uhh, yeah, metal, rock, punk rock, alt rock, thrash metal, metalcore - you know what? i’ll just call it all ‘metal’.

to say i liked metal was an understatement. i lived metal. i breathed metal.
it was as if i couldn’t live without it.

if i wanna clean the plates in the sink, i gotta listen to metal.
sweep? metal.
workout? metal.
relax? metal.

if i couldn’t listen to metal while working out,
then there’s no workout.
period.

but recently, i never felt the need to listen to loud music.
it’s surprising to me, because i have always relied on it.
but first, a bit of history:

i listened to my first linkin park song back in 2012.
i had this folder of music my friend gave me,
but i only listened to pitbull, usher and the likes.
there was an MP3 of “crawling” from linkin park’s “hybrid theory” album,
but i didn’t bother opening it.
i found the artwork too grim and depressing,
unlike pitbull’s “planet pit”,
which was red, and his face was on a woman’s upper body,
and her breasts were his sunglasses.
and i found it kinda funny.
you guys can look it up, i ain’t gonna put it up here lmao.

anyway, so one day, i was playing total overdose on my computer,
and my friend joined.
he selected all the music, added it to a playlist and shuffled.
(back then, i didn’t know it was possible.)

windows media player played some pop songs at first,
but then it played “crawling”.
and i was like, wait, this is good.
i don’t know about the lyrics, it’s just the scream and the brutal sounds.
it just made sense to me.

after my friend left,
i had to sift through all the songs in the folder
to find out the song i heard.
and i found it out.

i remember listening to crawling non-stop,
until i wanted more.
i knew linkin park was some kind of a band.

my father had a micromax back then,
and there was this app called mobogenie.
i don’t know if that still exists.
i don’t know why i even used it.
one could download apps, images, music, video - everything from it.

i searched for “linkin park”,
and a lot of songs came up.
but they were all 8 to 10 megabytes of size.
my father had an internet pack of 1 gb per month,
so i better be careful.

i found a song that was 3 megabytes.
that was “castle of glass” - my second linkin park song.

over the years, i accumulated a lot of linkin park music.
listened to all the albums multiple times,
listened to their xero songs, the community EPs or whatever they’re called.
everything.

but i was unknowingly creating a dependency.
something i would rely on for years to come, for better or worse.

well, i loved the sounds,
but i loved linkin park even more when i started to take notice of the lyrics.
for some reason, i found the lyrics very relatable and enjoyable.

for example, here are some lines from ‘papercut’ by linkin park:

but i know just what it feels like
to have a voice in the back of my head
like a face that i hold inside
a face that awakes when i close my eyes
a face that watches every time i lie
a face that laughs every time i fall

‘crawling’ by linkin park:

there’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
consuming confusing
this lack of self-control i fear is never ending
controlling i can’t seem

‘chelsea smile’ by bring me the horizon:

it sits in silence, eats away at me.
it feeds like cancer. this guilt could fill a fucking sea.
pulling teeth, wolves at my door.
now falling and failing is all i know.
…
the only thing i really know: i can’t sleep at night.
i’m buried and breathing in regret.

‘drifter’ by wolves at at the gate:

there’s nothing left i’m done with all this pain!
i’m yours to save so help me find my way
fall below and drift out of line
drifting away, i’m yours to save

these are just a few examples.
i have more, but not planning to paste it all here.

for some reason, i resonated very much with these lyrics.
these songs became my refuge.
it was as if someone was talking directly to me.
and sure there were a lot of people who felt the same as me.

but, it was after i was introduced by my friend to internal family systems
i came to learn about subpersonalities,
burdens, exiles, protectors, healing etc.
i know, i just threw a lot of words, but bear with me.

so, subpersonalities or simply, “parts”, when in pain,
make us do certain things they feel are helpful to us,
in order to ease the pain.
but since parts have a limited worldview
and are burdened or shoved into roles they’re not fond of,
what they think is helpful might be unhelpful at best
and destructive at worst. (eg. addiction, self-hurt)

unfortunately, most of us are parts-led, including myself,
and what we think of us,
our interests and hobbies,
might not be what we really are.
it might be what our burdened parts like.

at least that’s what i learnt when i started doing IFS.
after a few months, i realized that
i haven’t felt like listening to metal in a long while.

i tried to listen to some tracks,
and while i enjoyed some,
when it came to others, i was like
“damn that sounds too harsh”.
and i was surprised, because i never felt that way about that song.

after this happened,
i was able to workout while listening to tchaikovsky lmao.
my gymbros would see me wearing headphones while working out,
and they’d snatch it and wear it,
only to listen to stuff like deadmau5’s where’s the drop or waltz of the flowers .

but again, i have barely scratched the surface.
and i still have problems.
but the core of IFS is to have compassion towards yourself.
and from that inner peace and love,
you love others around you more completely.

if you’d like to learn about internal family systems,
i’d recommend reading the book “no bad parts” .