I Wanna Get Better, by Bleachers

I've been posting the top songs you need to know to know me, and there's nothing on that list (maybe) higher than Bleacher's I Wanna Get Better.

This song came out in 2014, at a time when I was going through some really serious shit. I had schizophrenia--I had started showing symptoms in 2011--but I wasn't going to be officially diagnosed until 2017. And things were just really, really, desperately bad.

At the same time, my oldest kid was also beginning to show signs of an anxiety disorder and was struggling in school (we would later learn that he was autistic and also bipolar).

And then I Wanna Get Better came out, and it was his and my theme song. Every single morning while I was driving him to freshman year of high school, we would blast this in the car and sign it at the top of our lungs.

The verses themselves don't necessarily relate to Jonas or me, because they're very personal to Jack Antonoff. He's basically going through every traumatic experience that he's had in his life, from 9/11 to a bad acid trip to the death of his sister. He says, according to Wikipedia, that this song is his "mission statement".

Well it became Jo and my mission statement. Because we both desperately, desperately wanted to get better from these things that we, at the time, did not understand at all.

Creature Comforts, by Arcade Fire

There’s a song that’s been going through my head for a while now—I think it’s because I’m writing a book about teenage girls, but also because I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health generally.

The video for Arcade Fire's "Creature Comforts" shows the band--dressed in shimmering gold and silver, illuminated by spotlights and strobes--from the neck down. The style is synth-pop, synthesizers, electronica, and even a keytar. It sounds like dance music with a catchy melody and a strong bass line. It could be a song about anything—a peppy love song, a feel-good pop sensation.

It's about suicide, body shaming, cutting, depression, and self-hate. The video illustrates it, showing an overly-fantastical world where everything is light and flashing and glittering, as if to say "this is everything that you're supposed to be."

The repeated hook and chorus is:

Some girls hate their bodies,

Stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback.

Saying "God, make me famous.

If you can't, just make it painless"

It's a song about the harsh pressure put on girls (and boys) to be perfect, famous, and beautiful, and the lyrics are devastating:

Assisted suicide

She dreams about dying all the time

She told me she came so close

Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record

Saying "God, make me famous.

If you can't, just make it painless

Just make it painless."

The twist comes in the two-thirds through, where the singer replies to the girl in the mirror:

It's not painless

She was a friend of mine, a friend of mine

This isn't a trifling thing. Suicide isn't painless. The song continues with the refrain, finally ending with a short piece of simple advice:

It goes on and on, I don't know what I want

On and on, I don't know if I want it

On and on, I don't know what I want

On and on, I don't know if I want it...

Well if you're not sure, better safe than sorry

I find so much to love in this song, and so much to think about. I have depression and I've had suicidal ideation. I've self-harmed. But more than that, I think about my kids, and my teenagers, and the pressure that is put on them to look attractive and be popular.

(From a lyrical perspective, I think it's interesting that the word "painless", and the phrase "make it painless" are so immediately linked to suicide. The theme to M*A*S*H, after all, was "Suicide is Painless", but that show outdates the all the musicians in Arcade Fire, and most assuredly the majority of their listeners. But when we hear "make it painless", we know exactly what they're talking about. I find that interesting.)

Here’s the thing about the song that gets to me: I think it has to do with so much more than just teenagers. The older I get and the more I live on social media, the more I see people my age—and I’m in my mid forties—trying to look perfect for Instagram. I especially see this in the community of artists and authors I’m in: we all have to look like we have idyllic lives, because our lives are not just our lives—they’re our book advertisements. So we get dressed up for church every Sunday and we take a picture in front of the chapel in our fancy clothes, and we go on vacations to Mexico and show pictures of us eating delicious tacos (always with the caveat “I’m going to have to exercise so much to work this off but OMG tacos are my favorite!”). It just seems to be rampant and it bugs me so much.

And I’m not immune. I feel the pressure to conform to worldly body standards that everyone else does. I’m overweight, which I like to blame on the fact that so many of my meds have “side effect: may gain weight” on the label, but also… I don’t exercise like I should. And the fact is: I am 100% comfortable in my body. I don’t have body image issues for myself. But I do feel this unspoken “obesity is a moral failing” attitude surrounding me.

Of course, Creature Comforts also hits different because I have, in the past, dealt with both suicidal ideation (thankful not a lot, but enough to scare me) and self-harm (an awful lot for an awful lot of years).

Some girls hate themselves
Hide under the covers with sleeping pills and
Some girls cut themselves
Stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback

I don’t have an amazing conclusion to this except to repeat the words of the bridge: It’s not painless. There is so much pain surrounding self harm and suicide. And it’s not just the “It’s not painless—she was a friend of mine” type pain, because that’s telling people that they shouldn’t hurt themselves, because it causes pain to other people. It’s an important thing to note, but it’s not the primary reason that people should hurt themselves. Don’t not hurt yourself for me—don’t hurt yourself for you. It’s not painless, and it’s going to cause pain that you can’t imagine.