This Is What Depression Sounds Like

SEXUAL-IDENTITY, SELF-DOUBT, AND A SONG ABOUT DEPRESSION

By Laura Valk

After graduating college, I was living in NYC, working a dream job at Saturday Night Live, and pursuing a burgeoning music career on the side. I was proud of my first real foray into adulthood and felt a sense of endless possibility for what the future might hold. At the same time, I was really starting to struggle in my personal relationships. The men who came and went those first few years in after college left me feeling used, hurt, and unworthy. Something wasn’t working and I felt desperate for a change.

“That conflict between the person I thought I was and the person I was discovering myself to be became overwhelming.”

At 24, I started dating a woman in secret. The secrecy was self-imposed but still excruciating, as being anything other than straight had never even entered my psyche. While the change was exciting, addictive almost, I didn’t feel that sense of relief some do when they discover different sides of their sexuality. Instead, I felt like I had to rewire my entire brain to accommodate the way I would see myself and my future. Every waking moment of my life became devoted to “figuring out” who I was. What I was. That conflict between the person I thought I was and the person I was discovering myself to be became overwhelming. I convinced myself I could think my way out of the anxiety, the confusion. The changes I struggled through mentally were momentous, and in retrospect, I didn’t give the toll they were taking on my mental health the attention they deserved. 

Externally, it looked as if I made progress over the next few years: I eventually came out as bisexual, I was promoted at work, and my music was really starting to take off. But internally, the turmoil evolved and intensified. The gap between how the world perceived me and how I perceived myself started to widen. The anxiety I was experiencing had coalesced to a point where I could no longer envision any sort of future. Mentally I felt paralyzed. I started to experience intense bouts of rumination, I hardly slept, I beat myself up, and on particularly bad days, I didn’t want to be anywhere at all. Despite the red flags, I didn’t think of it as a mental health emergency, just a perpetual feeling of something being off. Because of that subtly, I was able to convince myself I was fine. That I was just in my head. This was normal. My life was solid. I was able to get out of bed in the morning. I had friends. A loving family. A good job.  To acknowledge any sort of problem, I thought, was to be ungrateful for the things I did have. I let guilt convince me that I didn’t deserve to feel anything other than fine.

“Laura, this song isn’t just about feeling ‘stuck.’ This song is about depression. This is what depression sounds like.”

Music had always been an outlet for me and in 2018, I first wrote the lyrics for a new song “Move.” I shared a demo with my girlfriend in what would become a major turning point. We were out at a bar and I was describing my day with the usual bits of self-doubt and self-deprecation sprinkled in. I was lamenting how I wasn’t where I should be for my age, how I felt so stuck in my life. She brought up the demo of “Move” and asked me to listen to the lyrics again. “Laura, this song isn’t just about feeling ‘stuck.’ This song is about depression. This is what depression sounds like.” She was right. Depression is feeling like you’re stagnant while the world moves around you. Like you’re trapped in your head and there’s just no way out. Depression is feeling like depression is just normal.

She pointed out that the way I talked about myself was so far removed from reality. As if I were this abject failure who wasn’t deserving of love or happiness. Because the feeling had existed for so many years, and been so present in my day-to-day life, I thought it was just “me.” I thought it was just “the way I think.” I later found out the “way I think” has a name: Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia). 

With that realization in hand, I started to take steps to address my mental health. The first step was simply to talk about it, to acknowledge its existence. I opened up to friends about it and instead of judgment, I was met with compassion, empathy and, to my surprise, countless shared experiences. I went back to therapy and stuck with it. I named that voice in my head that tries to convince me of my worthlessness (her name is Alexa and she’s the worst.)

“I allowed depression and depressive thinking to exist in my music instead of trying to deny its existence.”

Perhaps most importantly, I started writing about it in my songs. I allowed depression and depressive thinking to exist in my music instead of trying to deny its existence. That’s not to say every song became a big ol’ pity party. But rather, I allowed myself to write happy songs that still contained hints of doubt. Allowed myself to write songs that raised questions I couldn’t answer. Allowed myself to write songs that explored intense rumination. My lyrics started to read a lot more like the inside of my head, and when I found that not only did the songs not suck (sorry, Alexa wrote that), but that I actually enjoyed writing and listening to them, I watched the guilt about feeling depressed slowly but steadily subside.

I can’t say I’m fully “healed” yet, and I’m not sure I can ever expect my mental existence to be 100% smooth sailing. I think I’ll always have depressive inclinations. But at the very least, I’m kinder to myself. I’m sleeping more. Talking more. Getting help. And best of all, I’m starting to see glimpses of a future again.

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Laura Valk is a producer, musician, and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. Her indie-folk-rock duo Skout has independently amassed over 1 million Spotify streams and landed on both Spotify’s USA and Canada Viral charts. Skout’s new single Move, referenced in this piece, is now available for streaming. When she’s not creating, Valk can be found obsessing over politics, IPAs, and her girlfriend’s 16-year-old poodle.