Self-love can save you: Therapist reacts to “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” by Bring Me the Horizon
“I guess that some of us
Are just born with tragedy in our blood
It's just basic chemistry.”
“Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” lyrics by Bring Me the Horizon
These lines are so powerful. I know that so many people feel that. They think, “I am destined for pain. It flows through my veins.”
But that idea is coupled with this next line that's so beautiful.
“Maybe all these open wounds
is how the light gets into you.”
Someone said on Genius that this line is a reference to a Rumi quote: “the wound is the place where the light enters you.”
I have found as a therapist that that is so true. Where you are wounded is often where you are able to emit more light.
“No one's going to come and rescue me.”
That sounds sad, but in this song, the energy of that is so driving and actually really hopeful. It's like, “No one's going to come rescue me, so I have to rescue me. The fight's inside.”
“'Cause I know that you're low
But once you hit the bottom
At least there's nowhere to go but up
Yeah, I know that you're low
But once you hit the bottom
At least there's nowhere to go but up.”
Let’s look at the bridge, and then we can get to the breakdown. These lyrics are so real. What's interesting is that when you are low, when you are at rock bottom, there is someone who is always with you, who you cannot escape. It’s you. And sometimes being unable to escape that person — yourself — feels like horrible when all you want to do is escape who you are. But that person is always there for you, through every single moment. You are there for you.
It gets a little meta, but I heard this idea about self-love recently that really resonates. So often, we try to love ourselves because of things that we do or things that we are. Maybe because we're kind or smart, or because we did a good thing. But there will always be someone who is smarter or kinder or does more good things.
Especially when we aren't able to see those qualities, loving ourselves because of the things that we do or the things that we are isn't that accessible. But loving ourselves because we are ours might be.
When you ask a parent why they love their child and they're like, “Because they’re mine.”
That is this kind of self-love. When you are at rock bottom, who is with you? It's you.
That's why I love myself, because I'm mine. I think I'm saying this because it's leading into a thought that I'm having about the breakdown, which I think is maybe one of the most powerful things that Oli Sykes has ever said in a Bring Me The Horizon song.
“The hardest thing you'll ever know
Is there's no love like your own
No, there's no love like your own.”
Your love is the unique antidote to your pain. It is not the only thing you need. But imagine that your immune system's really down. You need to get an IV of medicine, right? They put a cocktail of things in the IV fluid that help you hydrate. You get your vitamin levels back up.
Those things in the IV are your friends’ love, the love around you that can get you some of the way. But your love is the sauce, and it can only be yours. It's like in The Witcher when they need the elder blood. It's that special.
Your blood, your love is the antidote to your wounding. Once you are able to give yourself that, that is that full-circle. The reason that it's the antidote is because of that self-love that we are talking about, which is that you are your own. You are yours. You are the only life that you get, and you are the only person that has been with you through every single thing. So your love holds just a little more weight than the love of everyone else around you.
I love this song because it's actually freeing. It's freeing that no one's going to come and rescue me. It's freeing that I am the one that has to rescue me. It's freeing that it is my love. It is something that I already have within me. I just have to figure out how to access what is going to heal my wounding.
The gift of “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” is that your love is the unique antidote to your wounding. It is the thing that closes the loop on healing and allows it to actually feel complete. The love of other people is so important, and it can carry you through when you are working on how to access self-love. But the completion of healing comes when you're able to give that love to yourself. That's how you rescue yourself.
You don't need someone else to rescue you. They can help you, and they can support you on the journey. But you're the hero in your own story. It's your love that sets you free.
No, there is no love like your own. Sometimes you have to go to war to get back to loving yourself. I think that one thing that can help is that perspective of, “Why do I love me? Because I'm mine, and no one else's love is going to heal me the way that my love is going to heal me. So I have to get back to loving myself, and I'm going to fight that war.”
Here's the thing: sometimes it is really hard to get to loving yourself, and you do need other people to help you on that journey. If you want to be someone who supports others in accessing their own love for themselves, we need you to do that with us. We need your help. We need volunteers to support music fans who are opening up.
Go to heartsupport.com/swat and we'll train you how to do it!
