The Thorn

The universe speaks to all of us; for some; they are our heavy ghosts and our demons, for others it’s a lot less unsettling and things go more smoothly.

I always felt as if I observed others, their lives going well, things looked easy for them and wondering why I felt trapped, a prisoner of something without knowing what that was.

Without letting these emotions fall away, that have been so tightly attached to those painful memories, and our identities; we may not grieve, move forward, and once again match the flow of life.

I have always possessed this overwhelming sense since childhood, that I am part of this fast moving life force or what many call universal energy; the quantum field, or whatever it is to each individual, it doesn’t bother me what we label it. It’s all the same. We feel it when we are in our flow mode; whatever form that is for each of us.

For me however, from a young age; I also felt isolated and separated to other people around me. Despite this, I knew that this life force was still there. Within me, through me, around me and outside of me.

I had a Neurological Disorder that went undiagnosed until I was 31 years old, a physical functioning as opposed to the electrical functioning (epilepsy) of the Nervous System and brain. My nervous system can go haywire. It does not affect the natural intelligence inside me or my brain, but the functioning. It causes things like seizures, severe pain, fatigue, even altered sensations and numbness.

The only way I can describe the feeling of disassociation as I grew up; is that it was similar to when there is a panic; and people are frantically moving around in chaos, and for some reason, time stands still and you’re watching it all unfold in front of you, as you stand there.

You feel as if you are observing more than experiencing what everyone else is. It is this disconnection to other people that was always there during episodes. However when I listen to music I feel as if I am back in sync again. I can breathe.

The song With or Without You by U2 was the song that changed everything for me. As I listen to the song now, I feel these confusing memories and emotions flooding back, but I am able to make sense of these; and what it all means.

The first time I started hearing With or Without You, was when I was transitioning from a child into a more complex teenager, it connected me to the deepest of emotions I held far down inside. Music was my gravity, when my emotions felt out of control.

Song lyrics and melodies have many different meanings to each individual, lyrics are rarely literal. If you keep an open mind about how it relates to your own life.

Sad songs don’t always have to hit us hard if we don’t want. We are not always going to hold the same combination of emotions each time we listen to a song; they flow and change, either easing or becoming more complicated.

The combination of grief, loss and sadness feels different to grief, pain and anger. We can have an infinite number or combination of complicated feelings on various scales (strong or weak emotional responses). This is what makes us all experience life so uniquely.

When you read a sad story or hear a sad song, sometimes it’s a chance to open up to ourselves and others to help us understand, it is a mirror to the pretence which we project to the world. I actually feel like I am falling today but doing my best to keep moving forward.

To me, With or Without You, is about understanding more about myself; when musicians started to express more authentic pain in a time when pop music never truly meant much to anyone.

As Bono describes, this song to me reflects complex feelings of exposure, when we are truly ourselves; we feel deeply exposed.

When we cover ourselves up with the masked version of ourselves we think others want to see, we are safe from being our vulnerable selves. However, ironically, no-one ever sees us as we believe we want people to see us. As many have said; “a different version of us exists in the minds of others”; they perceive with their own judgements, filters and misconceptions. Something their brain is doing before they even realise, and sometimes they are very attuned to their own behaviours and judgements, and proceed regardless.

There are those songs we hold closely to our chests, and may never reveal the power and depth “that” song has for us, maybe it dug a little too deep for some. This song understood me when no other soul did.

I am an oddity, because I’ll never know what it’s like to feel and sense the world in a more normal way. (A word humans use too often which bothers me; I’m yet to meet what I would view as a normal human being. Only those pretending to be what they term normal).

Artists are far from Normal, yet they seem to be the most celebrated of human beings. I do not believe either Mozart or Leonardo Da Vinci were perceived as normal for their era, or even our own. Neither Einstein, Galileo, or Virginia Woolf. Those that stand so far off the spectrum of societal normals are usually only celebrated in fullness eons later, after they have passed and everyone who knew them has passed.

When you have faith in your oddities you feel more freedom in Self.

We are all flawed in some way whether we are aware of this, or not. Others are more noticing of our flaws than we are. Funnily enough, we feel closer when we celebrate each others flaws and miscomings, more than achievements, because we can relate to these more than their successes.

I felt more strange than others as a young girl, that maybe those powerful, deep or confusing and troubling emotions were somehow taboo to speak of, and to be hidden.

When other children were interested only in and focused on their surroundings, I was wandering around with pure curiosity about everything; distracting myself from the constant fluctuation of emotions. I had no idea I was meant to open up and express these to people. I kept them in, all of them. Including through grief and the difficulties during childhood.

My mind constantly wandered; looked around and asked the bigger questions in life. Questions that were not meant to be asked at all, let alone by a child.

I looked to others for those who were awake and interested in this shared curiosity; yet I still felt an uncomfortable loneliness, something I now know a lot of people have felt at times.

It was as if I was experiencing life in a very different way to those around me; it was as if amongst all of the distractions around us, I couldn’t find a true moment with another person - I further withdrew into another world; an unconscious decision my brain obviously made for some mental preservation.

I daydreamed of another world or life, one where I felt safe in my own home as a child. As others hit milestones; I felt like an observer; watching others feel happiness and achievement. It was a feeling of disassociation as I looked through people and their pretences.

I felt as if I saw more of the world than others seemed to. I could literally feel the overwhelming emotions of others, I could feel their rage, anger, sadness or grief. I still experience life where I actually feel their emotions as if I am the one experiencing it.

