the chasm today
July 3, 2026
Processing complicated emotions is not my specialty and I've only really just started practising so I asked for some help from my best friend of 13 years for some of their music recomendations for processing finding out your father is a pedophile (and none of your family seem to want to even entertain that obvious certainty even though he's been arrested and denied bail 3 times). They asked how on the nose I wanted the recomendations and I was happy for a lot of leeway, I don't even know if there ARE songs about that exact scenario (surely though! Fathers being awful is NOT an original experience). Here are some of the songs I've compiled so far, click the album covers to open youtube links to the songs in a new tab :)
Townie - Mitski
This was the first song recomended to me and it's pretty much been playing on loop in my head ever since. For someone who loves angsty emotional music, I haven't listened to anywhere near enough Mitski. Trying to remedy that error asap because no other song has come as close to nailing the complex mess of emotion as this incredible composition <3
Townie Lyrics
There's a party and we're all going
And we're all growing up
Somebody's driving and he will be drinking
And no one's going back
'Cause we've tried hungry and we've tried full and
Nothing seems enough
So tonight, tonight
The boys are gonna go for
More more more
And I want a love that falls as fast
As a body from the balcony, and
I want to kiss like my heart is hitting the ground
I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat
Though I don't know what I'm waiting for
I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be
Smell that, it's wet grass, and smoke in my hair
I think I've had enough
But he wants a finale and I came prepared
And we're not going back
And I've tried sharing and I've tried caring
And I've tried putting out
But the boys, boys, boys keep coming on for
More more more
And change, change, change is gonna come, but
When, when, when?
And I want a love that falls as fast
As a body from the balcony, and
I want to kiss like my heart is chasing me down
Though I don't know what I'm waiting for
And I want a love that falls as fast
As a body from the balcony, and
I want to kiss like my heart is hitting the ground
I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat
Though I don't know what I'm waiting for
I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be
I'm not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be
I wanna be what my body wants me to be
Kyoto - Pheobe Bridgers
This song feels like the often violent extremes of grief and processing trauma and how its so overwhelming that a lot of the time you feel foggy, dreamy, ungrounded. Like one minute it's just catching up with someone for their birthday, retreading routines you've had as long as you can remember, and the next moment nothing feels familiar and everything is burning and you just gotta keep swinging. All cos those who were supposed to take care of me were only able to cope with not being able to do so by projecting on me. It's lonely, it sometimes feels like avoiding friends cos I'm burnt out and more comfortable in solitude. My oldest routines assuming others will have absolutely no understanding of me and won't make the effort to try, instead covering me with their overwhelmed emotions and most comforting healing fantasy.
Kyoto Lyrics
Day off in Kyoto, got bored at the temple
Looked around at the 7-11
The band took the speed train, went to the arcade
I wanted to go but I didn't
You called me from a payphone, they still got pay phones
It costs a dollar a minute
To tell me you're getting sober and you wrote me a letter
But I don't have to read it
I'm gonna kill you
If you don't beat me to it
Dreaming through Tokyo skies
I wanted to see the world
Then I flew over the ocean
And I changed my mind
Sunset's been a freak show
On the weekend so I've been driving out to the suburbs
To park at the Goodwill and stare at the chem trails
With my little brother
He said you called on his birthday
You were off by like ten days
25 felt like flying
I don't forgive you
But please don't hold me to it
Born under Scorpio skies
I wanted to see the world
Through your eyes until it happened
Then I changed my mind
I'm a liar
Who lies
Thumbs - Lucy Dacus
I'd been recomended this song by a support worker a while ago while I was struggling with feeling powerless while the love of my life was dealing with their own difficult relationship with their father. They have worked things through to a comfortable level for themself, but now it's relevent again. I adore how tender the offer of violence is, almost pleading possibly. Like, please let me put this man out of our misery.
Thumbs Lyrics
You hung up the phone
And I asked you what was wrong
Your dad has come to town
He'd like to meet
I said, "You don't have to see him"
But for whatever reason, you can't tell him no
So we meet him at a bar
You were holding my hand hard
He ordered rum and Coke
I can't drink either anymore
He hadn't seen you since the fifth grade
Now you're nineteen and you're 5'8"
He said, "Honey, you sure look great
Do you get the checks I send on your birthday?"
