Music, My Joy and Savior
Neither a Mother Nor Death Can Destroy the Power of Music
By Cat Saunders
In May of 1976, at the age of 22, I'd just gotten out of Harborview Hospital
in Seattle. It was my third trip to the psychiatric ward in a year. I
was also anorexic and bulimic, and addicted to marijuana. I was not a
happy camper.
I'd been living on my own since leaving home at 17 to attend college out
of state. When my voyages into psychosis struck at 21, I was back in Seattle,
halfway through the Landscape Architecture Program at the University of
Washington.
Following my third psychiatric hospitalization, I was too beat up to go
back to school. My parents invited me to live with them for a year in
Edmonds, where I grew up. Given the relationship between family systems
and my various illnesses, you can probably imagine that it wasn't easy
to be back in my childhood home with my parents. I doubt if it was easy
for them either.
The first three months I was there, I slept 20 hours a day. At some point,
my parents and I realized that whatever was happening wasn't going to
shift without help. I remembered a psychiatrist I'd met in the hospital
who seemed smarter than most, so I called him.
He was the first to correctly diagnose my illness as manic-depression,
which was not as well-known in the mid-1970s as it is now. Although diagnostic
labels are destructive when used to stigmatize people, they can be a godsend
when used with compassion–as a tool to identify a condition so it
can be properly treated.
In my case, the psychiatrist prescribed powerful antidepressants for several
months. He also started me on lithium to keep my mood swings within normal
range (I went off lithium in 1984 under medical supervision).
After months of treatment, I was functional enough to work again. I took
some time out from college to regroup. Toward the end of that year with
my folks, I was hanging out in my room one night after work, listening
to a cassette tape of Cat Stevens' music that I'd bought for $7 with money
from my new job.
During that difficult period, it was a tiny spot of joy for me to have
music I loved. That tape was the only music I had.
My mother came in while I was listening and asked about it. When she heard
that I'd purchased the music, she glared at me and said I shouldn't be
spending money on something so frivolous when I had more important things
to save for.
This was the same woman who told my doctors in the psych ward that she
believed my mental illness was a punishment by God for being sexually
promiscuous (which for her meant any sex outside of marriage).
In other words, her comment about my music purchase wasn't the most shaming
thing she'd ever said. Rather, it was the depth of my vulnerability at
the time, coupled with the underlying message of her comment, that made
my heart bleed.
I was 40 before I could buy music for myself again.
Fortunately, I've had many loving friends along the way who knew about
this wound and treated it tenderly. They gave me music and cheered enthusiastically
when I bought music for myself. They knew what I've always secretly known–that
music is a necessity, not a frivolity.
Before I go, let me tell you one more story about music. In 1992, I went
to Esalen for a two-week advanced intensive in shamanism taught by two
of my longtime shamans, Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman. I knew the
training included a journey past the point of death, and I really wanted
to see what my soul would be doing next.
That journey was by far the most awesome and life-changing journey I've
had. It wasn't at all what I expected. For me, there was no tunnel of
light, no life review, no saints or dead relatives waiting to greet me.
Although I'm not ready to say publicly what happened on that journey,
I will say it doesn't involve another dance on earth.
After I got home from Esalen, I journeyed again to talk with my shamanic
teachers (in nonordinary reality) about my death journey. I told them
one thing troubled me, namely, I felt deeply sad about the idea of never
hearing any more music if I wasn't going to be human again.
With a twinkle in their eyes, they looked at me tenderly and said, "You
haven't heard anything yet!"
This article was originally published by Evergreen
Monthly (May 2004).
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