For more than 30 years, we have been listening to Lou Barlow’s music. And during that time, whether it was during his hard-core days with Deep Wound, the wall-of-sound alternative rock of Dinosaur Jr., the indie rock of Sebadoh or the Folk Implosion, or the more folk sound of his new album, “Brace The Wave,” Barlow has been sharing his emotions in a raw and uncompromising way.
So, it is perhaps fitting that Barlow is now sharing his struggles with one of the most common and yet debilitating emotions that many of us experience — social anxiety.
Barlow’s story is one of how he used music to overcome crippling social anxiety and low self-esteem. In sharing his story, Barlow is showing a path that others may use to help manage apprehension in social situations: If we can learn to accept, and even embrace, the parts of ourselves that make us feel different or even odd and weird, we will not only be able to make better art but also come to terms with our inner demons.
Social anxiety is the experience of tension or fear in the presence or anticipated presence of others. In its more mild form, it can be the common tension or “jitters” that people experience when meeting new people or talking in public. It can, arguably, even be adaptive in heightening our readiness for those situations.
In more severe cases, people can experience “social anxiety disorder” or social phobia, marked by experiencing such extreme distress that social interactions with anyone except close family are avoided. In the most extreme cases, people with avoidant personality disorder suffer these painful and avoidant experiences throughout a lifetime often marked by extreme social isolation.
For many people who suffer from social anxiety, it first manifests in a tendency to be shy as a child. “I was cripplingly shy,” he told me. “When I was in high school, my teachers thought I was mentally disabled because I wouldn’t be able to say anything or do anything. They thought I didn’t speak.
“Even when I entered Dinosaur Jr., there was a book about Dinosaur Jr. and people were like, ‘Lou – he never talked.’ So I carried that into my 20s. I was really, really quiet.”
While being quiet or shy is not necessarily a negative trait, for Barlow, it came to reflect and perhaps perpetuate a belief that he was in some ways defective. Barlow’s experience is similar to the low self-esteem that many people with social anxiety experience, which can also be associated with depression among individuals with social anxiety. “I always felt weird. I don’t feel particularly likable,” he explained.
Moreover, people with social anxiety fear negative evaluation and are often certain that just as they judge themselves harshly, others will judge them in a similarly harsh manner. “I always felt that when people found things that they didn’t like about me, it seemed to distance them from me,” he said.
Yet the judgment was not reciprocal. In fact, according to Barlow, he never felt quite as critical about other people as he did about himself or that he assumed others felt towards him. “When I found things that I didn’t like about people I knew, it didn’t decrease my affection for them. It didn’t really. I never kept this running tally about somebody,” he said.
In fact, if anything, Barlow felt that because he was so focused on his own perceived faults, he rarely questioned others. Self-focused attention — often described as the experience of looking at oneself from the outside and evaluating — is common among individuals with social anxiety. And this experience not only enhances one’s own self-critique but also can keep that harsh focus off of others.
Barlow described how this left him vulnerable in relationships. “Self-focus was the most crippling thing. I just didn’t say anything … I have a thing where other people are right. My bullshit detector is nonexistent. I had a friend in school where all he did was lie to me. He’d concoct stories like ‘I lived in Switzerland … I did this and that’ and I was like, ‘Really?’ I believed every word that he said. And so my teacher in 5th grade took me aside and said: ‘Lou, not everything Brian says is true.’”
Barlow feels as though he’s carried that self-deprecating bias into his adult life, even giving people who he knew were not truthful credibility and even feeling fascination. “I believe that everyone around me is functioning on this higher level. Even people — when I recognize that this person is full of sh*t — I’m fascinated by it. It’s amazing that they can actually do that. What an incredible gift that they have – to speak absolute garbage. I can’t even work up disgust with it. That’s amazing. This person is the fakest I’ve ever talked to in my life. What I’m going to do is talk more to this person. It’s weird.”
Furthermore, Barlow described that when people were unkind to him, it actually confirmed his belief system that he was not likable, so it didn’t strike him as unjust. Self-verification theory suggests that people often agree with others who confirm self-beliefs even if these beliefs are negative. Individuals with low self-esteem may even seek out relationships with people whose beliefs about them confirm their beliefs about themselves.
Barlow described how this process manifested for him, perhaps contributing to staying in a marriage longer than he would have otherwise. “I lived with a woman for 20 years who hurt me tremendously over and over, and in a lot of ways. Maybe I don’t feel like I’m a totally likable person, so I can forgive them.”
Moreover, as Barlow experienced the pain of the relationship, his fear somewhat contributed to his staying and trying to work it out, ultimately causing more pain. Many people with social anxiety will try to suppress negative emotions rather than address them, especially if these negative emotions only confirm their own self-deprecation. But rather than making one feel better, emotional suppression typically worsens negative mood states, such as anxiety and depression.