I would kill him
If you let me
I would kill him
Quick and easy
Your nails are digging
Into my knee
I don't know how you keep smiling
I love your eyеs
And he has 'em
Or you have his
'Causе he was first
I imagine my thumbs on the irises
Pressing in until they burst
I clear my throat
And say we ought to get home
He offers us a ride
I reply, "No, that's alright"
And when we leave
You feel him watching
So we walk a mile in the wrong direction
I would kill him
If you let me
I would kill him
Quick and easy
Your nails are digging
Into my knee
I don't know how you keep smiling
I wanna take your face between my hands and say:
"You two are connected by a pure coincidence
Bound to him by blood, but baby, it's all relative
You've been in his fist ever since you were a kid
But you don't owe him shit even if he said you did
You don't owe him shit even if he said you did"
Allergies - Stella Donnelly
While pulling up the lyrics for this song, Genius.com quoted Stella who said she had gotten broken up with just before she sang this and "You can hear it in my voice. I’m all choked up and snotty and crying, and my two best friends were sitting on the couch with fried chicken, chocolate, and tissues for when I finished the song." I just totally thought she was that killer on purpose (though she absolutely was even more so tbh). She's on here 3 times for a reason. My allergies got worse the longer I lived with my parents, flare ups from stress is a common symptom for MCAS which I'm on so many antihistamines for! I really really did try to stay, I don't think I've truly stopped yet, but I now trust myself to listen when others remind me that impulse is self-harming.
Allergies Lyrics
No one wants to talks about
The fight we had in June
And when December rolls around
I won't be next to ya
You used all the after pay
And I got no returns
Don't let me stop all your fun
There's lesson to be learned
Call me in the morning
Put me in my place
I did my best to love you
I did my best to stay
Characters we used to play
Are walking off the stage
There's nothing left to organise
All your shit is safe
Somewhere on my own
Scratching off my skin again
Call me in the morning
Put me in my place
I did my best to love you
I did my best to stay
Call me in the morning
Put me in my place
I did my best to love you
I did my best to stay
Lunch - Stella Donnelly
I felt homesick while 'home' all the time, lying in the metal bed in my bedroom (cos my head has always been so heavy) wondering if there'd ever be a place where I would feel understood and cared for by the people around me. Like they knew how I thought or why I felt the things I did, and maybe even liked what they learnt. And to be honest, I'm bitter they obliterated my immune and nervous system using the latter to regulate themselves! I have very little capacity for much of anything and I refuse to use it doing anything they won't even consider doing themselves.
Lunch Lyrics
Cracking my neck in the consulate line
While a homesick American flag's hanging by in the fluorescent light
Up close I see how they stitched on the stars and stripes
You'd ask me your question and stay for the answer
I like the way that you tell all your tales
And I get homesick before I go away
I get homesick before I go away, away
Green origami, needles and grapes
You cry like an army, you drive like P-plates
There is much to be said for the way that you brake
When a red light's in front of you
You ask me to give you my world and a day
We'll do this together we've got years to waste
But I've only got time for lunch
And I get homesick before I go away
I get homesick before I go away
Before I go away
Before I go away
Face It - Stella Donnelly
It really would take forcing myself to forget so much of my experience in order to ever be able to convince myself that interacting with my family would be anything other than harmful (thats exactly what my brain did to survive actually and I'm trying to learn the opposite now, I want to thrive). It took teaching me to completely mistrust every feeling and sensation I've ever had, rewrite so much of me or just suppress it completely. When I was disociated and numb from all the pain that I stopped asserting my own reality was the exact desired result of all their defensive/punishing actions. I feel ecstatic for the representation of masturbating just so much, its actually stimulating enough to get through all the fog and ground me in the sensation of my body!
