I recently discovered a song that has rocked my soul: Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved. Apart from how evocative his voice is, the words of the song struck a chord with me:
…This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy
I need somebody to heal
Somebody to know
Somebody to have
Somebody to hold
It’s easy to say
But it’s never the same
I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain
How many of us have been or stayed in a relationship because it numbed the pain, sometimes pain we didn’t even know we were feeling?
That line hit me in the gut.
And this one: I guess I kinda liked the way you helped me escape
We unconsciously pick partners who soothe our place of intolerable pain, who help us escape it. That’s just how it works. But when the relationships ends we’re in even more pain. Sometimes debilitating pain, that we numb because it’s just too much to feel. Compulsive sex, alcohol, drugs, shopping, over-exercising, drugs, sliding under someone new to get over someone…
Having recently dived deep into my own place of intolerable pain, the full breadth of the complexity of how trauma informs our mate selection has become even more apparent to me.
The song came out in 2019 but I live under a rock in terms of social media and was going through my own stuff then.
In my defense I will say that I stumbled on this song a few days ago watching a reel of some sexy male model (Fredis Terrer) dancing to it. He got my attention.
Capaldi is described on my iphone by Apple music as “(he) addresses the private pain that people prefer to keep hidden. A young Scottish bluesman venting his romantic agony with gospel fervor, he belts out confessional songs of love gone bad in an end-of-tether howl that suggests a long dark night of the soul.” Yep!
What I really like about him, apart from his voice, is that he’s an unlikely pop star: he’s a scruffy, overweight, not drop dead gorgeous, Scottish guy who suffers from Tourette’s. I think he’s going to do a lot for empowering and inspiring those who don’t fit the body image mould of a celebrity as well as those with Tourette’s.
This has been a much more personal share than I ever do, but it felt important to say. Relationships aren’t easy. The long dark night of the soul pays off my friends. And dealing with our traumas in order to create a successful relationship is priceless.
That’s what I help people do.
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