To My Friends

I'm in a weirdly emotional mood tonight. But in a good way.

My favorite musician Emilie Autumn is on tour promoting her soon to be released album "Fight Like a Girl". I've been a fan (or Muffin, or Plague Rat depending on what fan lingo you are using) since I was about 12 when her first major album "Enchant" came out. I stumbled across her online after a recommendation based on the fact that I liked the band "Blackmore's Night".  At the time I was a mess of a girl. Mostly friendless and in a deep battle with depression that I had already been fighting most of my life. Dealing with the aftermath of traumatic medical issues and sexual abuse. I was not in a good place.  And I found this magical musician who sung about fairy tales that were beautiful, but did not necessarily end happily ever after. They were songs about girls who were in control though. And I needed that. The final song on that album "What If" struck me the most deeply and I would play it over and over again on my crappy walkman as I was falling asleep. Because it made me feel less alone. It let me know there was someone else who did not fit in. Who was hurt and broken. But that they could reach for something better. It gave me a glimmer of hope.

The years went by and Emilie's music always held a special place in my heart. I didn't talk about it with anyone, but it was my secret weapon. What I would play for myself when I felt the most alone. Around the time her next major album "Opheliac" came out I was in an incredibly chaotic place in my life.

Struggling with keeping my head above water  fighting an eating disorder ever increasing mental pain, my horse Treasure, my best friend and the one thing I loved more than anything else had died suddenly,  I had very few friends, could barely force myself to get up to go to school in the morning and was constantly suicidally. I had made several suicide attempts over the years. The first when I was 8 and attempted to drown myself in lake Geneva when I was at summer camp. But I was never successful or even caught in any of my attempts until my junior year in high school when my mom walked in on me about to take a bottle of sleeping pills. The shit hit the fan so to say and I very nearly dropped out of high school and decided to simply get a GED. In the end I was able to graduate school a year early and spent that next year attending a community college. It was in the midst of these events that "Opheliac" was released.

Again I found that Emilie's music struck me deeply. "Opheliac" dealt with Emilie's own struggles with mental illness. With sexual abuse. With so many of the things that had left me broken. It is a beautifully angry, album that lays all the pain bare. Again I knew I was not alone. I was not the only broken girl, not the only hurting girl. Not the only girl who wanted to kill herself. Not the only girl who had had her life shattered by what others did to her. I was not alone.

After the year I spent attending community college I made an attempt to start at a four year university. I lasted all of three weeks before I became so mentally unstable that I needed to come home. I felt like a failure. I began intensive therapy when I came home. Seeing both a therapist and psychiatrist weekly. Having psychiatric evaluations done and going through an ever changing carousel of medication after medication. Eventually I was told that I did not have depression like we had always thought. I was bipolar.

I was angry to hear that at first. Because depression seems like something that can be dealt with. It doesn't sound like that big a deal. (Which is far from true, true Depression, not a sad or bad mood is the most painful crippling thing a person can go through). But Bipolar Disorder. Manic Depression. That's a "hard core" mental illness. That made me crazy.

But the truth of the matter is that I had always sort of suspected it. I had never wanted to actually suggest it though. Because it scared me. But it fit. The spells of black moods so dark that all I could think of was my own desire to die. When I hurt in every imaginable sense of the word. It is not sadness. Sadness has a reason. Depression is pain. Mental anguish with no cause. Physical pain even. My body aches. Sometimes I have woken up with bruises because I was holding to myself to tightly in my sleep. It feels like I am falling apart. And I need someone to physically hold me together.

There were also the spells where I was full of energy. I don't show it like many people do when they are manic, for me it manifests in days or even weeks without sleep. I write entire novels in the span of a few days. (They are complete garbage and make no linear sense when I look at them later, but at the time I think I am writing a masterpiece). Thoughts race through my mind in complicated, interwoven patterns. Everything becomes connected. I often see faeries. When I was little I remember a time when I truly believed that I could fly and jumped off of a tall piece of playground equipment to prove it. When I was riding I would take careless stupid risks. I am easily excitable. I become obsessive over certain topics. I remember one time the summer before I began high school I became obsessed with the Paris Opera House and memorized the blueprints of the building.

