When Out Of Ashes came out, the song that spoke the most to me was Inside Of Me. I had that mixed feeling of relief that I wasn't the only one who felt that way, and being creeped out because it felt like someone had looked inside my head when writing the song.
In my early teens, my best friend and I fell apart suddenly and quite violently, which fucked up my head. I got a depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. My disorder was always mostly obsessive, meaning I had all these thoughts that I could not let go off. I had these really dark, ugly thoughts and I thought I was going bad. I thought I was losing it. I tried really hard not to think, because it would always end up being ugly thoughts. Kind of like when you tell yourself not to think of a zebra, and then zebras keep popping up in your mind no matter what you try to think about. My head felt like a mess, and I couldn't really explain exactly how. When I heard the lyrics to Inside Of Me, especially the lines "My head is like a loaded gun, every thought is trapped inside this web I've spun", I was like 'That's it! That's just what it feels like!". The song was a great support for me, because despite my family and friends being really supportive, I did feel all alone. That's the damn thing with mental problems. Because it's going on inside your head, it really does feel like it's your own battle. No matter how great the people around you are, you feel on your own. I felt a little less alone when listening to Inside Of Me, and I could play it to people and say "That's how it feels". Today I'm better, but the song still means a lot to me. Thank you for writing down exactly how I felt, Chester (: