Last night, I didn’t quite have a panic attack, but it was definitely anxiety. I cried, and as usual, I turned to music to help me calm down. I couldn’t just play anything though; most of the songs I have on my phone remind me of something in some way and trigger feelings, which I definitely didn’t need more of.
I remembered I also had iHeartRadio on my phone, so I booted up the app. I quickly found Tove Lo Radio, which sounded like exactly what I needed. It was.
I think the third song that played was The Mother We Share by Chvrches. As soon as I heard the opening notes, a sense of relief flooded me. This was the very same song I listened to two years ago, when I had my panic attack and I happened to be reading Where She Went by Gayle Forman. Where She Went is the sequel to If I Stay, and it picks up where If I Stay left off – Mia Hall wakes up from her coma after the car accident and pretty much heads off to Julliard pretty much without a backward glance at her boyfriend, Adam Wilde.
As the book is told from Adam’s point of view, the reader is able to see how he felt when Mia’s accident happened, and how he copes with life in the aftermath. He fell into a deep spell of anxiety and depression, and I was able to relate to it because that’s exactly how I felt at the time I was reading it. His coping methods may have been a different story, but I wasn’t about to judge him for that.
Hearing “The Mother We Share” last night brought me back to the comfort I felt with Adam and reading about what he went through after Mia’s accident. He lifted me up when I was down two years ago, and he did it again last night.
