Music brings out emotions in me, I need to disassociate these emotions

November 12, 2009 8:28 PM

Certain songs bring out memories for me and that's normal. But sometimes, I hear a song that I listened to during a particularly bad time in my life and I'm afraid that I will re-live that time, or even more stupidly, that I will re-experience it. How do I stop doing this to myself? There's some great music out there that I'm withholding myself from.

Examples:

- I was listening to a lot of Metric before and after I broke up with my girlfriend and after that, I can't bring myself to listen to them again.

- Listened to a lot of Beck around the time my parents decided to split and really can't listen to him anymore.

posted by anonymous to Grab Bag (13 answers total)

Previously, almost exactly.
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:35 PM on November 12, 2009

Sea Change is gutting, even if you aren't going through a bad time.

I've found that only time spent away from songs that bear emotional weight will do the trick. After a particularly bad breakup I couldn't touch Scott Walker's Scott 1 through 4 for over three years - now they sound great once again. Put these songs back on the shelf and find some new tracks with which you can associate positive memories.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:17 PM on November 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

All you can do is live out time. Eventually, the music that's killing you will turn into music that gives you a quality hit of nostalgia - but don't force it. Why would you want to? It's cool that a song can transport you to a particular time!
posted by moxiedoll at 9:48 PM on November 12, 2009

Sometimes, I find that listening to songs like that again after I have had some time to get over things a bit gives me a new view on lessons learned or perspective gained since then. Occasionally even a new insight into the situation and the dynamics behind it.

Other times, I've found myself thinking "Well, my current situation sure feels better than the one that song reminds me of! I guess I can handle since I managed to get through !"
posted by yohko at 10:36 PM on November 12, 2009

That's supposed to be "I guess I can handle (current thing) since I managed to get through (past thing)!"
posted by yohko at 10:39 PM on November 12, 2009

Create new, awesome memories (like a party with your closest friends) with some of that very same music in the background. You may still need some time before you can dive on in, but the best way to cure bad memories is time and new memories.
posted by katillathehun at 11:40 PM on November 12, 2009

You can imbue songs with whatever meaning you want. So, just as you might now fear, "this song might hurt me like that time did," you could decide to consistently tell yourself, "this song is mine and I'm hanging onto it!" I've held onto songs through bad events ("well, this is the worst day ever, but at least I can still cheer myself up with Band"). I've also reclaimed songs later by saying something that lets it be about my "survival" or return to happiness ("oh man, wow, this song reminds me of how I managed to get through that terrible time. I am awesome for making it through that semester without losing it, and it's all thanks to this song!" or "wow, this song reminds me of that tough time. Things are SO MUCH better now, and this song is still good!")

I'm sure my cheesy statements will need to be changed a bit for you, since I'm exaggerating, but the point is that the key is what you decide the songs mean. If you decide they represent that event, you have a problem. If you decide they represent you, your resilience, the things that kept you going, or the fact that you're now doing so much better, then they can be symbols of your strength or something you can freshly enjoy. To reclaim the song, it takes listening to it once or twice with the right attitude, and sure, that first time will be a bit tough as some memories come flooding back. But are the memories and the song the same thing? Or are the memories far behind you, while you're taking the song with you as you now head into the future?
posted by salvia at 12:59 AM on November 13, 2009

Ditto porn in the woods. I listened to "Painted from Memory" and Nina Simone way too much right after my divorce (sheesh, does that sound clichéd or what?), and imagined I'd never be able to listen to them in the future without feeling pangs.

I was wrong. You get over these things, and you dissociate the music from the painful memory it was the soundtrack to.
posted by adamrice at 7:36 AM on November 13, 2009

Your results may vary but: If it really matters that much that you are able to pull this music back into your life, then oversaturate yourself it. Listen to it, on repeat, over and over and over again. For me it's always been pure numbers. Yes, my ex-and I sang along to this song together 100 times, but I listened to it 200 times while doing the dishes. Even if you do break down the first time, your mind won't let you break down every time... I always thought of it as reclaiming it for myself.
posted by citywolf at 8:07 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

This happens to me, too. Once I listened to a new favorite album over and over during what turned out to be an unexpectedly painful time, and I didn't want to have to not ever listen to that album again. So I made myself keep listening to it from time to time until the associations were broken down; now when songs from it come up on my iPod I still sometimes am reminded of that time (not always) but it doesn't trigger the big rush of bad feelings.
posted by not that girl at 8:24 AM on November 13, 2009

Not sure if this will work, but maybe you can try watching the videos for these songs (if you haven't already) to help provide at least some alternate imagery for them.
posted by orme at 8:38 AM on November 13, 2009

Hi, anon - there's lots of good advice above, but I figured I'd chime in with a contrarian view. Depending on the circumstances of the memory/attachment formation, I'm not sure you *can* dissociate it the way you want to. And of course people are all different, YMMV, etc.

But: there's a particular album that I can't listen to because of the circumstances where I heard it last - and it's been close to 30 years now. (Well, OK, it's embarrassing, but- I was a teenager, had been up all night taking caffeine pills, a lot of them. So much so that I was awake, and sick to my stomach, the whole next day. I kept listening to The Eagles Greatest Hits, over and over, thinking it'd soothe me to sleep, or something. It didn't- maybe it made it worse! - and now I couldn't listen to it even if I wanted to. Or take No-Doz, EVAR...)

Less ridiculously, there's a lot of music that takes me strongly back to some bittersweet stuff that happened around that same time. Decades later, there's a fairly long list of songs that will make me cry, reliably, because of that. But maybe that's different- I don't mind it that much, because there was definitely sweet mixed in w/ the bitter. But in the future you, too might not mind the memory/association so much, you might even like it some.

But my real point is- it's no big deal, because there's SO MUCH MORE great music out there. So, so, so much stuff you've never heard, a lifetime's not nearly enough to get to it all. My advice, for the time being: look at a bunch of the AskMe threads tagged 'music', the ones where people ask for recommendations, and start listening to some stuff that's new to you. You could have 10 new favorite songs this time tomorrow, and never have to worry about the old stuff.
posted by hap_hazard at 3:08 PM on November 13, 2009

Old thread, this happens to me all the time and it happen today when listening to a song that I listened to a lot during my separation/divorce. I actually listened to the entire album almost everyday, it help me get through the hard times. Now if I listen to any of the songs from that band, I think about her and the pain/emotions that I had at the time. It practically transports me back to that time, I can even see myself in my old house listening to the song. I guess I need more time to heal, so that band/album is staying off my playlist for awhile. I may always associate that band though. Till this day, one song transports me back to my first girlfriend, my first broken heart. Music is powerful....

Wish I could erase my memory of certain things... wouldn't that be nice :P
posted by cm0007 at 9:04 AM on July 19, 2010