Music has been important to me for a long time. When I hear oldies, I think of my early childhood when I lived with my grandma and she would turn on the radio when she started cooking. When I hear reggae music, I think of my time growing up, I always knew it was cleaning day when I woke up and heard my mom blasting some Bob Marley through the speakers. I would tried to stay in my room as long as I could so my mom wouldn’t know I was awake. Otherwise it would be time to “Get Up, Stand Up” and clean up my room. There’s a lot of memories I have with music. When someone references a year, I think about albums that came out during that time. When I got into High School, I really started getting into music and finding artists that I really enjoyed. That’s when I found my favorite artist of all time, Scott Mescudi, AKA Kid Cudi, and I couldn’t have found his music at a more perfect time. Without his musical gift, I don’t know if I would still be breathing.
In my last article, “Kanye Is More of a Positive Influence Than You Think“, I talked about how Kanye West’s music helped me gain the motivation and self-confidence I needed to go out and get what I want. Before that, Kid Cudi’s music helped me crawl out of depression.
On September 3, 2011, after a day of drinking, my parents were in a car accident that took my mother’s vision from her left eye, and left her with serious brain trauma. She was in ICU for 2 weeks and rehab for another 2 weeks. During that time, she had to re-learn the alphabet, numbers, words, and she slowly regained her memory. The first time I went to visit her, she didn’t remember me. On October 3, 2011, she was cleared to come back home. However, the road to recovery wasn’t over. She still struggled with her memory and she suffered from severe migraines for the next year. My father, a veteran diagnosed with PTSD, suffered from a terrible amount of guilt because he was the driver, and began drinking heavily. He left the house a lot and my mom would go looking for him. This led to times where I felt I was the one taking care of my siblings.
A year later, when things got more stable at home, I didn’t have to worry about my siblings’ safety anymore. Then I saw that the car accident had affected me in more ways than I thought. I felt guilty for not trying to keep my parents at home. On the day of the accident, I knew they were drinking and I didn’t try to stop them. For a long time, I beat myself up over it. For a long time I wished I had done something to make them stay. For a long time I thought that maybe if I had said something, things would have turned out differently. I had nightmares about the moment my mom didn’t recognize me. Other nights, I had nightmares about the moment the hospital called me and told me that my mom was hurt. Then I would feel the pain all over again. There was a time when I didn’t sleep at all for a couple of days because I was too afraid of my dreams.
There were so many times that I didn’t even want to be in this world anymore. I wanted to give up so badly. During those times, I would blast Cudi’s music through my headphones. Songs like “All Along“, “These Worries“, “Sky Might Fall“, “Soundtrack 2 My Life” would let me know that I wasn’t alone. Songs like “Ghost!“, “Up Up & Away“, “Cudi Zone“, and “Heart of a Lion” would let me know that things would get better. His music was just something out of this world. In his songs, he spoke about night terrors, depression and thoughts of suicide in a way that was so honest and vulnerable. It almost felt like he was talking to me. His music has helped me and many, many others through a lot of pain. His words have helped me so much that I have gotten them tattooed into my skin. So, I was in a bit of shock Wednesday morning Oct. 5 when I saw his latest post on Facebook. On Oct. 4, Cudi put out a letter to his fans announcing that he had checked into rehab for depression and suicidal urges.
The letter, while expressing deep honesty which is normal from Cudi, also serves as another point of proof for a bigger problem – the way we view mental illness. Every word in Cudi’s letter perfectly describes the same pain he helped me heal from. He perfectly describes what it is to be depressed all the way from the hellish longing for peace “I deserve to have peace. I deserve to be happy and smiling”, to the anxiety “I never leave the house because of it. I cant make new friends because of it. I dont trust anyone because of it”, and the shame “I am sorry if I let anyone down. I really am sorry”. As heart-breaking as it is to know that someone who has helped so many people deal with depression is still suffering, it’s even worse to see that he feels the need to apologize. This is common among many people that suffer from mental illnesses. The fact that people are ashamed to find help speaks volumes about the way we view mental illness. People are afraid to admit that they have a problem because they are afraid of being ostracized and ridiculed. People don’t want to be told that their pain isn’t real or that they’re just being emotional. I remember not being able to understand what I was going through because I thought I was just being weak. It’s hard to admit that you have a problem.
Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston, has spent years studying Shame. In a TED talk from 2012, she says “Shame is a focus on self. Shame is ‘I am bad.'” So many people are ashamed because of their illnesses because they know some people will dismiss their pain as weakness. No one wants to accept the fact that our world is broken. People are hurt. Brené Brown also says, “If we’re going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy, because empathy’s the antidote to shame.” We need to accept that we have problems and we need to help each other heal. We need to start understanding each other.
“But toward the end of our first ten years into the millennium we heard a voice
A voice who was speaking to us from the underground for some time
A voice who spoke of vulnerabilities and other human emotions
And issues never before heard so vividly and honest
This is the story of a young man who not only believed in himself, but his dreams too
This is the story of the Man On The Moon” – Kid Cudi (ft Common – Narrator) – In My Dreams
Kid Cudi’s music has always been so honest and real. That’s what has given him one of the most loyal fan bases ever. He has been a voice for many people that couldn’t understand their own pain. His letter to his fans isn’t the first attempt to bring light to Mental Health issues, and it won’t be the last. Hopefully, It will be a great step towards understanding mental illness. His letter has already opened the door for conversation about depression on twitter. While he is dealing with his own personal struggles, he has proven again that he is a “Lord of the Sad and Lonely.”
#CudLife
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