Believing that these emotions were my own as a 7 year old; I thought everyone experienced life this way. I didn’t know where I finished and others began, I thought we were all deeply connected to one another, but as others grew and aged with healthy distance and boundaries, I was confused as to why I still felt connected to an energy, that connects us all, that others seems to grow out of and became more deeply individualised with firm identities; “separateness” was celebrated, and individual identities were firmly tied to their successes.

The world can survive without us, which hurts, but we cannot survive without the Earth. It wasn’t until I realised this, that I felt enormous freedom to explore and do what I want, love and feel, because I know if I am no longer here the earth will still turn without me; and this song reminds me to stay grounded. I will always wait and give myself time to do things on my own time frame. The wait teaches me patience, to be humble, to be kind to others who are further ahead on their journey or further behind, further up or further down. We are united by what we have in common not by what separates us.

I love that “that” song we all have, can also connect us with someone who has died, we feel and celebrate their life through the vibrations and sounds that pulse through us and help us sit with the pain. It could also be the loss of a relationship, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of something you love where you are left with all of this love, and no one to give it to but the grief.

The same song sounds different as I progress on my journey in life. It has more meaning and depth as I age, and reminds me of what got me through those times and maintained my hope - the little child inside me heals and finally a woman evolves into a new era. The song is a trophy of what was survived. A survivor of awakening to a world that is beautiful, frightening, moving and incredibly powerful and unstoppable. A force of energy mirrored in our selves.

It doesn’t matter what has happened. What matters is how we use this power inside us. It’s okay to hold a space for the dark, and come back to the light - it’s not something to fear.

Many of us are so far removed from this shared life force, we are now more distracted from ourselves and our surroundings more than I feel we ever were.

This particular song and the artists, somehow connected to me in a unique way no human had possibly been able to. I wasn’t even aware why I felt this strange yearning to feel more whole or complete, I didn’t even know what it was that I was searching for. There are those times we can’t live with our emotions but we know we cannot live without them.

Every few years I would be diagnosed with a new or different condition; one that was more comprehensive of my symptoms. My Psychological state was blamed for many failures in my life; relationships, work life, study, social life ...

Later in my life, I would finally meet people who were awakened to the truth of what it means to be human, be alive and be here on this earth and what it means to contribute and live with purpose. Which is what this song does for me. It might be a different song for others however it is the highest expression of what it means to be human when we connect so profoundly to that one song, music is a way we share a language we can all relate and connect to, there is always a language out there for someone, through music. A vibration or a beat that resonates with your body, nervous system and soul.

With the opening of With or a Without You by U2, it was the first time I experienced what it was like to feel, to truly feel a range of emotions instead of just fear, or just terror or just emptiness or just loneliness. I experienced a range of both happy and painful emotions for the first time in my life and it meant I was no longer fearful. It gave me a sense of understanding the world, it communicated to me that both sadness and happiness can be experienced together and be mixed on different scales depending on the circumstances.

It created a bridge between difficult and happy emotions. It was this song for me personally. For others, they may only feel sadness when listening to this song. However, I experience sadness, grief, regret, pain, fondness, but most of all a profound and deep sense of love, and a willingness to never give up, no matter how hard it gets.

It is a great love that you feel deep inside your chest which radiates out like electricity beating. My system was matching the vibrations in the music which was put out by those that understand complicated emotions and this is when I realised, people could understand each other through the medium of music. This song made me realise, I knew somewhere in the world somebody could understand me and feel similar emotions, and that meant we were connected, we were never alone.

I was able to fall away from holding onto and refusing to let go of troubling emotions.

Every time I listen to “those” songs, the ones that we can count on less than five fingers; are the ones that understood us, and allowed us to understand ourselves. Music is our mirror.

I still have no idea if anyone else feels this way, or if it’s only me. They can only share their experiences by attempting to connect with me, but in order to do that we need a medium to express ourselves. And music is just that. It helps us understand one another and ourselves.

This particular song is also a paradox; it shows me my own paradox: I am hard on myself, but speak highly of myself, I am both the good and bad side of myself, I am all of the past, perhaps made peace with or resolved, or forgiven. I realised its my time now, to start a period of life where I know what’s happened, I understand more and the compassion I show others I now am able to try and show myself.

When listening to the lyrics of this song, he speaks of waiting, which can also mean where we often wait for ourselves to pick ourselves up out of the darkness and get back up, move forward and proceed - regardless of the darkness we feel during difficult circumstances.

What this song now means to me, is the memory of the difficulties, and being just that; memories, does not mean I need to feel sad about the past, but accept it for how it shaped my life and where it has led me.

There is no finish line in Life, we can’t “wait” for things to get better or be over, or improve because “life and all that comes with it” never ends, unless your life actually ends.

Many artists have Neurological, Psychiatric or Neuro-Psychiatric conditions, which added another dimension to their Art or Music; they were perhaps more able to express themselves through music because their current way of functioning to express self through socially acceptable ways like language and behaviour was a model that does not work for many with these conditions. A future to understand one another is our goal; Art and Music have been the most successful so far from my perspective.

The song With or Without You is known to my family that is my chosen song, as it taught me to live by doing what “moves me” emotionally- what helps to move the flow of emotional traffic through which it gets stuck by the confines of the environment in which I live in.

This story is not just for those who also survive or thrive with mental, physical or emotional diagnoses. Some of us experience life primarily through the power of feeling or touch, some experience life primarily with one sense from auditory, visual, taste, smell, or kinesthetic (touch/feeling). Music bridges these senses and unites them, somehow we are in a state of suspension when we listen to certain songs where we feel a sense of deep understanding and innate natural intelligence; our bodies respond and experience these things without us even having to move but merely sit and listen.

We are all trying to find that love in our life, that makes us feel this way; Like that song that changed our lives.