Conditioned to Stay · Track 11
For when what felt like a soulmate connection was really two old wounds recognizing something familiar in each other.
Inside this song
Was it really a soulmate connection, or did our wounds just fit together in familiar ways?
A connection can feel incredibly deep and still be shaped by old wounds. Understanding why you were drawn to each other doesn’t make the connection meaningless. It helps you separate intensity from safety and love from self-abandonment.
“You abandoned people, I abandoned myself, And somehow both felt safe”
For when you realize you weren’t only attached to each other, you were attached to the familiar roles your wounds knew how to play.
Read the full storyLyric sheet
VERSE 1 You saw the bruise beneath my kindness Before I ever showed the skin Like somehow you could read the silence I learned to hide my whole life in You wore distance like armor plating I wore softness like a prayer Two survival systems colliding Thinking soulmates brought us there
PRE-CHORUS But you ran from love by disappearing And I begged for love by staying You shut down every feeling I over-felt everything
CHORUS We weren't soulmates We were wound mates Two broken mirrors trying to look away You abandoned people I abandoned myself And somehow both felt safe I called my suffering loyalty You called your numbness strength And every time you pulled away I loved harder just to stay God, we confused survival For fate
VERSE 2 I thought empathy made me holy Thought bleeding proved my heart was pure But unconditional love gets dangerous When your self-worth needs it to work So I kept over-understanding Every wound that made you cruel While my nervous system shattered Trying to prove I was enough for you
PRE-CHORUS You needed power to feel worthy I needed saving to feel chosen And somewhere in the wreckage We both became exposed
CHORUS We weren't soulmates We were wound mates
Built from abandonment in different shapes You disappeared to stay protected I self-destructed just to be kept And every version of forgiveness Was another way I disappeared Until the girl who feared becoming cold Finally learned why she was here
BRIDGE You awakened something dangerous Not revenge - discernment The part of me that finally realized Love should not require self-betrayal I became someone harder to manipulate Because I stopped negotiating with my own pain And maybe that's what terrified you most The moment I stopped needing to be saved
FINAL CHORUS We weren't soulmates We were wound mates Two trauma patterns dressed up as fate But losing you became the doorway To finally choosing me Now my empathy has boundaries Now my heart has self-respect And the "dark side" they warned me of Was just the part of me you hadn't met yet
OUTRO You called it cold when I stopped bleeding for you But healing always looks selfish To people who benefited From your self-abandonment.
About the song
For when what felt like a soulmate connection was really two old wounds recognizing something familiar in each other.
The story behind
I wrote Wound Mates after realizing that sometimes what feels like an extraordinary connection is actually two people’s wounds recognizing something familiar in each other.
We responded to that fear in opposite ways. He pulled away to protect himself, and I held on tighter to protect myself. The more distant he became, the harder I loved. I thought my empathy meant I should understand every reason behind his behavior, forgive more, stay longer, and somehow love him into feeling safe.
But understanding why someone behaves the way they do doesn’t mean you have to keep being hurt by it. The biggest realization was seeing my own part differently. I wasn’t wrong for loving deeply, but I was abandoning myself in the process. I had confused suffering with loyalty and endless understanding with unconditional love.
This song is about the moment I stopped romanticizing that pattern as fate. Maybe we weren’t soulmates. Maybe our wounds simply knew each other. And losing that connection became the beginning of learning how to love someone without losing myself.
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