Metalcore Therapy

To me, metalcore music is intensely beautiful and relaxing, in a cathartic way.

When I feel overwhelmingly stressed or angry or chaotic, I can't control it from the inside. It's too much. It makes my heart pound and my skin tingle and I just feel so overwhelmed and powerless. I need something to organize my frustration.

Metalcore music mimics the way I feel on the inside. It matches the chaos and roughness and loudness and overwhelmingness. It tears into my consciousness and matches what I'm feeling. My feelings sync up with the music. I feel heard and connected.

My feelings become anchored to the music. The emotional waves rise and fall with the music. They're together, but the music has taken the wheel.

And music resolves. Music is organized. Music has a pattern.

Between the blast beats and death growls, a melody is born. It swells and weaves and marries the overwhelming, angry, rough sounds with something beautiful.

Having fused with the music, my feelings are forcibly dragged from chaos into something...else.

Music has keys. Music has counts. Music resolves.

The intensity grows and builds; my emotions have no choice but to match the music, and when the music composes itself, it bends the iron will of my feelings with it, and when the music resolves, I resolve with it.

I can't control a prerecorded song. It's going to organize itself and come home to its key with a final note that is the final word. Metal music meets me where I am, befriends the scariest parts of me, and drags me to a resolution.

The tension in my chest releases.

~Stephanie