminds me very much of a post I wrote called “Life”. It is one of the rawest posts I’ve made and one of the posts I am most proud of.

The lyrics that I find most heartbreaking and most relatable in “Daydreaming” are these:

“And it’s too lateThe damage is doneThe damage is done”

This is what I’ve been trying to tell people the past few months. I needed help when I was a child. It’s too late now. My mind, body and nervous system are fucked.

I really love this YouTuber’s (callum3878) interpretation of the song:

“To me, this song/video represents one of the great tragedies of humankind. In the video, we can see Thom is looking for something. We don’t know what that something is (and probably neither does Thom) but nonetheless he relentlessly pursues it, opening door after door.

The places he ends up in are fairly random in nature, alluding to the idea that very rarely does the outcome of our decisions match our expectations. It’s one thing to imagine (daydream) about a better future, but it’s another thing to actually live it. Rather than ending up somewhere better, you just end up somewhere else. And the thing you’re chasing feels no closer than it did when you started. But you continue the chase anyway because well… “dreamers, they never learn”.

This continual process of running away from the past and bargaining with the future is what has got us to where we are today. It’s given us running water, cures to terrible diseases and the technology that allows me to share these thoughts with all of you. But make no mistake, we pay a heavy price for this, and it comes in the form of suffering.

An endless suffering that wakes up with you in the morning, follows you throughout your day, goes to bed with you at night and haunts you in your dreams while you sleep. It never goes away.

Towards the end, the music changes to a solemn tone. He’s running out of time. He quickens his pace and desperately moves from door to door. But despite his efforts, the thing he seeks never reveals itself. Finally he arrives at a mountain. Death, in the form of a monstrous voice beckons him from the distance. Thom knows his time is up. Instead of running, he climbs the mountain to confront the monster that has taken so much from him throughout his life. But when he finally tracks it to it’s cave, he realises that there is no monster. And as he lies down by the warm, cosy fire that welcomes him, he smiles as he realises his suffering is finally over.

This song doesn’t offer us an answer to this problem. It simply acknowledges its existence and the role it plays in our everyday lives. But in doing so, it reminds people like me that I’m not alone in this struggle, that everyone experiences it. Consciously or not. And for reasons I’m not sure about, that makes it hurt less. As the saying goes “A problem shared is a problem halved”. I hope In sharing this with us, Thom has alleviated some of that suffering for himself too.”

I have not taken my mood stabiliser tonight. Last night I spat into a tissue after I had taken it and was horrified to find the tissue turn the colour of turmeric. I didn’t realise how much colouring the wafer (dissolvable, fast acting version) contained. If it was turmeric I wouldn’t have minded, but I know it’s some shitty synthetic colouring. I refuse to eat any foods containing artificial colouring, yet here I am consuming it with my medication. I couldn’t shake the image of my whole intestinal track, or body for that matter, turning yellow. So tonight I thought I’d take the non-wafer tablet instead. I then had an argument with the nurses as they wouldn’t give it to me; apparently the doctor has only charted the wafer. We kept banging heads and I felt bad for holding up the patient next in line, but she could see my point of view and was much more understanding than the nurses. So looks like no mood stabiliser tonight. Just Radiohead, Boygenius and Marina to sing me to sleep.