Bring Me The Horizon and my OCD

See this gorgeous boy above, do you know who he is? Oliver Sykes. Lead singer of Bring Me The Horizon. Lyrical Genius. Musical Legend. Pioneer of all things great. And most recently, the saviour to my head.

I've always been a strong believer in the fact the music is good for you. It's good for your soul and for your head. Music has this powerful way of making you feel emotions and sometimes it's strong enough to change the way you feel. Going on a night out? Pop on a party playlist. Just been dumped? Stick on some Taylor Swift or Snow Patrol. Wanna get in the Christmas spirit? Michael Bublé. It's a part of all of our lives and it has been for centuries.

However, I never fully understood how music can be an aid to getting yourself better. Whether that's from just having a bad day or from a mental illness. Growing up I was a HUGE One Direction fan (inside tip...I still am) and I would talk about them every single day without fail. When asked about why I loved them so much my reply would always be "They're just so perfect. They've changed my life." Looking back now, I struggle to see actually how they did change my life and whether what I actually meant was - They're fit as fuck and I hope to one day marry Harry Styles. Lyrically they spoke about treating girls well and every teenage girl on the planet including myself ate that shit up like it was chocolate for breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I'm not slagging them off. They're still on a pedestal in my eyes and they always will be, it's just now that i'm older I can see what it actually was that they did to my life and it wasn't as important as what I would have said it was in those days.

2 years ago my uni housemate Evie bought 2 tickets to see a band called Moose Blood in London. She didn't want to go alone and so I said i'd go with her. For the majority of my life I had always been an indie kid through and through, to the point where it was even quite cringe. A typical I'm from Sheffield and I love the Arctic Monkeys kind of kid. Studying music and living in a music city meant that going to gigs was a regular occurrence for us and most nights of the week me and my friends would either be at a gig to see one of our uni's bands or heading down to one of the small local venues to see a touring bad that we loved. Discovering new music is always great and i'd highly recommend that people support their local scene but there's nothing like seeing your favourite band live and shouting every single word of every song back at them. That feeling you get is euphoric and i'm sure you will agree. So because of this, I didn't want to go to this Moose Blood gig without knowing their songs. I couldn't let Evie feel awkward and like she couldn't let herself go and scream their lyrics out as I just stood there like a loser looking bored, so I opened up their Spotify and took a listen.

6 months later, I had their band's logo tattooed on my wrist.

It started off slow with Moose Blood which then slowly turned into a love for Boston Manor and then with the addition of a regular attendance to a club night called District because of our friend Ben, who is the actual definition of Pop Punk, I began to spiral into a full blown fanatic. Rock Music just seemed to have something about it and I couldn't believe i'd been so closed minded for so long.

Don't get me wrong I obviously knew of Bring Me The Horizon, I hadn't been living under a rock for the last 15 years, I was fully aware of who they were but with the bland (what I thought was cool) basic everyday music that I seemed to listen to on repeat, I hadn't given them the time of day. Which to be honest, to say they're a Sheffield band too, was pretty disgraceful of me. However, around 4 months ago I decided to listen to their full back catalogue from dark depths of 'Suicide Season' to what, at the time, was their latest album 'That's The Spirit'.

However, somewhere along the line around the beginning of December my OCD took a turn for the worse and it ended up being the worst i'd experienced it for months. I'd just finished a round of CBT in October and things had been going good for me and I think it was the fact that things were going so good for me that I didn't see it slowly creeping back in. Everything i'd learnt in therapy just seemed to slip straight out of my mind and I couldn't bring myself to fight it at all, I gave it just about every single time. Which, if you understand what OCD is, did not help as it just fuelled the cycle. But, it was Christmas and I'd convinced myself that a quick relief would get me through the xmas period without ruining it for anyone (although I knew they honestly wouldn't have minded as they just want me to get better). Again, a terrible thing that i'd convinced myself was okay and as January and the new year came around I was still struggling. I'm an incredibly happy person and I'm lucky in the fact that I have never suffered from depression like a lot of OCD sufferers do but it got to the point where I just began to feel a little sad as I didn't know when it was going to stop.

I revisited Bring Me's 'That's The Spirit' around 2 weeks ago in the anticipation and build up to their 6th album release 'Amo' and as stupid as it sounds for someone who works in the music industry to say, but for the first time I actually began to realise how much lyrics could be real. Having been fuelled with One Direction and many other shitty love songs from commercial artists, who hardly write their own work, it can become so easy to get caught up in it and forget what music is and what's its actually made foR and where it comes from. It can be so raw and pure and this time around listening to the album it really seemed to touch me and the connection I began to put between myself and the lyrics became so real. It may make me sound like a cringe cheesy wanker but hey ho, it's how it makes me feel.

Speaking from his own personal experiences everything Oli sings is real. He's a real person and his lyrics come from his life and I honestly think listening to their music has been one of the most important things I could have done these last few weeks. I'm not cured, don't get me wrong I bloody wish I was, but things are easier and my mind set on my OCD seems to have taken the place of that one I had during therapy and for that I thank Bring Me for making me feel like I belong.

I think i've cried listening to their songs more this week than I have my entire 8 years of loving One Direction.

Thank you.

Ames.