I don’t need to tell you that the global COVID-19 pandemic has radically altered our lives. We’ve all been experiencing it for nearly two months now, and our collective psychological trauma has led to a mental health crisis rivaling the devastation of the virus itself. Many are experiencing intense levels of distress unlike anything they’ve ever known, and they don’t have the tools the tolerate it.
For many who’ve experienced life-altering trauma prior to the pandemic, including me, skills we learned through years of therapy are proving useful in this current crisis. I live with borderline personality disorder, which recent research suggests is closely related to, if not synonymous with, complex PTSD. In these disorders, years of successive traumas accumulate and wire the brain for extreme emotional reactions that are difficult to regulate. Often they are so extreme that regulation seems downright impossible. A type of treatment known as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is often practiced with those who’ve experienced significant trauma; it teaches skills to tolerate distress and regulate out of control emotions.
I often turn to a seven-part skill called IMPROVE the Moment. Each letter of “IMPROVE” gives us a tool to use when emotions are spinning out of control. These are the emotions that often lead us to do things we will later regret, like compulsively consume foods and substances that damage our bodies, shout at a loved one, or impulsively buy something we can’t afford. The reason I find the “IMPROVE” skill so helpful is that, as a musician, I can find a piece of music to play or listen to for each one of these letters:
IMAGERY: Call to mind images that are soothing.
MEANING: Look for meaning in difficult situations.
PRAYER: Speak to God or a higher power, or find connection to something greater than yourself.
RELAXATION: Calm your body and your mind.
ONE THING IN THE MOMENT: Be present only with this moment–not the past, where there is depression, and not the future, where there is anxiety.
VACATION: Physically go to a different location, or take a vacation in your mind.
ENCOURAGEMENT: Be your own cheerleader. Find ways to validate yourself.
Musical connections for some of these are more obvious than others, and how I find meaning or self-encouragement through music may not be helpful for all readers. So for today I’m going to start with imagery and one thing in the moment, which I think are great starting points for the IMPROVE skill, and easily applicable to music. I’ll provide a personal example which may resonate with some of you.
Many of my most distressing emotions come in “the wee small hours.” I wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 am, and for reasons I can’t quite explain, the worries of the day past and the day to come feel like too much. There is often an existential element to this as well, where dread or hopelessness may enter. Add to that the thought of “I’ll never get back to sleep, and then tomorrow will be horrible,” and it’s an ugly scene.
But if I listen to certain pieces of music, and I mean really listen to them, I find I can tolerate the distress when I listen with the goal of one thing in the moment. I don’t turn on music to create soothing background noise, but with the intention of paying attention to every note, every phrase, every nuance of the music until it is finished. And I find that when I can listen to a piece that encourages imagery, it is easier to remain in the moment. As I pianist, I love Chopin and Debussy for overnight distress tolerance, because Chopin’s nocturnes or Debussy’s famous Claire De Lune beckon me to imagine a night very different from the one I am experiencing: calm, pensive, and while not free of melancholy, nonetheless peaceful.
I hope these pieces are helpful for you, and that my descriptions of imagery and one thing in the moment call to mind more music you enjoy and could listen to when in distress.
(And yes, I realize I’m making a bold move posting one of my recordings alongside Lang Lang! There’s my “self-encouragement!”)
Be well, everybody!
Brian De Young 