Bipolar fit. And I had to admit it. That year was a struggle. It was a painful year. But it had spots of light that changed me.

That November I was able to see Emilie Autumn in concert for the first time. It was the first tour she had ever done in the US. Despite being from Chicago her music had been more accepted by the market in Europe and her touring had been mostly done overseas. I went to that show not knowing anyone there but felt like I was with people like me. It was a crowd of girls (and some boys) who were hurt. Who connected to this music for a reason.  People who were part of Emilie's "Asylum" community.

That year was hard but it saw changes. Physical, my hair went bright pink. Something I had wanted to do for years but had never had the courage to do. Then one day I just went out, bought dye came home and did it. At first I was only planning on putting a streak or two in, but once I was there in the bathroom with that jar of Manic Panic ( I now use Special Effects, but MP was what they had at the store) I just said "fuck it" and did my whole head. Which considering the amount of hair I have is A LOT OF PINK.  That first dye job was not very well done. It was splotchy and uneven. But I had done it. I was changing something about myself. I could change.

I applied to Columbia College in Chicago for Fiction Writing and was going to start that coming fall. The summer before I started there was an event being held in Chicago. The Midwestern Muffin Meet-up. A group of Emilie Autumn fans gathering to just hang out for a weekend. Basically a massive tea party is what it amounted to. I decided to go. It was the sort of risk I would never have taken before. I am  a shy person. Or at least I used to be. The idea of going somewhere and being with a group of total strangers was terrifying. But I decided to go. And it changed my life.

I met girls there who have become my family. The truest friends I could ever ask for. I have traveled across the country to spend time with these friends. Have had crazy adventures with them. Have found people I can talk to about even my darkest struggles who I know will love me and be there for me, and have been able to be support for them in turn. These were the people who held the other end of the phone when I was in the psych ward after a suicide attempt. The people who took my terrified calls in the middle of the night when I was seeing things that I knew were not really there. The people who I have goofy conversations about dragons and faeries with. The people I cry with when the pain is too much to handle on my own.

I've had friends I could talk to in the past. But I always felt like a burden. Because I never had friends who really understood. I felt like to them I must just sound like a whiny self involved bitch. Because the truth is unless you deal with a mental illness you don't know what it's like. You have no idea just how devastating the pain is. You don't know what it means to truly want to end your own life. Having friends who do know has changed my life. This community has made me a stronger person.

We are a strange group of people. I know. People look at us funny when we are dressed in out goofy gothy clothes. When they see a group of people where every other person has some unnatural shade of hair. People with tattoos and piercing. I have friends who are girls with girlfriends and boys who are boys with boyfriends. I have friends who wear corsets and bloomers and friends who wear flannel and converse. There is no norm in my group of friends. It's every color, gender, sexuality, religion, economic background. But it's the important things that are common. And it's that we found each other. It's knowing that there is this wonderful group of people who care about me. Who love me just the way I am. Many of the friends I have made have changed in the time since I have met them, some are no longer fans of EA. But even though that is what first brought us together it was just the starting point for real friendships that will last.

Tonight I saw a video of one of the new songs that Emilie is performing on the tour. "One Foot in Front of the Other". I've been trying not to get to into the video's of the new songs. I want to hold off getting too involved until I see the songs live, until I the album comes out and I can listen to them. But this hit me hard. It's hopeful. Emilie does a lot of different emotions in her songs, but hope is rarely really shown. Glimpses, yes but never as fully as in this song. Hearing it threw me back to that 12 year old girl crying while listening to "What If". Feeling less alone because of that song. And now I am 21 and hearing this new song. And I'm not alone. I have people who love me and who I love. I'm a much stronger person. I know what I want to do with my life. I'm pursing writing. And I have support. I have love. I am not alone.

So to Emilie and the Asylum community that she has created thank you. You have changed my life. You have made me stronger. And I am no longer alone.

*Links to the songs mentioned in this post.
What If-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwVWZ2C617w

"One Foot In Front of the Other"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hVhyenwmvX0