Behind-the-Song: The Only Thing You Love pt.3 (Patreon)

I know these are such small sections of the song, but they carry a lot of meaning, so I decided they needed a post of their own.

I have a tendency to change things up as the song progresses to give things a little bit of hope. But in this case, that felt inappropriate.

So often, in relationships that are ✨ toxic, ✨ it's incredibly difficult to 1) see them for what they are, 2) stop blaming yourself, 3) know that you deserve better and that the good stuff doesn't make the bad stuff okay, and 4) get out of that cycle 🫠

So I decided the song needed to embody that same process.

I wanted to acknowledge that it's so common to blame yourself when people treat you poorly. Especially in these relationships that start out with love bombing. Because either you think you've done something to deserve it; the love bombing stopped and the toxicity started because of some fault or mistake of yours, or you just blame yourself for not seeing it and for getting into that situation... Usually it's both. The former during the relationship, and the latter after it ends/as it gets close to ending.

And that self blame is often a contributing factor to why we stay. We blame ourselves for the abuse. So we think we can fix it. It can be good again if we just do better. And where would we be without them, anyway? So often, these people isolate you from your friends and break down your confidence over time. So you genuinely feel like you couldn't leave even if you wanted to 🫠

And then eventually, you get so worn down and so defeated...and you wonder how you got here. How this became so utterly suffocating. How it get this bad. Why you can't seem to deal with anything anymore. And maybe you even feel guilty about that; you could handle it before; it wasn't a big deal before - what's wrong with you?

And maybe you even start to realize that the relationship is bad for you... But somehow you're still stuck. Because they made you feel like you couldn't make it without them. Or because you're too depressed or defeated and you don't have the energy to even care anymore. Or maybe because you still love them and you think that's enough...but it's not. It never was. You don't deserve to be treated that way, regardless of the circumstances. Ever.

Whatever the reason, somehow, you're still stuck.