I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU Videoclip

In the beginning, I’ll Be There For You was written with the intention of expressing the pain I was feeling when a guy I was in love with dumped me, so it was never conceived as a song about forgiveness or friendship. In fact, I wanted to do a vengeful song, but that was not coherent with my true feelings when I started writing, so I just let myself go and tried to be honest about what was really going on inside me. 

Nothingness, that was the word that began everything. That sensation you have when nothing seems to satisfy you anymore. Nothing left to feel, nothing left to do, nothing left to expect in life. That’s how I constantly felt but, of course, there’s always something you can do to keep going, which in that case was writing the song, for example. During the songwriting process, the song went from speaking about that powerlessness I was feeling to finally expressing a determination to never stop in life, which is the main point of the song. Although I’m always speaking about myself in the song, I thought that I might apply some of that message to other people’s lives in the final part, and that’s why the song is called I’ll Be There For You. It’s a way of saying: “Ok, I’ve been through hell and I thought I wouldn’t make it but I survived, I’m still breathing, so now, my task and moral due is to help other people who might have been through similar situations to make their pain as bearable as possible and give them something to relate to, so that they don’t feel the same horrible way I did. I’ve been there and I’ll be there for you”

With such a message, I thought it would be interesting to shoot a video about bullying for the song. I have to say that, fortunately, I’ve never cut myself as you can see in the video, but I know there are a lot of people who do and it usually has something to do with that low self-esteem that people who are being bullied feel about themselves, so I thought it would be more effective if I showed it in the video. Aside from that detail, the rest of the video is literally my story: From spending hours locked in the bathroom listening to loud music in order to escape the bullying situation I went through, to finally taking my life over and building my future the way I really want, following my inner voice and refusing anything that keeps me from that.

I like the final result, taking into account that I shot it all by myself, but I must admit that I don’t like the final part of the video that much. I was running out of ideas for that part and since I didn’t write any script and I was shooting the video while the ideas were coming, some things are not perfectly tied. I must say, though, that I personally like the first part of the video when I’m in the bathroom. Taking the few means I disposed into consideration, I like the way I managed to use the light and create that dark aesthetic so, in the end, I think the video is not that bad.

More videos are to come. I have ideas for other songs, which will probably be The Difference and Game Over, mostly because I like how my voice sound in them. Maybe Straight In Circles Upside Down will get a video too. I’ll try to organize the ideas better next time.

For now, here’s the video for I’ll Be There For You.

MY BULLYING STORY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

When I was being bullied in high school, I was not really conscious of the situation I was going through, meaning that bullying was not even considered a problem to take into account. The concept in itself did not exist and, if it did, it was not as well known as nowadays. Teachers and students all seemed to assume that it was a normal thing to mistreat some people for being different and not to raise their voices against it. The only thing I was conscious of was the pain. That was the only thing that felt real to me.

No one prepares you for that. No one prepares for how your life is going to change overnight. You go from having expectations and hopes in life to being afraid of waking up every morning and fearing where the danger could come from that day in high school. Who is it gonna be today? What situations should I avoid in order not to get hurt? What am I doing wrong? Am I wrong? No matter what the question was, I just could not conceive anybody else was wrong but me. I tried to keep myself from facing the truth, living in self-denial, trying not to lose control of my life, trying to cling to that happy ever after idealization I had before the bullying started, until one day, I wondered WHY.

But that "why" never got an answer so after years tired of fighting for staying faithful to myself without being taken as a joke, I became addicted to pot and got very isolated, until the point that I was always sitting alone in class while all the other students were sitting in pairs. I didn’t want to be part of that and I guess I wanted them to know somehow. I wanted to show them that I would rather hurt myself before than hurt anybody else, I wanted to be a visual and constant proof that something was going wrong in that place if things were supposed to work like that. I wanted to give them away for seeing and letting me slowly die alone in front of their eyes. 

Fortunately, I didn’t die. I survived… but the consequences of the damages were too profound: one year after having escaped from that hell and just when I thought that things were starting to finally get better, I had a psychotic break, due to this pot addiction and bullying mix combination. It’s been almost 9 years since that episode and I’m still taking meds. I have no friends, I barely have a social life, I have no boyfriend, obviously, and I don’t even have a family anymore, except for my parents, since all my other relatives have acted as if everything was perfect when it wasn’t. Even the closest ones, who could have suspected that the situation wasn’t optimum, haven’t supported me with the things that are important to me.

So now, with such an optimistic situation, what could be expected? What advice could be expected from someone who’s so… fucked up? Well, I have told you about everything I don’t have anymore, but I haven’t mentioned the most important thing I do have now: I HAVE ME. Maybe I don’t want friends who will go away when it’s not about superficial things, maybe I don’t want a social life only to have one and boast about it, maybe I don’t want a lover who’s a coward and maybe I don’t want a family who won’t make sacrifices just like I had to.

It is as important to know what you want as what you don’t want if it’s not even more important knowing what you don’t, and this new me has learned to say no. I’ve made mistakes, of course, and I’m starting to take responsibility for them. I guess it was my choice to start smoking pot and it was one of my biggest mistakes, but I’m not going to blame myself for having had a psychotic break, ‘cause it’s fact that without all the bullying situation, none of that would have happened.