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What Evanescence Meant To A Black Girl in Southern California

In a bizarre turn of affairs...everything.

By Camille Ora-NicolePublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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I don't think anyone expected it.

I mean look. Evanescence is a goth rock (I know Amy used to say they weren't goth rock, but that's like when Janelle Monae kept insisting that they weren't queer - it's ridiculous) band hailing from Little Rock, AK.

But somehow, it happened. I was 12 years old when I heard Bring Me To Life for the first time, entirely by accident. I was in the car with my dad (or my grandparents) and they had switched the radio channel (I don't know why) and it landed on that song. The details around the event are blurry. The lifting that happened in my chest as Amy wailed about being lost in utter darkness, however, is crystal clear. I don't think I had ever felt such euphoria in my entire life up to that point.

After that encounter, gone were the days of listening primarily to contemporary Christian music. Gone was the cool shit aka Christian rap. I had never fully gotten into gospel, so yeah, that was definitely out the window. And into the window, (and my cd player, backpack, locker, browser history, desktop, saved radio channels, etc) was anything related to Evanescence.

I can even attribute my lack of internet culture knowledge to Evanescence. Instead of making secret MySpace pages and watching terrible early YouTube videos, I was talking to god-knows-who on Evanescence forums. My "friends" were probably other depressed teenagers that found rainbows and sunshine in songs about misery and death.

Evanescence probably kept thousands of kids alive.

Most teenagers go through an angsty period. It's normal - they're hormones are raging at the same time that their brains are starting to function at a higher level of critical thinking. Issues that may have made them sad or scared as children still make them sad or scared, but they start to understand why. And as much as they'd like to fix it, more often than not they can't, because like it or not, they are still closer to being children than they are adults with fully formed brains.

What's not normal is when that kid goes through an angsty period and wants to end it. And maybe even tries to end it. Meanwhile, popular music goes on and on about partying and good times and love and sex - happy shit that doesn't make a depressed kid feel happy because they cannot relate to it. I know this because I was one of those kids.

I remember when the depression would hit. It was like the day turned gray, like one of the cones in my eyes or however that works just turned off. I'd feel cold, and my brain would slow to a sluggish crawl, dragging along any shitty thought I had about myself and/or the world around me. From the age of 11 to 20, I felt depressed more than I felt anything else. Two weeks depressed, one week okay. That was the pattern. To this day, when I'm depressed, there's a fucked up feeling of comfort that comes along with it simply because I've spent so much time in my life that way. Clinically sad was my primary mode.

I just wanted to sleep forever.

And that's where Evanescence comes in. And Korn. And System of A Down. And Linkin Park. And My Chemical Romance. And even The Cranberries. Half the time, sometimes more than half, it seemed like they just wanted to sleep forever too, and yet they didn't. For the most part, they all kept going. Amy kept going. She sang about her pain, banged it out on a piano, and kept moving forward. She let me know that I wasn't alone, and through her continued existence, told me that maybe life was worth living.

I can't say that Evanescence was the only thing that saved my life. I had friends and a mentor that helped me when I was low. Once I was in college and could access therapy, I had that. I had and still have my wife who has helped me through more than I could ever imagine anyone helping me with and still sticking with me.

But the effect of the music is undeniable. People sometimes like to say that music like Evanescence's can make you depressed, turn you into a goth or an Evil Person™. Admittedly I did consider myself a goth for years. However, hard, goth, and/or metal rock is more likely to save a life than to destroy it. Sometimes a person just needs to listen to music that vibrates on the same plane that their soul is on, to soothe it. And sometimes, the music the music you need for that is goth rock.

I honestly don't know what would have happened to me if the car radio had never tuned into Bring Me To Life. I don't know what sort of person I'd be today, if I were still standing at all.

I'm fairly certain Amy will never see this, but if for some bizarre reason she stumbles on this little essay...thank you. You saved my life.

pop culture
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About the Creator

Camille Ora-Nicole

Hi! I'm a writer, artist, placemaker, and producer from Southern California. When I'm not writing, I'm drawing, and if i'm not drawing I'm working on a project, and if not doing any of that, i'm Netflix and chillin'. IG: @oracami_studio

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