Face It Lyrics
I don't think I will ever forget
But it will get easier
To leave and come back home
Act like i'd never gone
I don't think I will ever forget
But it will get easier
To watch you from a further city in the world
My eyes are painted on
My eyes are painted on
Leave the fear behind
I'll chase you through the calendar
I have questioned everything that I never would before
You crashed down all the walls and watch me scramble out of bed
My smile is pasted on
My smile is pasted on
I'm locked out of my body and all its usual common sense
I'll be here in the end
Playing with myself again
Willing and Able - Noah Kahan
This and the next song were recomended by my support worker and this one felt like a doozy. I am fucking devasted my relationship with my sister is so crap right now. It was always weird and hard, parentified as much as I was and overwhelmed with the complicated emotions of school I was just too tired to keep playing as a mother to her as a baby. It was the only game she ever wanted to play, I used to love it too. I care about her so much, I still feel like I want to control everything: take on all the hurt and try fixing everything. But I'm learning that those impulses are reaches for comfort adapting to my parents' projected healing fantasy that I had any power. I was a child! Super disabled and completely unsupported too? I didn't have the power to stop anything that happened to me and no amount of withstanding abuse will change people who don't want to change.
I will always want to know my sister though. I hope one day she would be willing to know me too.
Willing and Able Lyrics
Oh when my weight left the room did you take a deep breath?
I stole the beer and drove home, there was only one left
And I wrestle the feelin' you're still thinking about that
Wide awake in your room, just seething about that
When I make my flight, I'm the devil
But when I stay the night, then we drink
And we stay up and fight about the childhood lie
That we both had the courage to leave
I'm willing and able
If you wanna kick this rock around
If you've got a bone to pick with me
If you've got a flag, plant it in the ground
Well, I'll stay here 'til morning
Bony-limbed, red-faced, and teary-eyed
Look at you leaving again, it's all you know how to do
Go ahead, take the last of the drinks the world belongs to you
They all say you're a light, all I see is a shadow
And I'll see you again in six months, when you need your next song
But I tell the truth when I drink
So come on let's fight about the childhood lie
I'm willing and able
If you wanna kick this rock around
If you've got a bone to pick with me
If you've got a flag, plant it in the ground
Oh, I'll stay here 'til morning
Oh, we can fight like we used to fight
Bony-limbed, red-faced, and teary-eyed
Under the glow of the TV light,
And I wish I could know you much more sometimes
Wish I could do nothing with you
Sit in the yard while the day dies, leave it all on the table
And I'll say I love you and mean it this time
Say I'm sorry for everything else
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
If you're willing, I'm able
The Sink - hey, nothing
My sister's partner asked me over the last dinner we saw each other if I would end no contact with my mother if a therapist mediated. It's not the first time I'd been asked something similar, my sister herself had pushed that my mother's been waiting for me to explain what she did and what she's supposed to do to make me forgive her. I don't know what they expect me to do, something different from the immense effort I already wasted that will somehow force my mother to understand what she has always actively tried to MISunderstand? Besides, I feel that mediation implies a balanced power dynamic where both parties need to compromise. How I felt and exprienced my childhood it is not wrong, it just is. I've got a lot on my plate repairing, reparenting, mostly recharging after killing cells wringing them of all their energy.
The Sink Lyrics
I heard you're headed to the plains
You packed a bag, changed your name
When you get back, you'll be the same
You'll be the same
You'll be the same
You found a therapist online
I'm glad you pay to waste his time
Thank God, it's no longer mine
It's no longer mine
It's no longer mine
Fuck that, shut that
Mouth you're always talking, talking
Talk back, walk back
Act like you're not up to something
Fuck that, come back
Look me in the eyes and say I'm wrong
Oh, I'm not wrong
Don't bother putting me in one of your twelve steps
I don't need a letter to know the truth
I heard the medicine you got ain't doing shit
What's it gonna take for you to finally admit?
All the pain you caused
All the friends you lost
All the times you said you're right
You're really wrong
And all the pills you take
Falling down the drain
You can't swallow a mistake
That you have made
All the pain you caused (I'm washing you)
All the friends you lost (down the sink, my)
All the times you said you're right (bottle is empty)
You're really wrong (I'm keeping my hands clean)
(My hands clean)
And all the pills you take (I'm washing you)
Falling down the drain (down the sink, my bottle)
You can't swallow a mistake (is empty)
That you have made (I'm keeping my hands clean)
(I'm keeping my hands clean)
I don't even have a reason to lie, (yes-) why would I lie to you? I didn't do fucking shit
You. Are. A liar! (I didn't-)
Fuck that, shut that
Mouth you're always talking, talking
Talk back, walk back
Act like you're not up to something
Fuck that, come back
Look me in the eyes and say I'm wrong
Oh, I'm not wrong
I'm not fucking wrong
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