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Post by _ on Jul 9, 2016 8:52:17 GMT -6
In your experience, both personally and by observing others, are there any correlations with or causes of poor health* unique to the metal community**? If not unique, than anything more salient or more complex compared to any similar factors that influence the health of those not associated with metal?
The World Health Organization describes the social determinants of health as: "The social determinants of health are the circumstances in which people are born, grow up, live, work and age, and the systems put in place to deal with illness. These circumstances are in turn shaped by a wider set of forces: economics, social policies, and politics." (http://www.who.int/social_determinants/thecommission/finalreport/key_concepts/en/) I am wondering if you feel that the aspect of your life that is involved with metal might be considered a determinant of your health.
Please let me know your thoughts. Please also let me know if I can clarify the questions. Thanks all.
*a broad view of health including physical, mental, and emotional health; one that recognizes the biopsychosocial model of health/illness **whichever subculture of the metal community with which you identify ... I know the hardcore genre is obviously a completely different psychosocial milieu than the black metal genre, for example -- please speak to your experience!
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Post by Thomas Eversole on Jul 9, 2016 13:00:06 GMT -6
Nice topic!
Obviously I want to remark on being a metal musician and personally struggling with alcoholism and cancer. ...but I think those things could have happened if my preference of music was rap or country instead.
Googling "metal music mental illness" yields some interesting articles... I think there is some correlation with depression and extreme music, but it's chicken/egg to me.
Does metal make someone depressed? Or does depression make someone want to listen to metal?
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Jul 10, 2016 0:00:50 GMT -6
I have definitely heard music that actively made me depressed. I'm not just talking about music which is supposed to be depressing, but music that's just somehow emotionally painful to listen to, despite the song clearly trying to be something else. This was extremely common when I listened to more music in the secular scene.
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Post by Thomas Eversole on Jul 12, 2016 9:09:03 GMT -6
Warbound, is there a particular catalyst that made you start this topic?
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Post by barabbas on Jul 12, 2016 22:26:03 GMT -6
I agree with Thomas that it would be very difficult to determine just from a correlation which direction the causation runs. Worse: it could run both ways. Depressed people might listen to metal and metal might make people depressed.
It does seem that there may be a kind of stigma or stereotype associated with listening to metal. But that has to do with how metalheads are perceived by others and not so much the effects on their health per se.
All of that is a long-winded way of saying: I have no idea! But I'd really like to know the answer!
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Post by _ on Jul 17, 2016 14:24:52 GMT -6
Awesome thoughts, all!
Discerning the relationship of correlation/causation is probably a bit too difficult without some solid research studies. (Thomas, did you turn up anything interesting when you searched for articles?) Nevertheless, I think it is reasonable to suggest a relationship based on your individual experience and confidence: NI, I can say with confidence that I too have been actively depressed by certain music. Of course the complexity is still there (e.g., was I feeling just as depressed before but the music help me to discover this reality?), but I think it is definitely reasonable to classify that music listening experience as a stimulus of depression.
Thomas, were there any aspects of your health struggles that you felt like we influenced by the metal musician aspect of your identity?
I wonder if there are certain values and attitudes that are more common to metal than non-metal. If so, I wonder how those values/attitudes affect health in terms of health-seeking behavior. This spin on the question might be associated with Barabbas' note about stigma. I'm not suggesting this to the be case - and I can say that I have not felt this way - but an example might be this: a lot of Christian hardcore/metalcore has combative lyrics (e.g., keep fighting, don't give in, battle, stand your ground) ... might this reinforce tendencies to try to work through a mental illness alone rather than seek help from a professional?
Thomas, the catalyst for this topic is my desire to understand how social forces affect health. Metal is awesome and I'd like to better understand how, if indeed at all, it influences health/well-being. Relatedly, I am interested in the relationship between structural constraints and personal agency: so, as this cool dude named Paul Farmer has written, "How do life conditions restrict any individual's capacity to make choices?" Does being involved in metal (e.g., as a musician, as an avid listener, as an aspect of one's self-proclaimed identity, as an aspect of one's socially-determined stereotype) affect the ability for one to make the choices one wants to make?
(Shout out to archdukeofmetal: I listened/enjoyed Bleak Harvest's EP while thinking/writing here.)
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Post by Thomas Eversole on Jul 17, 2016 16:44:25 GMT -6
Thomas, were there any aspects of your health struggles that you felt like we influenced by the metal musician aspect of your identity? Now that I think about it, there is something I can say yes to. Again, not alcoholism or cancer, I'm convinced those would have happened if polka was my jam. Before then, back between my junior year of high school to my second year of college... I don't think I considered myself to be antisocial purist, but I had a very mild misanthropic mindset. ...to things "mainstream". (LOL lots of m's) While everyone else after class was hanging out or partying or whatever, I retreated to my dark bedroom and played guitar by myself. I was definitely a loner. Obviously I developed my music writing skills during this period. Before I wrote for GRIM, I played by ear to Antestor, Extol, Kekal, Paramæcium, Schaliach, Mortification, Crimson Thorn... to name a few... Long story short, my reluctance to chill with friends left me in my own environment. Since that environment was metal, the rest is history. Here's a question I want to ask... Would those church burnings in Norway have occurred without black metal? I personally don't think so. While I'd argue black metal didn't make anyone do anything, I think the dark mindset created black metal, which helped fuel these acts. Sort of like throwing a lit match on gasoline and then throwing a Molotov Cocktail on top of that.