Barlow explained how this vicious cycle manifested for him: “I had moved to Los Angeles because my wife at the time wanted us to move to L.A. And my wife was in love with someone else. I hadn’t realized this until I had already bought a house in Los Angeles and I found some journals of hers. And I realized that one of the major reasons [for] moving to Los Angeles was to be with this other man. That was really traumatic, but I forgave her for it. I thought, I’m going to totally work through this. I’m gonna forgive her for this and figure it out. She didn’t really mean it; she still loves me.”
Barlow found that his attempts at “moving past it” did not work and later, when he did discuss what happened, he became extremely upset.
“Ten years later, this thing that had happened to me, if I started talking about it, I would really start to spin out of control. Like I would get really manic. If I were telling someone about it, I’d get mad at the person I was telling it to. It would just be out of control. I would be recounting this hurt that I had and how I dealt with it and moved beyond it then all of a sudden, I’d find myself yelling. And the person that I’m telling it to is like, ‘What the f*ck?’ That was the thing. I divorced her. Eventually, I divorced her.”
For Barlow, the beginning of his path to overcoming social anxiety had begun years earlier, as he wrote and played his music. There is a long history of research showing that playing and listening to music has psychological and physical health benefits. As an example, research suggests that listening to music helps reduce stress and anxiety in pain and cancer patients.
“The one thing that [making music] did for me was make me feel less alone. That to me is the point — the underlying point of ever making music — it’s actually a proven legitimate tool for helping people cope. It actually has that power,” he explained. “It’s kind of crazy how music helped me overcome the anxieties that I have. When I was young, the music I listened to was incredibly explicit – hard-core punk. It was incredibly personal insights laid out and that’s what got me through and decided what I did with my life.”
Research suggests that written expression, such as Barlow’s expression through lyrics, can have emotional and physical benefits, just as suppression has negative effects. This first surfaced in his music when playing with Deep Wound, which featured a song titled, aptly enough, “Lou’s Anxiety Song.” “The original title for ‘Lou’s Anxiety Song’ was ‘Pressures.’ The lead singer of the band, instead of saying ‘pressures,’ like he was supposed to, said ‘Lou’s anxiety song’ – which was his commentary as an older, much cooler person.”
Further, the music itself can have an almost calming effect, even if the music is particularly intense. Lester Bangs was famous for describing the musical energy and intensity of hard-core music, by saying, “Hard-core is the womb.” Research has supported this assertion, showing that people who prefer more intense music actually become more relaxed, as opposed to agitated when listening to it.
Barlow recalls this feeling when playing with Dinosaur Jr. “The music had that vibe. When J plays guitar, it’s unbelievable. He puts himself in the middle of the most extreme volume and it is a womb — and something in him creates this. A normal musician would not find it possible to play with what he surrounds himself with and it is so specific to him and totally womblike,” he said.
But when Barlow really felt that he was overcoming anxiety was when he started embracing his own unique and original voice. And embracing this original and unique voice helped him feel better right from the start — “almost immediately,” he said.
“I did a cassette called ‘Weed Forestin’ in 1988 … it started to create that armor for me. This is who I am. I found something. These new ways of strumming my guitar that still to this day, I’m like, that’s unique. It’s interesting. Someday, someone will say, ‘That’s unique.’ I don’t know who, or when, or if that will ever really happen, but I’m creating my own style of music.” he said.
“It’s an interesting thing with music. I think some people make music so they can feel like someone else. Many people when they heard Bob Dylan – they’re like, ‘I want to be Bob Dylan,’ so they literally imitated Bob Dylan. And some people are like, ‘I love Metallica,’ so they are literally trying to step in and make their own heavy-metal band that sounds exactly like them.
“But with me, music is something where I feel that the best music is made by people who find a really individual way of speaking. And that has everything to do with identifying the things in you that make you unique and not like other people and accentuating those parts of yourself … and celebrating them,” Barlow explained. “That’s where I come from, and I want to go into my world and accentuate all the parts that make me unusual and that would make me feel uncomfortable if I was to even speak them to someone. I want to find those things and sing about them. That is what I have taken away from music. In order to really add to the body of music that’s out there, and the way to do a true tribute to the great artists of music is not necessarily to imitate them, but to recognize that what they did was find something in themselves that made them unique.”
“I think that is the redemption.”
To be sure, Barlow recognizes that he still can be vulnerable to anxiety. He describes how difficult reviews can be for him: “In a lot of ways, my success that I have as a musician is really tied to my feeling of self-worth. Which kind of sucks. It means that I believe every review that I read, like when someone says, “Lou Barlow doesn’t know what the f*ck he’s doing. He makes it all up. He doesn’t even play the notes when he’s playing with Dinosaur Jr.’”
Conversely, praise doesn’t always sink in, as he feels that his music is distinct from him as a person. “They are totally separate things. If someone likes me based on my music, they don’t know me. They have no idea.”
