The Armor of the Metalhead Matriarch

Out here in the predictable daylight of the suburbs, a forty-five-year-old mother of seven stands out. People notice the sheer scale of a massive family and automatically file you away into a neat, conventional box. They assume your identity has been entirely swallowed by the endless cycle of groceries, laundry, and schedules. They think the story ends there.

They don’t see the woman who waits for the house to finally settle down so she can slide on her heavy headphones and step completely into her own world.

With seven kids under one roof, including autism in the household, managing sensory environments is a constant balancing act. My music is a crushing, uncompromising storm—far too overstimulating for the kids—so the headphones are my boundary. They are the gateway to my sanctuary. While the house sleeps, I drape myself in my black kimono-style robe covered in stars, pull on my fishnets, and let the playlist take over. I am a Goth Mom, Deadly Auntie, and this is the armor that keeps me grounded.

Right now, the brutal technicality of As Blood Runs Black is filling my ears, clearing out the mental clutter of the day. Next up will be the punishing rhythms of Wage War, followed by the relentless, technical assault of Job For A Cowboy. From there, the groove-heavy aggression of Lamb of God takes the torch, before Carnifex closes it out with the ultimate blackened deathcore weight. To anyone on the outside, this rotation sounds like absolute chaos. But to a mind shaped by complex trauma and CPTSD, it is the only sound thick enough to drown out the internal static.

This isn't a phase I stumbled into recently, and it’s not an aesthetic I adopted to look edgy. I have been built this way since childhood. The spark ignited when I was just seven years old, digging through boxes at a yard sale and uncovering an old Patti Smith tape. Hearing that raw, poetic, fiercely independent grit at such a young age cracked something open inside my chest. It taught me that you don't have to fit into the polite, edited boxes the world builds for you. I grew up on the periphery, finding my reflection in the shadows of the goth subculture and the aggressive salvation of heavy metal.

Raising a massive family demands an immense output of your own soul. You become the default shock absorber for everyone else's storms, tracking every shift in the house while navigating a hyper-vigilant mind that refuses to shut off. When the external world demands total composure, the friction inside your own head can become completely deafening. Silence doesn't bring peace; it just lets the intrusive flashbacks, waking nightmares, and nocturnal panic attacks grow louder.

I don't need quiet rooms. I need the blistering double-bass and the raw, guttural breakdowns to act as a lightning rod. When the music drops into a slow, devastating groove, it physically forces the anxiety out of my ribcage.

Dressing in my stars and fishnets isn't about hiding from my reality; it’s an active declaration of exactly who I am. My kids and my nieces and nephews don't just see a mother who keeps the household running; they see a matriarch who commands her space without making apologies. They get the deadly auntie—the one who listens without a shred of judgment, who understands that life is often fractured, and who knows how to survive the darkest corners because she has already walked through them.

I exist permanently on the edge of the conventional puzzle, born either way too early or entirely too late for the mainstream. But through these headphones, I am completely whole. Writing this down is my way of letting the fractures show without letting them break me. This work is not a cry for help. It is an anthem of endurance. A testament to a lifelong identity. A reminder that you can be the anchor for seven lives while still fiercely protecting the dark, heavy soul that belongs entirely to you.

p.s don't mind the photo as soon as I get proper ones I will change the cover photo.