Anaglog Home

Fuss Press

Music I Wellness I Performance I Culture

Artist Insight:
On Fear As The Fire That Keeps Us Us
6/7/2025

I reimagine my experience of fear as a positive voice keeping me safe, like a sort of fire that protects me–one I can use to motivate myself to overcome its burn.A call to action–the thought that everything that matters to me could be taken away–reframes picking up my viola to practice a difficult passage seem like child’s play. I am scared because I care, not because I am weak. From this stance, fear becomes a sort of radical honesty, one that is deeply compassionate, too. Fear, in this experience, is like a mirror, showing me intense clarity of my unresolved self, and glimpses of who I am meant to become.

Artist Insight:
Panic Practice - A Music Therapist Explains Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and Practicing: A Call For Music Therapist As Mediators In Classical Conservatory Culture
6/16/2025

Anxiety manifests differently across individuals and settings, but common patterns are defined within several diagnostic categories. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Panic Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are each individually distinct, yet deeply related. Drawing from Comer’s Abnormal Psychology (2022), as well as personal experience navigating performance culture in a music conservatory, this paper compares these conditions while reflecting on how environments can compound or mitigate psychological harm.GAD involves continuous excessive worry across a range of topics for at least six months. Symptoms can include restlessness, lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, and muscle tension (Comer, 2022). Behaviorists suggest anxiety is learned and maintained through reinforcement, while cognitive theorists highlight distorted thought patterns and misaligned perceptions. Exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring are commonly used interventions. In the conservatory setting, chronic uncertainty about performance value, favoritism in instruction, and inequitable lesson time can provoke this kind of ongoing anxiety—especially when teachers subtly or overtly signal a student’s worth is conditional. I would like to see music therapists in conservatory roles, not to police relationships, but as informed mediators that hold that relationship accountable in a way that is supportive to the student and teacher’s growth.OCD is characterized by intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions) aimed at reducing distress. These rituals can dominate a person’s life, often consuming an hour or more daily. While compulsions may provide short-term relief, they reinforce anxiety long term (Comer, 2022). In artistic training, this can take shape as perfectionistic habits—over-practicing, obsessive editing, or compulsive comparison and obtrusive thoughts—that begin to interrupt healthy development and self-trust. Hours alone in a practice room does not make perfect, and for an individual with GAD, PTSD, or OCD, this environment, if left unchecked, can encourage isolationism and distorted perceptions of experience. Imagine a music therapist role who could check in weekly, not to impose, but simply offer 15-30 minute check ins. How might the efficacy of practice time and enjoyment improve? If there was a positive correlation, would that influential pattern be reflected in increased job security in the fields of the arts? I wonder.Panic Disorder involves sudden and intense episodes of fear that reach a peak within minutes, accompanied by physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat, dizziness, and shortness of breath. These can be cued or or without a cue, or stimulus, and often lead to avoidance behaviors (Comer, 2022). Reflecting on my own experience as a conservatory freshman, I now recognize that what I interpreted as personal weakness was likely untreated panic disorder, triggered by unsupportive faculty interactions and the pressure to perform under constant evaluation. Weeks went by where I would be mentally counting constantly from 1-10 like a bodhisattva to keep a feeling of being grounded, and to ward off panic attacks. When I confided in an instructor I was experiencing daily panic attacks, where I needed support and therapeutic guidance, I was met with dismissiveness and a pressure that taught me I wasn’t enough and didn’t belong or deserve to make music if I couldn’t keep my anxiety in check. I can only imagine how an informed musician trained in therapy could have helped me in that moment.PTSD develops after exposure to a traumatic event and includes re-experiencing, avoidance, negative mood shifts, and hyperarousal. In conservatories, students may be subjected to emotionally intense environments where humiliation is used as a motivational tool. I was once required to perform a concerto I had not memorized, after being scolded in front of my peers by a teacher who had insisted they attend my lesson. This weekly cycle of critique and exposure can lead to symptoms akin to PTSD, especially when compounded over time.While each condition has its own criteria and treatment approaches, the lines blur in real life, particularly under chronic stress. What begins as GAD can evolve into PTSD when environments repeatedly activate fear, diminish autonomy, and reward a romantic idea of resilience over healing. Music institutions must reckon with how scarcity culture and performance pressure can harm developing artists. Integrating trauma-informed supports—such as on-site music therapists—could create healthier, more sustainable models for creative growth.Reference
Comer, R. J. (2022). Abnormal psychology (11th ed.). Worth Publishers.

