by Pauline van de Haar
Once upon a time… I was depressed. It took me several years (I think more than 15 years) to recover from my chronic depression. Yes, I understand the confusion: ‘’chronic means not curable’’, right? You could say that, but luckily, I was able to recover with a lot of help from the mental health care services, my parents, my friends, and… myself.
What does this intro have to do with ukuleles, or music in general?
First of all, music is kind of a therapy on its own. We all know that, don’t we? Second of all, it’s amazing that there are people on this planet trained to use music in a therapeutic way for clients or patients who are having a hard time and dealing with all kinds of problems.
Let’s talk about musical therapy and how it was a life-saver for me.
The first time I got into musical therapy was in 2008. I was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for adolescents and every week we made music. We talked about the music we played, whether it sounded okay or less okay. At that time, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing: ‘’I play the recorder, guitar and I sing, why make music with people who don’t know anything about music?’’, is what I thought. Well, the whole point of musical therapy is that you don’t have to be ‘’good’’ with music. Music, or making sounds is a way to deal with your emotions etc. In 2008, my experience with musical therapy wasn’t so great. All I wanted, was to be happy again and be able to take my lessons at the music school.
It took me quite some time to make a giant climb in recovery. I will not ‘’bore you’’ with details in my recover-story. Some people talk a lot about stuff, for some people this helps and is enough to recover. Some people need a different kind of treatment, besides talking therapy. They need to do something with their hands or body. Making sounds and using your voice to make something that speaks for you is so beautiful.
In 2019, I was treated with musical therapy again. But this time not in a group; Just myself, my therapist and all these instruments. It was like a candy shop! I was allowed to try out every instrument in the room, feel what the vibrations and sounds did to me. The first session, I cried. I knew music meant everything to me, but the thing that changed is that I finally got the hope I could live again.
With my therapist, whom I saw once a week, I tried out several things and instruments. After a few sessions she thought that it could be nice for me to write music myself. At that time, I was already playing ukulele for about 6 years, but only songs written by other people. She helped me write my thoughts on paper, where I would want to go with my recovery journey. She gave me homework: play some chords and feel what’s good for your song. Two weeks later, I went to the session with a song. Not just chords, but also lyrics. ‘’My Battle’’ was born.
We worked on the song, recorded it with ukulele (me), voice (me) and piano (therapist). I kept listening to my own words over and over again. Later that year, I said farewell to my therapist, finally I lived again! I learned to use music to cope with the demons in my head.
A whole bunch of songs were written in the last two years. Most of them about self-compassion. Recently I started writing about other stuff as well. Grief, love, and being good enough.
This is my story, this is my battle. But now I can say: ‘’This was my battle’’.