HuskyD'hiver
Je meurs chaque jour...
- Oct 14, 2023
- 47
I've spent hours scrolling through the comments of the Radiohead song: 'How to Disappear Completely' off of the album Kid A (I know, I'm a depressed virgin who likes to nerd out about Radiohead); what I find it so incredible about it though, is how so many people can be touched in so many different ways by the same song. I feel like I should give my experience with this song as well:
Sorry in advance that it's extremely long and that this may be in the wrong discussing board, I write way too much yet don't know what to do with it; also major content warning for very gory descriptions of self-harm and swearing.
I first got into Radiohead about 3 years ago, funny enough through a meme of Paranoid Android in the Mario 64 sound font, by on4word (I also highly recommend for every fan of Radiohead to look up their remixes, they are awesome). Even though it was a meme, I felt this raw, joyful feeling from this song and I wanted to listen to the real version so badly. I searched up the song title and found it was by Radiohead, which after some digging through their discography, I had listened to in the past because they made Karma Police and Creep. I started listening to OK Computer and I fell in love with the album and would listen to the whole album several times a day.
Right around this time, I had just gotten diagnosed with ADD, which as a high schooler who was in advanced classes, put more stress on me. At that time I had been getting progressively worse brake downs because I felt like I was failing at school (I've had this problem since I as long as I can remember), which I wasn't failing, but getting lower grades then I aimed for put a serious damper in my stability, building up anxiety. These frequent breakdowns were really stressful for my family who were going through their own problems as well.
This anxiety and unmanageable stress sent me into a serious depression, one that I hadn't felt since I was suicidally depressed when I was bullied in elementary. I had suffered from depressive thoughts since I first became depressed; I've had my good times where I would have weeks without any bad thoughts, and it's low where I would hate myself intensely and contemplate hurting myself or CTBing, but I had always pushed through and never did anything. I could rationalize that it would only be worse to hurt myself because it would just have consequences later and if I did CTB then it would hurt my family, which I could not even imagine doing. My depression became increasingly worse though and I just tried to push through it, scraping by with getting schoolwork done and just trying to have a surface level positivity and pushing my painful emotions down, making myself emotionless over time.
After listening to OK Computer for so long, I watched some videos about Radiohead and learned of the other famous albums, but the one that jumped out to me was Kid A. I like alternative music, so I thought I would give it a shot; which I soon regretted as at first I didn't like the songs. But as I pushed through the first three, slowly beginning to like them; 'How to Disappear Completely' plays. I am so drawn in by the beauty and serenity of it; the lushness of the distant, droning strings; the intense and rhythmic drums; the soft and majestic base; the uplifting, yet melancholic acoustic; and Thom Yorke's incredible singing, his voice reaching out of the music to give hope to the overwhelming Instruments. This song is so creative and almost angelic and learning more about the process of making it, I just fell head over heels for this song. I listened through the rest of Kid A and despite my first impression, I love this album, even if I may prefer The Bends, OK Computer, or Moon Shaped Pool in their own ways, the imaginary story of Kid A and it's divinity makes it extra special to me much in the same indescribable way my favorite Radiohead album In Rainbows does. Even if Kid A is not my favorite Radiohead album, this album means more to me than I can begin to describe. 'How to Disappear Completely' was by far my favorite track from this album, but I enjoy other songs like 'Optimistic', 'Everything In Its Right Place', and 'Morning Bell' a lot as well; 'How to Disappear Completely' to me, as with many others, I feel a deeper connection to. I know all of that may sound ludicrous, but I know many others who love this song can understand my feelings.
When I first started listening to Kid A, I began a serious downward spiral into depression. My intrusive thoughts of self-hatred and CTBing became more prominent and vivid. I felt as if sometimes I wanted to rip my body into pieces, pull my skin off, tear out my eyes, tear my limbs off, slash my organs and a knife through my brain. It was gruesome and vivid given my strong imagination. I felt like I couldn't control myself, much like with many other times in my life, but that unbalance would go away after giving time to calm down, but this persisted and never left me. Any down moment, I felt this excruciating pain in my mind to just end everything there and then; but I stopped myself before I could do anything. I would try everything to ignore these feelings, to ball them up and focus on something else, especially on the homework that I needed to do, but everytime I did, it felt like all of my thoughts would pile on top of each other and I couldn't even think, it would just be then aggravating infinite dogpile that I couldn't break through; the only thing that broke through were my intrusive thoughts.
