1. Make Me Psychotic

I bet you would never hurt anybody

I bet you wouldn’t dare to tell a lie

Bet you’d never try to make me psychotic

I bet you wouldn’t even harm a fly

BACKSTORY

As a person living with schizophrenia, I know what it’s like to experience psychosis and how confusing and scary it can get but, although it’s something that gets stuck with you once you’ve been through it, I’ve sort of learnt to navigate the illness by identifying the possible triggers in order not to slip into such a debilitating state of mind.

Each person’s experience of the illness is different. In my case, it happens when random situations align at the exact same time against me, and I know I’m in psychosis when I feel that abrupt separation between me and everything else around. It also has something to do with fear and loneliness, but I feel like there’s a common denominator for everyone, and it is vulnerability and loss of willingness. This thing clearly feeds on the person’s insecurities and makes them doubt the nature of their own intentions.

I’ve also learnt that it is not an isolated experience, but a communitarian one. It can happen to everyone and it’s not just a single “crazy person” thing. Everyone is schizophrenic to some degree because we are all different and equal at the same time, but no one can be a hundred per cent sure about what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. But above all, what I’ve clearly noticed about this illness is that it can be induced through manipulation and systematically inflicted pain, which means that if you can create it, you can undo it as well and, therefore, it’s curable.  

Once you identify the patterns of some people’s behavior, you realize it wasn’t as innocent as they wanted you to believe. In these dangerous days, when we are slowly taking consciousness about mental health concepts in general such as narcissism or psychopathy, it is inevitable to find a correlation between what causes illnesses like schizophrenia and this lack of empathy we have been experiencing as a society. It could all be just theories based on personal beliefs, but what is clear here is that none of us is completely sane or balanced and yet we keep on turning the blind eye on certain attitudes while focusing on containing and putting the blame on schizophrenics instead of understanding them. Psychosis can be a mirror. Maybe there’s something to learn about that.

SONGWRITING

Based on this idea, that everyone is vulnerable to developing schizophrenia since it is something that can be induced, and partly inspired by the movie from the latest post, where even kids can be malignant enough to perceive and make use of such type of manipulation, I decided to write the first song for my new album, ”A Scream In The Night”.

The songwriting of this entire album has been inspired by horror movies and personal experiences linked to the main thesis and themes of these films. The process was simple. I would watch a horror movie and afterwards, with fresh emotions and sensations still in the body, I would record the melodies for the different structure parts of each song on my mobile phone, so later I could work on the music and lyrics more thoroughly with my computer.

Getting back to the song Make Me Psychotic, I am very content with the composition result. I feel like every word in it makes total sense and it is easily understandable and relatable, without being totally predictable, since it is told from a schizophrenic person’s experience, which is obviously something unusual. I am very proud of my improvement as a musician and songwriter as well, and I feel like this is the right and only way I can go.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION - The Lodge

This movie caught my attention back in 2019 due to the fact that I had already seen its directors debut film “Goodnight Mommy” in 2014, and I had found that one fascinating and disturbing at the same time, with a very effective plot twist at the ending, so I knew “The Lodge” would probably have a similar effect on me and it really did not disappoint.

Just like it occurs with “Goodnight Mommy” and even though you get a clear understanding of what is happening at the first watch, it is still interesting to rewatch the movie in order to appreciate better missed details about the plot twist. The directors know how to manipulate the spectator as if it was another character of the story and they manage to do it with style and make it quite believable, although some rather questionable character decisions, which turn out to be the whole pretext for the movie, end up being a little odd. Still, most of the characters are well-constructed and so is the story itself, which is probably the most interesting aspect of the movie: the script.

There are deep powerful and transcendental themes treated in this script, such as mental health and religion. They’re both intertwined along the story through the characters and their individual struggles, like a cocktail ready to blow up. The imagery and symbols used are simple but effective as well, proving that you don’t need an excess of elements to tell a good story if you know how to use them. The horror here lies inside the mind and the human behavior patterns that drag us inevitably to our decay and leave us not in control.

All in all, a remarkable combination of drama and horror that gives this movie its well-deserved elevated horror label similarly to movies like The Witch, Hereditary or Saint Maud. I’m really looking forward to watching their new movie, The Devil’s Bath.

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION (Within Temptation - The Silent Force)

Back in my teenage days, I used to be told that I was a goth poser just because I liked wearing black. I didn’t even wear make-up or paint my nails but, for some reason, my bullies could not bear seeing someone so fragile as me embracing such an alternative dark aesthetic and, the truth is that I wasn’t even trying to fit in or impress them. I just liked wearing black. I was not aspiring to be a goth; I simply was one.

As an artist and a music lover, I’ve always been attracted to this imagery and found beauty in its darkness. I remember when Evanescence blew up, I started to become interested in other singers like Björk or Enya, which were not as rocker as Amy Lee, but still impregnated their music with lots of echoes and cool cinematic sounds that made it so unique and distinctive. And that’s what led me to Within Temptation and The Silent Force, the first album that I heard from them and definitively one of the best in their discography.

I truly believe that The Silent Force is a masterpiece, sonically speaking. Back in the day, I could already perceive how amazing the production arrangements and Sharon’s voice were, but listening to it right now, after a long time without doing it, I can appreciate it much better. Once again, Sharon’s voice is flawless and all the songs sound beautiful. The songwriting is amazing as well. I just can think of one word to describe the melodies created for the songs, and it is “epic”. They are so satisfying and not boring at all. The lyrics and their themes fit in greatly with the melodies and, although they are a little generic sometimes, they’re still enjoyable and relatable. Besides, they’ve gotten better at writing lyrics in English without being native-English speakers with their following albums.

All in all, one of my favorite albums of all time and definitively one of the best from the gothic rocker female scene in the 00’s decade. This true goth is thankful for that.

 

Favorite songs: See Who I Am, Stand My Ground, Forsaken, Memories and It’s The Fear.