How music helped a flood survivor deal with his trauma

On the evening of November 14, 2021, Jordan Jongema and Bowser, his 120-pound Bernese mountain dog, sat on the bed of his childhood home in Yarrow, watching debris-filled rainwater from an atmospheric river continue to rise around him.

It was so cold he could see his breath, and an unsettling silence filled the air. Feeling scared and anxious that they might not make it out, Jongema spent hours trying to navigate to safety before settling back on his bed to wait out the storm. By 3 a.m., he heard the sound of a motor, grabbed his flashlight and called out. Minutes later, a boat bearing Coquitlam firefighters pulled up next to his bedroom window.

Jongema, a musician, took a moment to toss his Taylor 414 custom guitar into the highest corner of his closet hoping it would be safe from the rising water two feet below. Weeks later, with great relief, he was reunited with his undamaged guitar.

More than a year later, Jongema said he has used that guitar and music more generally "to pull (himself) out of a lot of deep trenches."

After the flood, Jongema wrote an instrumental song called Atmospheric River which helped him navigate some of the frustrations and emotions he was coping with.

“Channeling the experience through notes was different because it's not actually singing,” he said. “It's kind of one progressive push. I remember writing the lead parts. It felt so real to get those experiences in there. There's a lot of feel in that lead.”

Jongema's experience may be helpful to others experiencing trauma. Climate change has been shown to increase Canadians' risks of adverse mental health, the National Library of Medicine reports. But studies have shown that music can help communities and individuals recover from the aftermath of traumatic events, like flooding or fires caused by climate change.

"I am hopeful that music therapy will be included in the phase where people can process what is happening with disaster response," said Stephen Williams, the co-ordinator of the Music Therapy program at Capilano University.

“A music therapist is a certified professional that uses music and the tools of music to help people make a difference in their lives and work on specific goals,” Williams said. “We use music, we use words, we use songs, and we use improvisation in an informed and sometimes evidence-based way to achieve certain outcomes.”

Williams explained Dr. Bruce Perry’s framework on trauma, which examines how the body activates its biological stress response system. Typically, in a traumatic situation, the body focuses on survival, which can suppress an emotional response.

“Sometimes people need help to regulate, and music can do that, movement can do that, soothing words can sometimes work with some people. But that ability to self-regulate gets lost when we're in a place of trauma or amidst disaster.”

“Music seems to bypass some of the protective parts of the brain as a way to trigger memory and emotion in the amygdala.”

Felicia Wall, a certified music therapist with the Music Therapy Association of British Columbia who specializes in trauma, got into music therapy after hearing how people were using music to find healing in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Pavarotti Music Centre in Bosnia and Herzegovina was created to conduct therapeutic music programs to help address trauma resulting from civil wars, and music therapists think it could work here.

“A civil war to me is very similar to a natural disaster in lots of ways,” Wall said. “There are more intricate, interpersonal, and ethnic things going on, so it’s harder in a civil war. But I thought that's so powerful to be able to heal the community collectively from a specific natural disaster,” says Wall.

Although Jongema isn’t part of a formal music therapy program, he has found just listening to music to be healing. Sometimes when listening to certain songs, Jongema gets shivers or breaks out in goosebumps, a phenomenon called frisson. Less than half of the population experiences this, according to a study by the American Psychiatric Association.

At the age of five, Jongema began piano lessons with his grandmother before he went off to explore many different instruments on his own. Through the years, he’s picked up the guitar, drums, and, more recently, the saxophone, learning the instruments mostly by ear.

“Whether we’re sharing a meal with someone, getting a massage, or meditating, music seems to surround the empty spaces of our daily lives,” Jongema said.

"Notes are being played, and vibrations are being felt. There's a reason why that's happening. I think it’s important. There have to be moments for music to involve healing.”