A good analogy for this experience would be a line I use in my signature of my profile. It is not from 'How to Disappear Completely', but instead from 'Everything In Its Right Place', in which is the line: "There are two colours in my head"; this encapsulates my thinking perfectly. These work like an image, or a spectrum, where you can see the colours of my brain. Whenever I was not overwhelmed, I felt like I was in my first "colour", or headspace, which was the normal feelings and thoughts of my life, all defined in their spots, they would mingle and mix together, but it all felt faded, dull, and washed out in a way. It felt like I would only use this headspace when I would be interacting with others, as a shell to hide my true feelings, as a way to protect others. I care more for others than myself, I still do now; I would put my life on the line to save someone else's, so having this shell to protect others from having to feel my pain was a way to make it seem like I would be okay to everyone else. But this headspace would be very dull and even though I had times that I felt happy, it would be faded so that it wasn't true in a way. Then, was the other "colour", chaos. This felt like a void of rapidly changing colours and sounds of my thoughts and feelings, with no beginning or end in my mind, all of it constantly berating me. I felt vulnerable and horrible, I felt as if this was truly me and that I was so wrong that I was hurting everyone around me just by being around them. I hated every part of my being, wishing I had not been born so that I never would hurt anyone around me, especially the ones I love; I thought about CTBing everyday and all of the gruesome ways that I deserved to CTB, but I never did it because it would hurt family and friends the most to CTB. That was until a point where everything went off the rails.
I don't even remember those days, I guess my memory has blocked it out for being so traumatic, but I remember 3 things. 1. Was arguing with my family, for maybe an hour at a time, seeing them crying and screaming, me crying and screaming, and just exploding at each other. After that would happen I would usually go to my room and be attacked with thoughts of me CTB, which I responded to by hitting myself in the end, or biting myself, or being close to cutting myself (which luckily I still never have), all just to release my anger in a futile attempt to end my pain. 2. After one very bad argument, which shook me up so bad, I was inches away from plunging a knife into my heart; as well as hitting myself in the head a lot. I just wanted to smash my head into a corner and die; stab my guts out and die; jump off a roof and die; rip my skin off and die; put a thousand bullets through my brain and die; but, I stopped just before I stabbed myself because I used my last ounce of strength to tell myself that CTBing would be more painful to my family then anything else in the world. So I put the knife down, cried, talked to my mom who was so angry that I don't even think she noticed I said I tried to stab myself the first time I said it. 3. I went upstairs, ignoring my mom telling me to get back downstairs and I went to go cry and think horrible thoughts, but I instead layed down and got this tune stuck in my head, I thought to ignore it and let my bad headspace take full control, but this song push through; it was 'How to Disappear Completely'.
I felt this urge to listen to it, not just that annoying earworm problem that everyone gets, but instead an visceral feeling to listen to 'How to Disappear Completely'. I pulled out my phone, put on my headphones, and laid down in my pitch black room and listened. I normally hate being in dark places because I have this irrational fear of things hiding in the dark out to get me, but instead I felt this uplifting emotion that transported me to my own safe space. I remember using this self defence mechanism when I was scared when I was really young, to put myself in a box with items that I felt would protect me from whatever was trying to take me and that the room would shrink or grow to force away the creatures. I would begin to feel the room float into the sky, which happened many times when listening to emotionally potent music. Yet, I was not at peace; all of my thoughts began to race during the beginning, all overlapping each other and trying to be the loudest; until…
I felt this overwhelming feeling of calm, as if I began to ascend away from life itself and transition to a higher plane of existence. I felt at peace with the world and with myself; I heard none of my thoughts overlapping each other, just this moment of tranquility that everything would end in a good result. I then thought of the title of the song and this realization set it to me; I finally began to disappear from existence. This otherworldly feeling of serenity to finally leave in peace, to leave behind no sadness and despair for my loved one; just to be free and gone. All of these feelings accompanied the music, its soft tones and overwhelming walls of instrumentation all collapsed into one beautiful piece from the heavens; a moment of true nirvana and shedding of my worries. The crooning words came into my mind, all at once, yet stood alone. This is truly indescribable for me as it was something that I felt like it was in another existence that is incomprehensible to us. I'm sure many of us have had that experience, not of lucid dreaming, or of ego-death, but some third realization of ourselves, that is only in that moment and is but a fleeting memory; an ash flying in the wind from the fire of our souls. A true moment of humanity that makes us realize some unknown truth that we will never utter again and will be lost to time in its detail. Yet, it will remain as a core memory of our life, to keep us wanting more of it, but with us knowing that it will never be found again; and that's fine…
This album and especially this song have such an important place in my soul because of the place in life that I was when first listening to it. I wanted to tell this story for years, but after trying to write about it for so long and trying to formulate into words how this song makes me feel; I still think it's impossible to describe just how it makes me feel. I was in one of the darkest places of my life, wanting to be gone from this world and this song helped me feel the closest I will ever be to being gone; yet, it also helped me put into ideas to how I felt and helped me along to get out my sorrows and to try and do better for those I care for. Even though I may still wish for this feeling of being gone, I know I can always come back to this song to reconnect with a little bit of that feeling. This will always remain my favorite song by Radiohead because of my emotional attachment and I hope that this song truly does mean as much to others as it does to me.
