Choosing Something Different Music over Medicine

CHRISTINE ALLMAND

The call came in just after I fed my children breakfast. My precious 17-month-old niece, Reese, passed away in her sleep, a police officer’s voice told me over the line. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Will you repeat that?” I responded as a rush of panic flooded my body. I stood frozen in shock as she repeated herself. Absorbing that information made my skin feel too tight for my body. I couldn’t make it make sense. My body shook as I continued to stand there with the phone still at my cheek. Tremors ran throughout my body. I felt terrified, guilty, and I didn’t know why.

After I raced over to comfort my family, I couldn’t let go of the feeling that I should have known something was wrong. I fed her dinner at my house the night before. I held her and kissed her. She was playing with her cousins, running all over the house, giggling and making funny faces. She seemed healthy and happy when she left that evening. In the morning, she was gone. Just like that. Gone, forever. The sorrow was unimaginable.

Sitting with the pain at home later that evening, I felt the urge to leave. Logically knowing there was no where I could go that would bring Reese back, I fell back on my lifelong pattern of processing my emotions with a long hot shower. There is something cathartic about getting in the shower to help me process pain. It’s always been a safe place for me to experience my emotions while getting a sense of being comforted. “Get in the shower,” my heart shouted.

As I stood under the rushing water pounding down from above, I felt an intense desire to stop time. To go back. To stop what had happened. Just stop it all. My heart knew there was no pulling back time. My body rebelled against that truth. I found myself then leaning over the toilet emptying my stomach. I was shivering, naked and wet from the shower. Sitting on the ground next to the toilet with the water still on in the shower, I looked up to notice my husband, and said, “I think I’m gonna need a Xanax. I can’t do this. It’s too much.” My mind was frantic:

What do I do? What can I do? I don’t have any pills. How can I get some? Make it stop. God, I don’t want to take them.

I knew this panicky feeling all too well. I had been working hard to get off that anxiety medicine. Benzodiazepines (benzos) are a form of sedatives meant for short term use to calm the mind from anxiety and insomnia. They no longer helped me cope with anxiety (if they ever really did). I didn’t want to have to struggle to get off them again…but, what in God’s name was I going to do with all these overwhelming feelings if not medicate?

Suddenly, I had the thought that maybe listening to frequency music would help. I had been using it for months during my acupuncture treatments. The music helped me relax and be present. It helped me feel grounded while coping with everyday anxiety. Maybe it could save me from myself in this traumatic moment. Maybe the music would keep me from being swept away by the avalanche of emotions that comes with falling apart. Deciding to give it a try, I got my headphones, pushed play, and sat in the shower on the floor with the water falling down my back.

I took a deep cleansing breath as I closed my eyes. The music began to wash over my body. My emotions seemed to move in time with the music. Tears began to fall erratically as I began ugly crying and silent screaming. I allowed it all to come. This went on for long minutes, until I began to feel the loss of pressure in my body. Eventually, I was breathing evenly while sitting with the heartache without falling apart. The music surrounded me like a cocoon of safety.

Music, in general, has always helped to shift my mood, evoked inspiration, and supported me in processing my feelings in the past. This frequency music seemed to work without me trying to make it work. Like taking aspirin for a headache, the music unconsciously soothed my nervous system without any overt action from me.

As I stepped out of the shower, I felt calmer. I was able to live with the grief for those long minutes without bursting out of my still tight skin. I was able to cope with a panic attack without the use of benzos. For weeks afterwards, I depended on that music to help me process the pain and the panic as it came up. Frequency music is one of the tools that consistently deepens my healing. My body and my mind have continued recovering slowly over time.

When I chose frequency music over anti-anxiety meds that day, I unknowingly experienced the power of sound healing. This has deepened my understanding of holistic methods for treating chronic anxiety. I realized that my uncomfortable emotions wouldn’t kill me if I let myself feel them. I started getting curious about my feelings. What were they trying to teach me? That’s where I started to know myself and where healing happens. I’m profoundly grateful for this inner knowing.

Sweet Reese, we later learned, had an undiagnosed rare genetic heart defect. There was nothing we could have done to save her. Her sweet soul brought joy to my world and I’m grateful to have loved her. Her memory reminds me that this life is precious. We are all here for a finite amount of time and we have the power to choose how we live, love, and heal. I’m eternally thankful that I have learned that lesson well.

Christine sees herself as the Damsel that woke to the truth that saving herself was her responsibility; the Addict who realized she was powerless over everything except her own choices; the Mother who began to see the power in breaking generational patterns; and the Healer who came to know herself so she could help others know themselves.

If you would like to read more of Christine’s work, you can find it at: https://www.facebook.com/connectingwithchristine