And Barlow acknowledges that he often turns to alcohol more than he would like, to the point where he considers himself to be alcohol-dependent. Alcohol abuse and dependence are often common among people with social anxiety, as alcohol often numbs negative feelings and creates a sense of being more comfortable in one’s own skin.
“I think I’m probably an alcoholic. I’m very functional and not a self-destructive person. So, now that I’m entering the, kind of, latter part of my life and midlife, it’s something that I recognize that I use to cope when under extreme stress,” he said.
Barlow feels that part of the reason he turns to alcohol is that he has trouble setting boundaries so that he has time to be alone and be creative. “I don’t have enough time to be artistic. I’m always around people. I have kids,” he explained. “Also, drinking is a way of dealing with other people. When I’m alone, I don’t. Drinking is the last thing I want to do if I’m creating. There was a period when I drank and tried to play, but that literally was impossible.”
It’s a vicious cycle, as Barlow recognizes how drinking interferes with, rather than enhances, his creative process. “And it interferes with creativity. I’m really happy when I don’t drink. I’m actually on a basic level a pretty happy person, but I feel like alcohol is … I’ve felt like this creature – it takes over. It has a way of completely nullifying things. But it doesn’t – with the hangover and everything. It is just depressing. Sometimes I want to just get out of myself, and I get overwhelmed, and I want a break. That’s my struggle with alcohol. I don’t know. Alcohol is not for me. I don’t think alcohol is gonna be the death of me; I don’t. It’s just something that I have to get over. I have to figure a way around this one,” he said.
But Barlow is seeing improvement. One way that things have changed was in his famously tumultuous relationship with J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Originally, part of the struggle Barlow had with Mascis was feeling that Mascis wouldn’t react to him. Barlow found this experience disturbing and invalidating. Validation, or the notion that one’s thoughts and feelings make sense in a given context, can be an important aspect of managing negative feelings.
Barlow recounts an episode where he deliberately tried to elicit a reaction from Mascis: “Validation is huge. It’s funny, because I had written a song in the last Dinosaur record, and it was about validation. That was the point of the song. I wanted them to react to me in some way. I think with Dinosaur – I just felt like J didn’t care about me at all. The incident that led me to that – I wasn’t specifically trying to get a reaction from him at all – but when he did react, it was like, ‘What?!’
“I was doing something honestly that was totally unrelated to him. I was like f*cking up a song in a show. I wasn’t doing that to mess up his song. It wasn’t anything personal at all. It was just a punk moment. This was going to be an atonal thing that I’m going to grind out – nothing personal to him, but he took it very personally. I guess when it did happen, I was elated. He actually cares? For him to validate that we were actually in a power struggle – I didn’t even think that he cared enough to even say that he was in a power struggle with me.
“I didn’t think he cared at all.”
But Barlow described how when the band reunited in 2007, he felt differently. “It’s interesting to walk back into the situation and have it be effectively the same. It’s not like I have more power. I think he wants to control the band, but also wants to have the guy in the band who writes a couple of songs on every record. And who cares about it. I can totally be that guy. But when I was in the band, it was just, I don’t know, I really, you know, I cared tremendously about how J. thought or felt, and I don’t think he liked me. But now, he probably still doesn’t like me, but I don’t care as much.”
And Barlow feels that he’s in a healthier relationship: “I am out of a marriage that I figured out was really destroying me. Now I’m in a relationship where I feel like I am liked. It’s intense. It’s an intense feeling to actually feel like someone really likes you as much as you like them. They would do for you what you would do for them.
“I’m almost 50 years old. My wife now — she and I became friends — a door opened between us where we became extremely honest with each other and I don’t know what I would have done if that had not happened. To have someone open the door and be extremely honest with me … that was a huge deal. With everything else that I’ve dealt with in my life, I’m like, ‘Well, I can get there if I can just have someone who is honest with me.’”
And Barlow is now using previously anxiety-provoking situations to build rather than reduce strength. His experience is consistent with cognitive-behavioral therapy programs for social anxiety that can be effective in helping people confront scary social situations.
“Performing was extremely difficult for me, and it still is. It creates incredible anxiety, but every time I do it, I’m making myself stronger. My whole perception of myself and how I get through my days is largely created by what I’ve done as a musician. Because it’s made me feel legitimate,” he said.
And he has found that situations that otherwise may have been anxiety-provoking are easier. “One of the most difficult things I’ve found as a parent is, like, being around other parents and walking into a classroom and dropping my child off. I can do that with relative ease, you know, because I feel like I’ve done something. It makes me feel literally OK with myself, and comfortable in my own skin. No one needs to recognize that. It’s not that I care that anyone knows I’ve done anything, I can at least say that I’ve faced my fears in such a major way. I know that I’ve faced greater fears than taking my kids to school or walking outside of my house,” he said.
“That was how I felt when I was a kid, but I don’t feel that way anymore, because of music, what I’ve done and my achievements as a musician, are my armor.”
“And when I walk into the world now, I don’t feel exposed.”
