I know people say this all the time, but I want to talk about a song that literally saved my life — in the most legally-non-suable way possible. I’m not dropping full lyrics here because I enjoy freedom, so I’ll explain instead of subpoena-ing myself. (The YouTube video is at the bottom of this post)
This isn’t the first song that’s held me together, but it’s the most recent one. Music is one of my love languages. My family will tell you I’m forever declaring, “This is my song to you,” because I absorb lyrics like a sponge who’s overdue for therapy. I’ve always gravitated toward songs that tell stories, not just “bops,” as the cool kids say.
How Stick Season Found Me at the Worst Possible Time
My son introduced me to Noah Kahan’s Stick Season during a brutal bipolar low — the kind where you cry silently, loudly, sideways, upside down, basically any direction your face can leak.
My girlfriend got the most of it. When you’re the safest person to someone, you become the designated emotional sprinkler system.
The first song he told me to listen to was “Call Your Mom.” That one wrecked me so thoroughly my eyes were swollen like I’d lost a fistfight with my own tear ducts. After that, I devoured the whole album and quickly became convinced Noah Kahan had cracked open my diary. Honestly, I should sue him for emotional burglary.
But the song that truly split me open — the one that became a turning point — was “Growing Sideways.”
Why “Growing Sideways” Hit Me So Hard
“Growing Sideways” dives headfirst into trauma, therapy fatigue, emotional numbness, and the extremely unsexy reality that healing rarely follows a straight line. It’s about:
- growing crooked from childhood wounds
- being painfully self-aware but unchanged
- wanting someone to see you
- the exhaustion of trying
- the acceptance of not being “fixed” yet
I don’t know Noah’s story, but the song mirrored mine. Especially the part where I’d always stop taking my medication — not because I didn’t want to get better, but because treatment didn’t work the way I expected it to.
Clinically, they’d call that “non-compliant.”
Realistically, it was fear, exhaustion, and frustration.
Listening to the song felt like hearing someone else describe my insides out loud — except this someone sounded braver. Like they stayed with the treatment. Like they kept going even when I couldn’t.
And that’s when it hit me: this is exactly what Manic Mindfulness is meant to teach — that healing is messy, nonlinear, sideways, crooked, spiraling, anything but straight up.
Sideways growth still counts.
The Big Lessons I Took From the Song
Here’s what stuck with me:
- Therapy helps, but it doesn’t magically fix everything.
- “I’m fine” is often code for “actually I’m drowning, thanks.”
- Childhood trauma does not respect time boundaries.
- Healing rarely moves upward — it zigzags like a feral toddler with crayons.
- Growth is growth, even if it’s messy, uneven, or invisible to others.
Then came the lines — the ones I won’t quote in full here — that hit me square in the soul. One part made me ugly cry in a spiritually exfoliating way. Another part made me realize something huge:
I wasn’t done.
I wasn’t broken beyond repair.
And maybe… I could try treatment again.
The Moment Everything Changed
I found Brightside online and signed up for an appointment immediately. When your brain whispers move, you move.
I was terrified. But my provider listened. Really listened.
We tried medications that didn’t work or came with side effects that made me want to climb out of my own skin. Each time, she adjusted the plan. No judgment. No irritation. Just compassion.
Eventually she prescribed Cymbalta, and later added Lamictal.
Game changer.
She also gave me permission to take them at the same time so I wouldn’t forget the morning-versus-night schedule — something that had always sabotaged me in the past.
And then it happened:
The lightbulb moment.
I didn’t feel manic.
I didn’t feel crushed.
I didn’t feel numb.
I felt balanced.
I felt like me again — the version I thought I might never meet.
Since then, I’ve been medication compliant for over a year. I went back to school. I returned to my Buddhist practice. I launched Manic Mindfulness, which started as a blog but is slowly evolving into something much bigger.
A Movement for Sideways Healers
Healing from trauma, mental illness, addiction, grief, heartbreak, perfectionism — all of it — is not sunshine and rainbows. It’s messy. It’s nonlinear. It’s deeply, relentlessly human.
And it is for everyone.
You can grow crooked and still grow beautifully.
You can heal sideways and still be healing.
You can start again even if you’ve stopped a hundred times.
If a single song can save a life — or at least reroute it — imagine what a whole community of sideways growers could do.
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