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Post by _ on Jan 9, 2018 16:12:36 GMT -6
I'll always welcome more thoughts on this.
(I found this thread while searching for another thread I was unsuccessful finding.)
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Post by _ on Jul 7, 2018 8:15:38 GMT -6
^due to an unexpectedly high volume of responses, I am extending the "always" timeframe to include the remainder of this year.
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Post by jazzhead on Jul 7, 2018 11:24:43 GMT -6
This is a great topic ~ lengthy response forthcoming...
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Post by jazzhead on Jul 8, 2018 7:56:00 GMT -6
Growing up, I didn't have many friends - a few for sure, but not many. Music was always my friend. It never disappointed me, or didn't want to hang out with me. It was always there - and still is. Started in elementary school with KISS and Zeppelin, etc. but as I got older, my interests got heavier, and darker. In high school, I was the long-haired guy in the sleeveless denim jacket with the big Motorhead Iron Fist patch on the back who always ate lunch alone. That music helped channel my teenage angst and aggression and gave it an outlet. Nobody understood me, but that was OK - because Lemmy did. Fast forward a few decades... When my wife was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, I started a long slow slide into depression and despair - as you can imagine. When I was caring for her 24/7 the last 6 months of her life, I was listening to a lot of stuff like Serpentine Path, Leviathan, Xasthur, Inverloch, etc. I loved the really slow tempo drone/doom stuff, like you're swimming through mud - because that's exactly how I felt. Everything was in slow motion, and the weight of the world was burying me. I wrapped myself in that dark, heavy music like a warm blanket. It was comforting. I identified with Leviathan/Wrest a lot, because he had gone through the same thing I was at the time. His girlfriend was diagnosed, but she ended up taking her own life before the cancer could. My wife was incapable of taking her own life at that point, and I couldn't do it, although I certainly wished I could at times. If we didn't have any kids, I probably would have ended her life and taken my own. So my kids kept me alive, and the music kept me going through a horrible and brutally painful time. After the cancer finally took her, I still loved the comfort of black and doom music, but the anger and aggression of stuff like Pig Destroyer - especially the Book Burner CD - helped me channel the rage and frustration I was feeling at my situation. That's when God showed up. I know now He was there all along, but I was too blind to see Him. He answered a prayer, my eyes were opened, and my new life began. (That's a whole other story. Maybe someday I will share my testimony here, but it would take hours to write it all out.) A co-worker had given me an Impending Doom CD and told me they were a Christian band, and that started my journey into discovering how far Christian Metal had come since I last listened to it in the 80's. I still love the slow doom and dark, bleak, melancholy, ambient/atmospheric black sound, but now it gives me hope and comfort in a different way. Hope for, and comfort in, my salvation. Christian Metal has absolutely improved my mental health! (Thank you Thomas Eversole, vialsofwrath, TIMŌRĀTUS, and many others here!) Personally, I've always felt like I choose music based upon my mood or mental state at the time. Music can certainly enhance that state, but for me, I don't feel it ever created that state. I seem to use it as a tool to manage that state. Maybe the churches in Norway would not have been targeted without black metal, but something else would have been destroyed, or at least vandalized. Like the trial back in the 8o's where they tried to pin some guy's suicide on an Ozzy album - that guy was messed up long before he put that album on. The music didn't make him do it. So, long story short: to answer your question _, I feel that metal is not a determinant of my health, but rather it is a reflection, manifestation, or result of my health. Now, I need some more coffee... [coffee] BTW - If I could find Christian music that sounds like this, I'd be pretty happy:
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Jul 8, 2018 11:19:56 GMT -6
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Post by barabbas on Jul 8, 2018 15:38:17 GMT -6
Perhaps another band in that vicinity would be Barabbas (from Germany, not France). (No relation - ha!)
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Post by _ on Jul 23, 2018 0:42:02 GMT -6
jazzhead thanks for writing, dawg. I read and apprecoated your post on the dat you wrote it. I sometimes do this thing where I feel like I need more time to adequately respond to a thoughtful post here and then I put it on my to-dos and then I put it on there again and again until i feel bad that it's been ages and then I respond not in as much depth as I originally had hopes. ANYWAYS, thanks for posting I feel all that you've said and your conclusion that music doesnt create a mood and isn't really itself causative of anything really so it is not a determinant. I also use music as a management tool; certainly I did in the depths of my depression (Virgin Black, Maugrim, Ancient Plague, Bleak Harvest, Hated). On TBL's Virgin Black thread, I actually posted how I wouldn't share their music with another depressed person or inclined-to-be-depressed person because it is so incredibly dark and I would fear for its effects on them. Well, I no longer feel that way. I've been meaning to get to that thread and say that for a while.
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