Food for the Soul

I like music.  I like music a lot.

I work with music every day, and still I am not sick of it.  I like currents, country, classics, dance, retro, swing, 80s pop, 80s hair bands, 70s pop, 40s standards, Sinatra and Deano, 50s, 60s, acoustic vibes, Kentucky Bluegrass, Broadway show tunes and almost every other kind of music you could imagine.  Except classical...but that's not music, it's fine art, and I'm not much into fine art.

I have two iPods, both of which overflow with samples of the above.  The shuffle button on my "big" iPod is likely to generate something surprising.  I have a networked drive in my house with 18,000 mp3 files accessible to my computers and media devices.  I have a wall of CDs.  An actual wall.

And when I am feeling good, music makes me feel even better.  If I am "up" then I can feel ecstatic with the right combination of music.  The right song at the right moment can induce the best feeling ever.  (Before you ask, I don't experience mania or manic episodes.)  I love how music can enhance my mood and I love how I can experience moments of joy that belie the usual state I am in.

But.

When I am not up, in fact when I am down in the dumps and having a rough time and in the throes of a full-fledged MDE, I cannot listen to any music.  It grates on my ear.  One would think that music that has such potential to make me feel fantastic could theoretically rescue me from the depths of depression.

Indeed, I thought that.

Just yesterday I was running some errands and enjoying shuffle mode on the "small" iPod.  Then, for no discernible reason, the darkness descended and I was in a state.  I found myself constantly hitting the "next" button looking for something that did not irritate me.  How strange is that?  In that one moment, the music I so dearly love became unpalatable, unlistenable, and annoying.

Skipping ahead to a favored, up-tempo song that 12 hours before might have inspired singing along, air drums and/or air guitar, and a smile on my lips, was now the worst song ever recorded.

I have no explanation for this odd phenomenon, and I am perpetually distressed that my beloved music can't haul me out of the depths of an episode.