How Music Held Me When Nothing Else Could

Music has always been more than background noise to me.

It has been the one constant thread that followed me through every version of myself. I don’t say that in a poetic way. I say it in the most literal way possible. There were days when music was the only thing that kept me tethered to this world, the only thing that made me feel something when everything else turned numb.

There are people who listen to music.

And then there are people who survive because of it.

I have always been the second kind.

I think about the person I was two years ago. The version of me who could not breathe right. The version who woke up with a stomach full of dread every morning and went to sleep hoping tomorrow would somehow feel different. Nothing did. I was in a place mentally that I never talk about lightly. A place where the weight in my chest felt permanent, heavy, dense, like a fog I could not fight through.

Back then I did not feel alive.

I felt like I was just existing in survival mode while the rest of the world kept moving.

Everyone around me seemed to have color while I felt drained of it.

But there were these moments.

Small.

Quiet.

Unplanned.

Moments where a song would come on and my entire body would go still. Not peaceful stillness. Not that kind. It was the kind that made me feel suspended. The kind where everything inside drops and sinks at the same time. It was the only time I could hear myself. The only time I could feel even a hint of something that felt human.

I did not even understand what I was longing for back then.

Maybe it was love.

Maybe it was worth.

Maybe it was proof that I was still here.

Or maybe it was the version of me I lost along the way.

But every time music hit the right place, something inside me opened.

It was small but real.

It was the first crack in the numbness.

It was the place where everything I was holding back tried to come up for air.

And even though it hurt, it also kept me going.

Music met me where people could not.

It never asked me to be strong.

It never asked me to pretend.

It never asked me to move faster than my body could.

It just sat with me.

Like a witness.

Like a voice that understood without needing any details.

When you are in that kind of darkness, you do not forget the things that kept you alive.

Even the tiny ones.

Especially the tiny ones.

I would sit in my room in the quiet and let music fill the space that words could not reach. I did not know why it mattered so much. I only knew that hearing the right notes or lyrics made me feel like I was being held. Not by a person. Not by hope. But by something that felt bigger than me.

Looking back now, I think music was the first place where my soul tried to rise again.

Even when I did not have the strength to rise with it.

Healing is weird like that.

It never starts when you expect it to.

And most of the time, it does not start with clarity or intention.

It starts with something gentle.

Something unexpected.

Something that sneaks in through the cracks you never noticed.

For me, that something was music.

As time passed, the same kinds of songs that once held me during the darkest moments became the soundtrack to my rebuilding. The melodies I once cried through became the sound of me learning how to breathe again. The sound of me finding pieces of myself I thought were gone forever.

And what hits me the hardest is this.

When I hear those familiar songs now, I still drop into stillness.

But it is not longing anymore.

It is gratitude.

It is peace.

It is presence.

It is me coming home to myself.

There is something powerful about that shift.

To listen to the same type of music that once held your grief and be able to feel gratitude instead.

To sit in the same stillness that once scared you and feel comfort in it now.

To look back at the version of you who barely held on and finally feel love for them instead of shame.

That is the thing about music.

It remembers who you were even when you forget.

It holds your story in ways your mind tries to erase.

It keeps pieces of you alive while you fight your way back to them.

And I know I am not the only one.

So many of us have those songs.

Those artists.

Those moments where a lyric hits the exact spot inside you that has been screaming for someone to hear it.

Music has a way of doing what people cannot.

It bypasses the mind and goes straight to the place where truth lives.

Some songs do not just get heard.

They get lived.

They get felt.

They get carried through every chapter of your story whether you realize it or not.

Music did not fix me.

It did not rescue me.

But it kept me connected long enough for me to rescue myself.

And in my opinion, that is what saving someone actually looks like.

I will always believe that certain music is not created for entertainment.

It is created for the people who need something to hold on to when nothing else makes sense.

The people who are surviving quietly.

The people who are rebuilding themselves piece by piece.

The people who are learning how to feel alive again.

Music is the reason I never fully disconnected from myself.

It is the reason I kept trying.

It is the reason I found my way home.

And every time those familiar songs come on now, I am reminded that I made it.

Not because everything is perfect.

Not because the pain never shows up.

But because I am no longer longing for a feeling to save me.

I am here.

Present.

Grounded.

Alive in ways I did not think were possible two years ago.

Music carried me when I could not carry myself.

And I will always be grateful for that.

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And before I end this, I want to honor something that matters to me.

Here are just a few of the artists who saved pieces of my soul in their own ways, through their own sound, in the moments I needed it most.

Sol Rising

John Pattern

EMBRZ

RÜFÜS DU SOL

Ben Böhmer

Matt Maeson

TWO LANES

John Paolo

Kygo

Trinix

NF

Tep No

Emmit Fenn

Jessie Murph

Zach Bryan

Gaullin

mgk

Papa Roach

I Prevail

Shinedown

Vance Joy

Shallou

Chris Koehn

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If anything in these words felt familiar, I hope you know you’re not alone. I share pieces of my story so the people who are quietly surviving can finally feel seen, understood, and a little less invisible in their own lives. Healing is messy. Slow. Human. And none of us are meant to do it without connection. Thank you for reading, for being here, and for walking your own path back home to yourself.

In gratitude and truth,

Lindsay Michele