Sorry in advance that it's extremely long and that this may be in the wrong discussing board, I write way too much yet don't know what to do with it; also major content warning for very gory descriptions of self-harm and swearing.
I first got into Radiohead about 3 years ago, funny enough through a meme of Paranoid Android in the Mario 64 sound font, by on4word (I also highly recommend for every fan of Radiohead to look up their remixes, they are awesome). Even though it was a meme, I felt this raw, joyful feeling from this song and I wanted to listen to the real version so badly. I searched up the song title and found it was by Radiohead, which after some digging through their discography, I had listened to in the past because they made Karma Police and Creep. I started listening to OK Computer and I fell in love with the album and would listen to the whole album several times a day.
Right around this time, I had just gotten diagnosed with ADD, which as a high schooler who was in advanced classes, put more stress on me. At that time I had been getting progressively worse brake downs because I felt like I was failing at school (I've had this problem since I as long as I can remember), which I wasn't failing, but getting lower grades then I aimed for put a serious damper in my stability, building up anxiety. These frequent breakdowns were really stressful for my family who were going through their own problems as well.
This anxiety and unmanageable stress sent me into a serious depression, one that I hadn't felt since I was suicidally depressed when I was bullied in elementary. I had suffered from depressive thoughts since I first became depressed; I've had my good times where I would have weeks without any bad thoughts, and it's low where I would hate myself intensely and contemplate hurting myself or CTBing, but I had always pushed through and never did anything. I could rationalize that it would only be worse to hurt myself because it would just have consequences later and if I did CTB then it would hurt my family, which I could not even imagine doing. My depression became increasingly worse though and I just tried to push through it, scraping by with getting schoolwork done and just trying to have a surface level positivity and pushing my painful emotions down, making myself emotionless over time.
After listening to OK Computer for so long, I watched some videos about Radiohead and learned of the other famous albums, but the one that jumped out to me was Kid A. I like alternative music, so I thought I would give it a shot; which I soon regretted as at first I didn't like the songs. But as I pushed through the first three, slowly beginning to like them; 'How to Disappear Completely' plays. I am so drawn in by the beauty and serenity of it; the lushness of the distant, droning strings; the intense and rhythmic drums; the soft and majestic base; the uplifting, yet melancholic acoustic; and Thom Yorke's incredible singing, his voice reaching out of the music to give hope to the overwhelming Instruments. This song is so creative and almost angelic and learning more about the process of making it, I just fell head over heels for this song. I listened through the rest of Kid A and despite my first impression, I love this album, even if I may prefer The Bends, OK Computer, or Moon Shaped Pool in their own ways, the imaginary story of Kid A and it's divinity makes it extra special to me much in the same indescribable way my favorite Radiohead album In Rainbows does. Even if Kid A is not my favorite Radiohead album, this album means more to me than I can begin to describe. 'How to Disappear Completely' was by far my favorite track from this album, but I enjoy other songs like 'Optimistic', 'Everything In Its Right Place', and 'Morning Bell' a lot as well; 'How to Disappear Completely' to me, as with many others, I feel a deeper connection to. I know all of that may sound ludicrous, but I know many others who love this song can understand my feelings.
When I first started listening to Kid A, I began a serious downward spiral into depression. My intrusive thoughts of self-hatred and CTBing became more prominent and vivid. I felt as if sometimes I wanted to rip my body into pieces, pull my skin off, tear out my eyes, tear my limbs off, slash my organs and a knife through my brain. It was gruesome and vivid given my strong imagination. I felt like I couldn't control myself, much like with many other times in my life, but that unbalance would go away after giving time to calm down, but this persisted and never left me. Any down moment, I felt this excruciating pain in my mind to just end everything there and then; but I stopped myself before I could do anything. I would try everything to ignore these feelings, to ball them up and focus on something else, especially on the homework that I needed to do, but everytime I did, it felt like all of my thoughts would pile on top of each other and I couldn't even think, it would just be then aggravating infinite dogpile that I couldn't break through; the only thing that broke through were my intrusive thoughts.
