I will literally go insane in silence - my mind starts to think itself into oblivion. Could be because of my sensitivity to extra-normal stimuli, or maybe I just have an unstable mind.
When I was four years old, I was hit by a minivan. Immediately, I had an out-of-body experience, wherein I watched me pull myself halfway out from under the van before collapsing, then my mother ran out of our house and pulled me the rest of the way out. I didn't re-enter my body until Mom had brought me all the way inside and laid me down on some towels; from this, I had a broken arm, knee, and a fractured skull.
Later in life - around five or six - I was attacked by a dog and had my ear nearly torn off. In the 'excitement', I fell and struck my head - that, or the dog rocked my hard enough to trigger it again, and I was watching myself from an outside point-of-view. To describe it simply, I was suddenly in third-person view. I lacked absolute control over myself while this was happening, though - I was guided from where I'd been bitten to get my ear cleaned up and bandaged, then sent with my parents to our family physician. Sometime during the trip to get back to my parents did I regain complete control.
Now, in life, if it's silent, I slowly start to seep away from myself. I can't turn about and look at me, though - not that I've tried, honestly. I don't like the sensation - I can't focus on anything, and pretty much everything around me pulls my attention. It's like having twenty people stand in front of you, each with something in their hands, all telling you to look at their object first.
For me, music gives me something to absolutely focus on. I can tune out all the distractions and the headaches and what have you, and turn my focus to any task at hand much more smoothly than just trying to lock onto the work and go at it.
I got into Touhou first because a friend of mine - probably the closest thing to a girlfriend I had at the time - was just as wildly obsessed with it as I am now. Never one to pass up new experiences, she'd tell me about it alllllll the time, and I'd do my best to get all the weird names straight in my head. Eventually, I got ahold of a copy of PCB and then IN. Played them, failed miserably. Loved the music.
Looked on YouTube for copies of the music to add to my favorites, found doujin remixes and arranges, and fell instantly in love. Now, I try my hand at writing in the Gensokyo universe (as well as having like a gig of Toujin on my other laptop). Imagine that, most of the time I do the writing while listening to Touhou music, and the energy and emotion that's conveyed through them help me craft my writing to match the emotion I want to express. In Everlasting Wanderers, Sara is currently going through lots of confusion and some jealousy. Listen to
C-CLAYS 'Legend of Green Eyes' (three guesses whos theme that's an arrange of, and the first two don't count) - can you tell that's what I listened to when writing up Sara's confusion?
I'd just discovered
THIS arrange when I decided to start Everlasting Wanderers. It made sense to have them come across the Human Village, and of course Keine would have to be involved. Her stage music alone got me interested enough to look up more info about her accepted abilities and personality traits.
TL;DR - Near death experience screwed up my head, makes me out of tune with myself in silence - discovered that Touhou music kicks ass and works wonders at keeping me grounded.