Ashley W.

Mental health is known as a state of well-being and I can personally tell you the overwhelming feeling of darkness and an unending void is something I felt almost everyday. Those looking on the outside would see me as such a bright spirit, which I am, but sometimes I think the ones with the brightest of spirits are the ones who hide behind their smiles the most. 

​

"I just want to feel normal" are the words I use to tell myself and my family when I would have an anxiety attack. Imagine sitting in a dark room with no windows, no light, both your mind and heart beat racing and all you feel is numbness while your limbs and face are left tingling. In that very moment I could feel my body screaming at me with no cure for me to give myself. I got to the point where these attacks would happen daily and someone who has always been an extrovert slowly became more of an introvert due to the fear of having an attack in public. I have always been a believer that there are natural ways to heal and most importantly we know our bodies best. On my path of healing, I was led to what I knew best, music. I knew composing music, listening to music would be the first step and I truly believed I could heal myself through music. I found specific songs and created a playlist that I named, "Calming" as my go to during an attack. I remember laying on my side with my phone at my ear while trying to close my eyes to help my mind go blank. Songs like "Rolling Thunder" and "Calling the Others" by Anilah and "Sea of Atlas" by composer R. Armando Morabito were always my go to tracks because they made me feel as if I was out somewhere in a mystical forest and in nature is where I find safety. Being a musician myself, one day during an attack I went to the piano and started playing chords to see if any of them physically made me feel better, and I found specific ones that did. I found it so fascinating and this fascination is what led me to write a specific song called, "Listen to the Wind" to help cope with my anxiety attacks. I knew the sounds I wanted to create and ultimately I ended up using my own song to help ease my attacks to the point where now I no longer have anxiety attacks anymore. I even took this track a step further to help people understand what an attack looks and feels like for someone who has never experienced such a thing. I decided to create a music video that would show in art form what I felt on a daily basis and on set I even allowed myself to have an attack so the audience would be able to truly see me at my most vulnerable state. My good friend and director, Christopher Maggard truly captured my raw emotions on that set and in a way, filming that ended up becoming part of my healing journey as well. I wanted people to see that they were not alone. We all experience pain in this lifetime but what we do with that pain tells our story. For anyone reading this, it is so important for you to know that you are not alone but most importantly, there is a light at the end of the tunnel...