Return to Sender · Track 17
For when loving someone slowly turned into managing their moods, carrying their pain, and believing it was your job to make them better.
Inside this song
Why did I feel responsible for keeping them calm, fixing what hurt them, and making the relationship work for both of us?
Caring about someone's struggles doesn't make you responsible for managing them. When a relationship requires you to constantly monitor another person's moods, suppress your needs, or become their emotional caretaker, it's easy to lose sight of where their responsibility ends and yours begins.
“I thought if I loved harder I could change the end, But therapy’s not love, And I’m not your medicine”
For when loving someone slowly turned into managing their moods, carrying their pain, and trying to heal wounds that were never yours to fix.
Read the full storyLyric sheet
Verse 1 You finish your food, stand up while I’m still eating, Always rushing out, never stay to hear my feelings. Correcting how I hold the leash, like you’re raising me, Every little moment felt like training me. You’d test me with “delete him” while you’re texting someone new, Silent treatment, sarcasm , I never knew the truth.
Pre-Chorus I picked up your ultimatums, learned your twisted rules, “Don’t raise your voice or we’re through” , yeah, I became you. You’d ask what’s wrong, then explode when I tried to explain, So I shut my mouth, went invisible, lived inside the pain.
Chorus 1 Narcissist , you need more than love can give, Anger, lies, addictions , that’s no way to live. You made me feel invisible, worthless, and alone, But I’m not your therapy session, I’m better on my own. Go take your anger management, grow up, be a man, You called me crazy, but the truth is loud and clear The only crazy was staying year after year.
Verse 2 Say my illness is in my head, my allergies aren’t real, You yell at strangers in the street but can’t show me how you feel. Other guys left their friends just to spend the time with me, But you chased locker-room talk, said you’re “giving up on us” easily. Told me I’m not attractive, not the girl you used to know, But when the storm inside you calmed, I saw the man below.
Pre-Chorus I picked up your ultimatums, learned your twisted rules, “Don’t raise your voice or we’re through” , yeah, I became you. You’d ask what’s wrong, then explode when I tried to explain, So I shut my mouth, went invisible, lived inside the pain.
Chorus 2 Narcissist , you can’t drain my light again, Go take your anger management, grow up, be a man. I’m healing my nervous system, stronger in my skin, You called me crazy, but the truth is loud and clear The only crazy was staying year after year.
Bridge I swallowed your silence, I carried your rage, Rewrote myself to fit the rules you made. I thought if I loved harder, I could change the end, But therapy’s not love, and I’m not your medicine.
Final Chorus Narcissist , you can’t drain my light again, Go take your anger management, grow up, be a man. I’m healing my nervous system, loving my own skin, You called me crazy, but the truth is loud and clear The only crazy was staying year after year.
Outro The only crazy… was staying year after year. I’m not your therapy, not your cure I’m not your medicine anymore.
About the song
For when loving someone slowly turned into managing their moods, carrying their pain, and believing it was your job to make them better.
The story behind
“Narcissist” is about realizing that loving someone does not make you responsible for fixing them. I wrote this song about what it feels like to slowly disappear inside a relationship where you’re constantly managing someone else’s moods, rules, anger, criticism, and emotional reactions.
At first, the individual moments can seem small. Being corrected constantly. Being rushed. Sarcasm. Silent treatment. Feeling nervous about bringing something up because you don’t know how the conversation will go. Having your feelings dismissed, then somehow being blamed for the way you react to being dismissed. Eventually, you start adapting. You learn their moods. You change the way you speak. You anticipate reactions before they happen. You make your needs smaller. You stop saying what you actually feel because keeping the peace starts feeling safer than being understood. At some point, I realized I wasn’t simply participating in a relationship anymore. I was managing one.
The line, “I thought if I loved harder I could change the end, But therapy’s not love And I’m not your medicine.” became the heart of this song. For a long time, I believed that understanding someone meant I should know how to help them. If I understood where the anger came from, maybe I could avoid triggering it. If I understood the wounds underneath someone’s behavior, maybe I could love them through those wounds. If I communicated more carefully, stayed calmer, gave more grace, or became easier to love, maybe eventually the relationship would become what I kept believing it could be. But compassion can quietly turn into self-abandonment when you start believing another person’s healing is your responsibility. I could understand where someone’s behavior came from and still acknowledge what that behavior was doing to me. I could see the good underneath the anger and still decide the anger wasn’t mine to carry. I could have empathy for someone’s wounds without sacrificing my own nervous system trying to heal them. And I could love someone while accepting that my love could never do work they had to choose to do themselves.
This song is also about what happens when you’re called “crazy” often enough that eventually you start wondering whether you are. For a long time, that made me look inward. What’s wrong with me? Why am I reacting like this? Why can’t I communicate better? Why can’t I just stay calm? Healing gave me a different question: What was happening around me that made me feel like I had to become this version of myself just to survive the relationship? That question changed a lot for me. I stopped looking at every reaction as proof that something was wrong with me and started noticing how much of myself I had been changing just to keep another person comfortable.
The ending is about finally putting down a job that was never mine. I’m not someone’s therapist. I’m not responsible for regulating another adult’s emotions. I’m not responsible for healing wounds I didn’t create. And I don’t have to disappear trying to prove how deeply I can love someone. I can care. I can have empathy. I can understand where someone’s pain comes from. And I can still leave. Because sometimes loving someone means wanting healing for them. But loving myself means understanding I don’t have to become their medicine while I wait for it.
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