Artist Insight:
When Rage Creeps In: A Guide for the Overholding Caregiver
7/4/2025

You’re a helper. A frontline presence. The person who holds space, translates distress, and absorbs harm—quietly, and with a smile.
You’ve grown so used to writing off other people’s dysregulation as “episodes” or “trauma responses” that you barely notice what they take from you anymore.
You tell yourself it’s part of the job. That they don’t mean to hurt you. That you’re trained to handle this.
But lately, you feel it.
A sudden, burning urge to destroy something.
To walk away.
To scream.
To quit everything.
It flashes through you like lightning—short, hot, invisible to everyone else.
And then it disappears, leaving you stuck in the aftermath, paralyzed and unfocused. You waste time processing instead of acting. You seek constant micro-escapes because it’s the only thing that keeps you from flying apart.
And maybe, for a while, that’s enough to keep you in the room. To finish the session. To finish the shift. To stay in the relationship.
But it’s not sustainable. You know it.
*
The Loop You’re Stuck In (And Why It Hurts So Badly)
Here’s what’s happening under the surface:
You over-function for others—because you’re empathic, grounded, and capable.You receive criticism, micro-punishments, or passive control—often framed as “needs,” “episodes,” or “quirks.”You suppress your reaction—because you’re trained to hold space, not take it.You start to dissociate or rage quietly—because your nervous system needs to do something with what it’s absorbing.You reach for a coping tool (weed, food, scrolling, silence) to anchor yourself back into the work.And then—you start again. A little more hollow than the day before.This isn’t burnout.
This is a moral injury.
The quiet breakdown that happens when your inner self knows this isn’t right, but your role doesn’t let you leave.
*
Rage Is a Signal — Not a Symptom
That voice inside you screaming, “I want to self-destruct everything and start a new life far far away”?
That is your system trying to protect you. Trying to say:
“I can’t be the container for everyone else’s chaos anymore.”
“I’m holding too much.”
“No one’s holding me.”
You’ve been expected to suppress your humanity in the name of professionalism.
But what if professionalism isn’t neutral?
What if it’s just a form of slow, invisible self-erasure, especially when you’re a caregiver, a queer person, or a socio-economically disadvantaged person?
You’re not angry because you’re failing.
You’re angry because you’re finally recognizing what’s been happening to you all along.
*
Reclaiming Yourself: Small Practices to Try
You don’t need a total reset to begin. You just need to create small breaches in the cycle—moments of return.
1. Say It Out Loud (even just to yourself)
Give the rage a name. Use your voice.
“I am being pushed past my limit.”
“I can’t be the grounding force for everyone today.”
“I need someone to hold me.”
Let your nervous system hear that you’re listening.
2. Make a Destroy Journal
Take two minutes and let it rip. All the angry, messy, “unprofessional” things. No one else needs to see it. This is your containment. Rage needs somewhere to go that isn’t your body.
3. Take a Sovereignty Break
Create a 10-minute window every day where you’re no one’s support person. Not a partner, not a clinician, not a fixer. Play your music. Stretch. Cry. Stand outside barefoot.
“In this moment, I am not available.”
4. Set One Small Boundary That Costs Others Something
Say no to a small request. Let someone else feel the inconvenience. Don’t apologize.
Let your body learn that it’s safe to take up space—even when it upsets someone.
5. Let Anger Be Honorable
Anger is not your enemy. It’s not a flaw. It’s not something to numb away. It’s your boundary system screaming, “This isn’t okay.”
What would change if you thanked your rage instead of silencing it?
*
You Are Not Here to Be Consumed
If your role requires you to be endlessly available, endlessly forgiving, endlessly understanding—it’s not a role.
It’s a trap.
You don’t owe your life to your empathy.
You don’t need to collapse to prove you care.
You are allowed to need space—even from those in pain. Even from people you love. Even from work.
You are allowed to say:
“This isn’t just hard. It’s harming me.”
And you are allowed to walk away—not as a failure, but as someone who finally chose themselves.

Where Do You Go?
A reflection on trauma, memory, and music education
7/10/2025

By Anaglog

“Where do you go?”
That’s all my teacher asked me—always after a memory slip in performance. I remember one time, during a masterclass, she stood up to leave the room the moment I faltered. She paused, realizing I saw her, and reluctantly sat back down. Later, she looked me in the eye, said nothing else, just, “Where do you go?” Then she turned and walked away.
At the time, I didn’t have the language to answer. All I had was shame. I felt exposed, confused, and completely alone.
Now I understand what was happening.
I’ve learned how PTSD alters brain function—how the amygdala becomes hyperactive, how the hippocampus struggles to consolidate memory under threat. When you’ve lived through trauma, your nervous system doesn’t always give you access to memory in high-stakes moments. It’s not a lack of preparation. It’s survival mode. And performance, especially in elite institutions where your identity is wrapped in your craft, can feel like a threat to your very being.
So where did I go? I went to the part of my brain that knows how to protect me. I went into defense, into freeze. I didn’t have the tools or the support to recognize that yet. All I knew was that I had failed in front of someone who was supposed to help me. And her only question—delivered not with curiosity but with disappointment—cut deeper than silence.
That performance marked me. It stayed in my body. I developed a fever shortly after, my first serious illness in over two decades. I believe now that it was grief—grief over the shame, the loneliness, and the sense that maybe I wasn’t built for this life, even though music was the one place I thought I belonged.
But I did belong, and still do.
I just needed support, not shame. Tools, not tests. Someone to ask, “How can I help you return?” instead of “Why did you leave?”
Now I can name what I couldn’t then.
Where did I go? I went into survival.
Where am I now? I’m here—with language, reflection, music, and hard-won resilience.
This post is for anyone who’s ever felt misunderstood in the spaces that were supposed to shape them. It’s for the artists who show up every day with more than their craft—they show up with histories that live in the body and brain, histories that deserve gentleness.
If you’ve ever had your struggle mistaken for weakness, know this: survival is not a flaw in your artistry. It’s a source of strength. And it’s okay to demand environments where your whole self can be held, not just your performance.

