Realizing I was using music as a compulsion

So I’m a musician and I just realized today that I don’t really intentionally listen to music anymore or discover new music. I’m Always listening to the same stuff. And I have made so many “happy playlists” for myself. If I heard a song that was sad I wouldn’t want to listen because I didn’t want to cry. And I realized I’ve lost a sense of my taste in music. I don’t know what music I truly like anymore because every time I played music it was so that I can have it in the background and “Happy and upbeat music” to ignore or distract myself from my intrusive thoughts. Which I realize now is compulsive behavior. I’m learning more to embrace my fear and uncomfortable emotions. So I’m challenging myself to listen to new music of all kinds. Even if it brings up negative emotions I want to embrace it 🩷. Has anyone else done this or something similar?

Imaan7

Date posted: 33w

Yes I have had this issue. It still happens quite a lot, when I listen to new music my brain hyper focuses on anything that may or may not be relevant to my ocd and it triggers anxiety. I've always been quite rigid too and afraid of rapid change too so that was another thing ocd latched on to

Anonymous

Date posted: 13h

Yes, I have been doing this for a couple of years now, and find that I look for varying themes or meanings in the lyrics, then save them into different themed categories (I have 2 Playlists just for songs that I think relate to my OCD, along with many many other themed playlists...). I haven't quite figured out the reasoning behind doing this, but I have been compulsively categorizing songs, then avoid listening to certain Playlists altogether because I don't want to go down that road...I have invested a ton of time into this, however, and it became something that I eventually realized I was using as a way to escape, avoid, and distract myself...still working on this one, as I love music so much, but it has become a big issue for me.

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