Everyone has a Room
As NF once said, “My mind is a home I’m trapped in.”
Everyone has their own room. Some of the rooms have words written all over the walls, and some have cracked paint and damaged floors. Some are clean and untouched, and some show wear. Some appear pretty and welcoming on the outside, when in reality, their dull and lifeless on the inside. A lot of these rooms look sad and conflicted, exhausted from trying to create an accepted social appearance: a mansion with no furniture. In NF’s song Mansion, he describes his own mental house and its rooms.
If you haven’t already heard this song, give it a listen.
NF uses a metaphor of a house to explain his painful past and how he deals with its challenges. Although we don’t all share the same story as NF, we are able to relate to his song through our own challenges and mental dealings. In each part of the song, he discusses a different way in which he moves through his mansion:
We all hide in corners when we’re afraid.
We try to take shelter in an empty room where there is no escape. The emptiness of the room makes us unable to hide. Sometimes, we are forced to read the writing on the walls around us, and we can’t blind ourselves of the truth. Some consume drugs, blurring their vision of the words, but never erasing them. The writing on the walls remain. Accepting the truth and reading the walls allows you to rise. It allows you to stand up out of the corner you were hiding in.
We all try to repaint the damaged rooms.
As NF says, “The problem is I don’t fix things, I just try to repaint…cover ‘em up like it never happened…”.
Ignoring difficulties instead of confronting them never fixes the problem, just as repainting doesn’t fix the dents in walls. Oftentimes, repainting is a convenient solution, but it’s temporary.
“And I regret the fact that I struggled trying to find who I am
And I lie to myself and say I do the best that I can
Shrug it off like it ain’t nothing, like it’s out of my hands
Then get ticked off whenever I see it affecting my plans
And I regret watchin’ these trust issues eat me alive
And at the rate I’m goin’, they’ll probably still be there when I die...”
After reading the writing on the walls inside the mansion, NF regrets letting himself feel so out of control. Everyone can relate to this in some way. Instead of confronting thoughts, emotions, or conflicts, we “shrug them off” like they aren’t a big deal. After ignoring the challenges, we find ourselves upset that they cause problems in our lives. We form regrets and wish we could go back in time to change our actions. We feel defeat and think that drugs are an easy escape from these negative feelings…
What we don’t realize is how much more damaging addiction is than failure.
Near the end of the song, NF talks about feeling “barricaded inside”, not wanting to let anyone into his mind/emotions. He states that he chose to ‘lock himself in’ because he felt he would be safer from the challenges outside of his mansion. Oftentimes, we feel that shutting the world out solves the problems, but it only shields them. Walling up emotions leads to pain, and concealing the truth only leads to uneasiness and apprehension.
A big step of dealing with addiction and other challenges is admitting you have a problem, not necessarily to someone in your life, but to yourself.
NF reminds us that it’s “lonely inside this mansion.”