The Neighbourhood: Afraid Meaning
Song Released: 2013
Afraid Lyrics
When I wake up I’m afraid, somebody else might take my place
Paid that money, fake that dummy, ache my tummy
On the fence, all the time
Paid junk honey, face so sunny, ain’t that...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:To me, it has two interpretations, although I think there is a beauty in that these lyrics are so applicable to different people and different experiences. One is the social anxiety part where one is fearful that everyone dislikes them, and that even that even their friends could easily replace them, and how horrible it is to like thinking like that. The other is from the perspective of someone suffering from a personally disorder, not knowing or nessessarily having control over their actions and how they might hurt people, and not knowing what mood or identity will take control from day to day.
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2TOP RATED
#2 top rated interpretation:Sounds a lot like borderline personality disorder. The fear that you might be replaced, horrible self-esteem, constantly switching between idolizing and then devaluing someone, no stable sense-of-self, etc. This song explains what it is like in the head of someone with the disorder; at least it relates to my experience.
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3TOP RATED
#3 top rated interpretation:for me this song means how social anxiety can make you feel. for example the part "you're to mean i don't like you etc." part is explaining how people that suffer with social anxiety think that everyone hates them. also "when i wake up i'm afraid someone else might end up being me" explains how he feels one day he can be replaced by a loved one & how he feels alone which someone with social anxiety can relate too. coming from a person who struggles with it this is what i think the song is about
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For me this is hitting me in sore spot because; 1, I already have an anxious attachment style, and I think these things on the daily. But the main thing that is getting to me now and how I am interpreting it for myself is that it's a relationship. In my personal case its being to scared to sleep out of fear of being replaced by someone new.
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I actually think its about being afraid that someone's already living your dream life and thinking you won't be in their place(your dream life) anymore since someone beat you to it.
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i think i interpret this song differently to what it actually means, but who cares? anyways, i think its mainly about depression/depressive episodes. i think it’s seeing your life fall apart at your own hands, and when you finally are bringing yourself together you fear that you will go back to square one and lose all of your progress by screwing everything up again because of your own mindset. the ‘somebody else’ that you fear will take your place is actually yourself. because the biggest person who can fail you is yourself. sorry if this makes no sense lol
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to me, this song is about someone being an awful person. they realise this about themselves and realise that others know it too... but they just cannot bring themselves to fix it/dont even try and just know itll bring upon their own downfall. thus the anxiety about everyone leaving “i know theyre thinking youre too mean i dont like u.. etc.” shows that they realise that theyve been awful to people. and when they say “it hurts but i wont fight you” its like they know that they should try to fix this. (themselves; an eternal conflict) but they wont even try. “you suck anyway” is like deflection. could be interpreted towards themselves or their friends. they could be trying to convince themselves that their friends are also in the wrong and not just themselves; or saying that they are an awful person anyways so fighting wont change a thing. being afraid every morning of someone taking their place shows their anxiety coming up from this whole situation theyve been presented with. theyre a bad person and they realize it but they wont even attempt to fix it. they know eventually theyll be kicked to the side and replaced whether by a friend or lover and live in a constant state of anxiety because it feels inevitable.
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For me, it‘s about social anxiety. I, myself have social anxiety and constantly think about how nobody likes me and just wants me dead. Even my friends. I fear that I‘m so unimportant to them that they will leave and replace me. Also, the „All my friends always lie to me“ part is very accurate because from my perception my friends always tell me that they like me etc. just because they feel bad for me. But in reality, they don‘t need or want me.
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This is just my pov on it.
I think it's about someone being suicidal/depressed. How your 'friends' the people closest to you, leave you. Personally, I get suicidal/depressed, about how my parents, the people I call my 'friends' lie to me and manipulate me all the time. I'm afraid when I wake up, I will be pushed to far over the edge. That it won't just be a thought in my head but a action instead.
"Keep on dreaming, don’t stop breathing, fight those demons." To me it shows, don't stop living, that you can't go just yet.
"Being me can only mean, Feeling scared to breathe, If you leave me then I’ll be afraid of everything, That makes me anxious, gives me patience, calms me down."
It shows the manipulation and the gaslighting, how you find yourself so controlled, so reliant, on the people that you call your 'friends'.