A good analogy for this experience would be a line I use in my signature of my profile. It is not from 'How to Disappear Completely', but instead from 'Everything In Its Right Place', in which is the line: "There are two colours in my head"; this encapsulates my thinking perfectly. These work like an image, or a spectrum, where you can see the colours of my brain. Whenever I was not overwhelmed, I felt like I was in my first "colour", or headspace, which was the normal feelings and thoughts of my life, all defined in their spots, they would mingle and mix together, but it all felt faded, dull, and washed out in a way. It felt like I would only use this headspace when I would be interacting with others, as a shell to hide my true feelings, as a way to protect others. I care more for others than myself, I still do now; I would put my life on the line to save someone else's, so having this shell to protect others from having to feel my pain was a way to make it seem like I would be okay to everyone else. But this headspace would be very dull and even though I had times that I felt happy, it would be faded so that it wasn't true in a way. Then, was the other "colour", chaos. This felt like a void of rapidly changing colours and sounds of my thoughts and feelings, with no beginning or end in my mind, all of it constantly berating me. I felt vulnerable and horrible, I felt as if this was truly me and that I was so wrong that I was hurting everyone around me just by being around them. I hated every part of my being, wishing I had not been born so that I never would hurt anyone around me, especially the ones I love; I thought about CTBing everyday and all of the gruesome ways that I deserved to CTB, but I never did it because it would hurt family and friends the most to CTB. That was until a point where everything went off the rails.
I don't even remember those days, I guess my memory has blocked it out for being so traumatic, but I remember 3 things. 1. Was arguing with my family, for maybe an hour at a time, seeing them crying and screaming, me crying and screaming, and just exploding at each other. After that would happen I would usually go to my room and be attacked with thoughts of me CTB, which I responded to by hitting myself in the end, or biting myself, or being close to cutting myself (which luckily I still never have), all just to release my anger in a futile attempt to end my pain. 2. After one very bad argument, which shook me up so bad, I was inches away from plunging a knife into my heart; as well as hitting myself in the head a lot. I just wanted to smash my head into a corner and die; stab my guts out and die; jump off a roof and die; rip my skin off and die; put a thousand bullets through my brain and die; but, I stopped just before I stabbed myself because I used my last ounce of strength to tell myself that CTBing would be more painful to my family then anything else in the world. So I put the knife down, cried, talked to my mom who was so angry that I don't even think she noticed I said I tried to stab myself the first time I said it. 3. I went upstairs, ignoring my mom telling me to get back downstairs and I went to go cry and think horrible thoughts, but I instead layed down and got this tune stuck in my head, I thought to ignore it and let my bad headspace take full control, but this song push through; it was 'How to Disappear Completely'.
I felt this urge to listen to it, not just that annoying earworm problem that everyone gets, but instead an visceral feeling to listen to 'How to Disappear Completely'. I pulled out my phone, put on my headphones, and laid down in my pitch black room and listened. I normally hate being in dark places because I have this irrational fear of things hiding in the dark out to get me, but instead I felt this uplifting emotion that transported me to my own safe space. I remember using this self defence mechanism when I was scared when I was really young, to put myself in a box with items that I felt would protect me from whatever was trying to take me and that the room would shrink or grow to force away the creatures. I would begin to feel the room float into the sky, which happened many times when listening to emotionally potent music. Yet, I was not at peace; all of my thoughts began to race during the beginning, all overlapping each other and trying to be the loudest; until…
I felt this overwhelming feeling of calm, as if I began to ascend away from life itself and transition to a higher plane of existence. I felt at peace with the world and with myself; I heard none of my thoughts overlapping each other, just this moment of tranquility that everything would end in a good result. I then thought of the title of the song and this realization set it to me; I finally began to disappear from existence. This otherworldly feeling of serenity to finally leave in peace, to leave behind no sadness and despair for my loved one; just to be free and gone. All of these feelings accompanied the music, its soft tones and overwhelming walls of instrumentation all collapsed into one beautiful piece from the heavens; a moment of true nirvana and shedding of my worries. The crooning words came into my mind, all at once, yet stood alone. This is truly indescribable for me as it was something that I felt like it was in another existence that is incomprehensible to us. I'm sure many of us have had that experience, not of lucid dreaming, or of ego-death, but some third realization of ourselves, that is only in that moment and is but a fleeting memory; an ash flying in the wind from the fire of our souls. A true moment of humanity that makes us realize some unknown truth that we will never utter again and will be lost to time in its detail. Yet, it will remain as a core memory of our life, to keep us wanting more of it, but with us knowing that it will never be found again; and that's fine…
This album and especially this song have such an important place in my soul because of the place in life that I was when first listening to it. I wanted to tell this story for years, but after trying to write about it for so long and trying to formulate into words how this song makes me feel; I still think it's impossible to describe just how it makes me feel. I was in one of the darkest places of my life, wanting to be gone from this world and this song helped me feel the closest I will ever be to being gone; yet, it also helped me put into ideas to how I felt and helped me along to get out my sorrows and to try and do better for those I care for. Even though I may still wish for this feeling of being gone, I know I can always come back to this song to reconnect with a little bit of that feeling. This will always remain my favorite song by Radiohead because of my emotional attachment and I hope that this song truly does mean as much to others as it does to me.