Amazing Grace and the Inheritance of Silence:
A reflection on intergenerational trauma, voice, and reclaiming sound
by Anaglog
7/10/025

When I was a child, there was this running joke in my family: no matter what instrument we learned, the first song we were taught was always Amazing Grace.We grew up Irish in America, so that tune didn’t completely historically resonate. But it held an odd kind of weight in our house—not because of the melody or content itself, but because of how much it drove my mother absolutely bonkers. I never understood why. It was always the first tune we learned on an instrument (sometimes learning an instrument just to play that tune). Anytime one of us played it, she’d get visibly agitated, even angry. Sometimes, she’d have to physically leave the room.It wasn’t until much later that I began to understand.My mother’s reactions were never just about Amazing Grace. They were about grief, about erasure, about being silenced long before she ever became a mother. I grew up in a household where it wasn’t really safe to sing—where the risk of being heard and judged far outweighed any potential joy. My mom used to talk about how she once wanted to be a singer, or a dancer. She’d say cigarettes ruined her voice, but that’s not the truth. Plenty of singers smoke. What really silenced her was something much older: her trauma, inherited and reinforced by generations of fear and control.My mother was one of ten children growing up in Dublin, shaped by the shadows of the Troubles, raised by parents who were carrying wounds of their own. Her father, involved with the IRA, passed his pain on to her mother, and her mother—through silence, through criticism—passed it on to my mom.And so, she escaped. She dreamed of moving to the United States, to have control, to survive.But survival has its costs.As I’ve started reclaiming my own voice—especially in the context of preparing music therapy sessions for children and autistic clients—I’ve begun to understand how deeply that silence shaped me too. Even now, I can feel my voice getting stuck in my throat, not because I don’t know the notes, but because there’s still fear. Fear that it’s not okay to be heard. Fear that someone will judge me or shut me down before I even begin, or worse, that my voice would somehow cause real violence to another.And yet, slowly, I’ve been trying to give myself permission to sing. To hum. But also to make noise just because I can—because it feels good and is good for me. But also because if I don’t help myself access my voice, I will fall short in being able to help others access theirs in session.Recently, I shared this realization with my mom. I told her how I’ve struggled to let my voice move freely, how hard it is to trust that I can fill space with sound without being punished for it. And I sang for her. Nothing fancy—just “We Are the Dinosaurs” by Laurie Berkner–a children’s tune. But I sang it on pitch. No one fainted. The world didn’t stop. And to my surprise, she really listened.She used to do that—listen. When I was first learning the viola, she sat through years of scratchy, awkward practice. I don’t know how she did it, but she did. That’s a kind of love too—a kind of endurance born out of resilience. It took everything in her to support what she couldn’t allow in herself.And then she told me something I hadn’t known until now.The reason she hates Amazing Grace isn’t because of something tragic that happened while it was playing. It’s simpler—and maybe more devastating. When she was a little girl learning that song in school, she tried to sing it for her mother. Every time, her mother refused to listen. She didn’t say, “Be quiet.” She just wouldn’t hear her.That refusal wounded my mother deeply. It taught her, implicitly, that her voice wasn’t worthy of being heard. That she was too much. Not good enough. And that wound got passed down, not out of cruelty, but out of habit. Out of pain. Out of conditioning.And so it continues. My sister, even now, is embarrassed to sing—though I know she wants to. My brother once wanted to act, to be on Broadway, but he can barely sing out loud. It’s not that we can’t—it’s that we were taught it wasn’t safe. That silence was survival.And this, too, is an Irish trauma. Not often named, especially in families like ours, where the accent may fade but the emotional code lingers. A shame around taking up space. A guilt around being too good, too loud, too much. It’s the same dynamic you see in Norway’s “Law of Jante.” The belief that if you shine, if you are seen, you must immediately shrink yourself.But I’m learning to unlearn that.Reclaiming my voice—whether through a song, a hum, or just a lip trill in the morning—is an act of self-affirmation. It’s also an act of healing. I’m learning that my voice is not a threat. That it is not too much. That it’s allowed to exist, to sound, to move through space.This matters—not just for me, but for every musician, every therapist, every person who is trying to work through their own inherited silences. Reclaiming your voice isn’t just about singing or speaking. It’s about making peace with the parts of yourself that were once too scared to be seen.And so, if Amazing Grace taught me anything, it’s that the songs we inherit sometimes carry wounds. But they also carry the potential to be rewritten. To be re-sung. To be ours.