"Lets me face this, let me sleep, and when I wake up (I wake up, I wake up), Let me be." I believe it shows, like why do you do this to me, why can't you just let me be. Like why do have to try to push me over the edge.
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A lot of people think that this is about anxiety or bpd, I personally think it's about something else.
I myself have had anxieties make my life worse but I've also had other experiences as well that I feel are more accurate to this. I think this is about toxic and abusive relationships. I feel like the "I'm afraid somebody else might end up being me" isn't so much a fear of replacement, but a fear that someone else might make the same decision that they made. To trust someone who shouldn't be trusted.
I always thought of my brief friendship with someone who was quite predatory when I think of this song. The lying is how you notice all the love bombing and manipulative tactics during the honeymoon stage start to wear thin, you wonder if they actually care. You know what they're thinking not because you are guessing it, but because they told you during the explosion.
They make you feel like the bad guy.
"Keep on dreaming, don't stop giving, fight those demons
Sell your soul, not your whole self
If they see you when you're sleeping, make them leave it
And I can't even see if it's all there anymore so"
You wonder if you're right or wrong to have this resentment, but you can't help it.
"You're too mean, I don't like you, fuck you anyway
You make me wanna scream at the top of my lungs
It hurts but I won't fight you
You suck anyway
You make me wanna die, right when I"
You know that it hurts, but you're desperate to have someone because they've isolated you from everyone. You harbor all this resentment and it makes you too tired to find a way out of the cycle, so you just try to push through it.
Eventually, something breaks, and you finnally find your way out.
"Being me can only mean
Feeling scared to breathe
If you leave me then I'll be afraid of everything
That makes me anxious, gives me patience, calms me down
Lets me face this, let me sleep, and when I wake up
Let me breathe"
It's scary at first, they've made you feel dependent on them, but you're not. You realize that they were the reason you couldn't stand on your own, not that they were the one who would hold you up. You struggle with your feelings for some time, and eventually you can live your life without them controlling it.
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Like all songs, it has a different meaning for everyone. For me, it reflects the past and even dissociation, that someone ‘else’ would take over. I’d like to add more to it but yeah, it’s one of those songs I always come back to!
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The song itself is so intricate with the wording that it seems like it could be about anything but from my perspective it has kind of hit me like it was a father who was dealing with a mother, or vice versa, who was keeping their child from him and his overwhelming fear of her replacing him as a father. The father is then overwhelmed by this uncontrollable anxiety and depression....
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I’d say it’s about BPD (borderline personality disorder) because of the fear of abandonment and being replaced. Feeling like you don’t matter to a person and that someone else could easily replace you. Coming from my personal experiences with my fear of abandonment, I get attacked to people, and really care about them, then feel as if they’ll replace me, that they’ll get tired of me and toss me out. I hate them for it, and I’m so angry that they could do that to me, even if they might not, but I’m still attached and I cannot let them go. That just reminds me of the lyrics, about being afraid, and then talking about how they don’t like a person for it. I dunno, this is just my opinion lmao-
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When I hear this song; it's himself that he's talking about. Being ashamed of who he is and his thoughts. He can't be who he wants to be and is trapped inside of himself. Someone taking his place when he wakes up is the fear of losing yourself inside of yourself. The pretense of being someone you are not and never having the chance to be your own person. His own self is being wiped away because for him, it sucks to be who he is and the facade of hiding from himself is to change his outward appearance so others can't see who he really is... in other words he does not want people to see something he is hiding...
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It's basically about being easily replaced and feeling isolated and alone which we all feel at different points in our life and today is the day I feel it.
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I think that this song is about the anxiety and fear of not showing enough individuality. Also i can interpret the songs meaning as being isolated, alone, and depressed. Meaning if he left no one would care and he would be easily replaced by someone else. I feel as if i can relate to this song with the events of my own life. This song portrays feelings that others can relate to therefore many people can relate to this and enjoy this song.
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This song is really deep and depress, it's from the point of view of a person who feels alone like he could be easily replaced, in a relationship or in a friendship way, pretending happyness hiding pain and insecurity, he says to himself that he is not the problem and the others people are mean and bad
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For me this song means that he feels easily replaced. Like if he could just forgotten easily.
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