'Crawling' by Linkin Park...

The chilling meaning behind a masterpiece of artistic expression

The song ‘Crawling’ by Linkin Park is perhaps one of the most accurate descriptions of the false self; lyrically, musically, and visually through the music video. It describes something “crawling in my skin,” the feeling of the false self, a foreign entity physically transforming you into something you’re not…

If the concept of the false self resonates with you, the feeling of being taken over by a twisted shadow of your buried true self, then this is for you.

The musical style

The song begins with a sweet, innocent, and quite childlike melody performed by a clean, ambient synth instrument. This bittersweet melody is abruptly taken over by the screaming, gritty voice of Chester Bennington, accompanied by an explosive surge of powerful, distorted guitars and thunderous drums: The innocence has been broken and defiled… suddenly.

The entire song is a rollercoaster of intensity and calm… up and down it goes, illustrating the rapid bipolar switching between rage and defeat, between bargaining and accepting, between dissociating from the self and the world, and then desperately making another attempt to reconnect with it.

The loud, metal-like, distorted guitar resonates with the tainted soul, the corrupted innocence. Damaged souls tend to relate to and appreciate the distorted sound of the electric guitar because it describes the corruption of something otherwise pure.

The lyrics

The lyrics articulate the resulting fear from all the accumulated trauma under which the true, pure self buckled. The real self feels like it’s being “pulled beneath the surface” by something that is “consuming, confusing,” something foreign taking away self-control, hijacking the true self, and corrupting the soul. It’s the false self taking over by pulling down the bruised, weakened, and dissociated true self.

Let’s break down the lyrics, line by line.

“Crawling in my skin.” The psychosomatic sensation of the false self taking over, like something foreign and exogenous seizing control of body, mind, and soul, changing the shape of the self (both spiritual and physical).

“These wounds, they will not heal.” An admission that the trauma from relentless abuse is irreversible and impossible to heal despite effort. You try and you try, but the mental wounds just won’t heal. This is why the false self has arrived as a result of the real self dissociating, giving in to the trauma, hiding to stay safe from more self-hating humiliation of abuse. The true self has rejected itself, paving the way for the false self to emerge in the image of the abusers. But the irony is that the false self, even though it’s meant to spare the true self from the pain, ends up bringing even more suffering, more destruction, more self-hatred.

“Fear is how I fall...” Fear is why the true, innocent, pure self has dissociated into prison, a tomb of its own making. The fear of being bruised again, of being vulnerable again, of hurting from the shame and humiliation of systematic abuses. Fear is what the false self is supposed to insulate the true self from, but ends up making things even worse. The false self ends up becoming the greatest abuser, more than any external abuser could ever hope to be.

“…confusing what is real.” A clear description of consciousness when hijacked by the false self: you don’t even know what’s real, what thoughts, feelings, or will belong to you or to your false self. You don’t even know if you yourself are real.

“There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface…” A personification of the fear of vulnerability, pulling the true self down to hide and dissociate from reality. The false self needs to keep the true self buried deep inside, otherwise, the false self dies.

“Consuming, confusing.” A description of how the false self eats away at the pure energy of the true self, bringing confusion about what thoughts and desires belong to the real and which to the false.

“This lack of self-control, I fear, is never-ending, controlling…” The false self has taken over with all its corrupt obsessions, its twisted desires, its evil intentions, and its disregard of everything that is pure in the world. It controls desires and ends up deliberately making bad choices to keep the true self buried and dissociated.

“I can’t seem to find myself again, my walls are closing in.” This is the feeling of not knowing who you truly are because the false self has taken care of your heart, mind, and soul. You’ve lost your true self, you can’t even remember what the true self felt or thought, or desired. But one thing you can feel from the true self is that it’s in a prison, with walls closing in as the false self takes over more and more of the true self, suppressing, twisting, consuming. The more the abuse from the false self, the more suffocating the prison of the true self becomes.

“Without a sense of confidence, and I’m convinced that there’s just too much pressure to take.” This is the pure motivation behind why the true self withdrew. All the years of relentless abuse, especially in childhood, destroyed self-esteem and self-confidence, which convinced the true self that the world is just too difficult to navigate. This conviction made the true self withdraw and dissociate, making room for the false self to take over, the one built in the image of the abusers… as antithetical to the abused true self as possible. This butterfly effect of trauma ends up bringing a hurricane of affliction.

“I’ve felt this way before, so insecure.” This is a reminder that early childhood abuse is the most impactful. Crippling insecurity is the result of childhood abuse without the psychological support systems of a nurturing parent, sibling, or even friend.

“Discomfort endlessly has pulled itself upon me, distracting, reacting.” The passive voice here suggests that his actions don’t feel like they are his. The false self creates even worse circumstances, inviting abuse and blinding the true self to the few good things in his life. The false self distracts from the good and focuses on the bad because it wants to appropriate the bad… then, the bad won’t hurt as much. It believes that, if you become like your abusers, you won’t be abused anymore. But the false self is passive; it simply reacts to stimuli, and it has no initiative or assertiveness. It’s pathetic, and it has irrevocably devoured the true, pure, innocent self. And this is what wastes life, being something you’re not.

“Against my will, I stand beside my own reflection.” The true self feels captive, devoid of control or will. He stands next to his own reflection as if next to a stranger. You wonder who you are and who you’re looking in the mirror; it’s not you. You wonder why you can’t even control your actions. It’s because you are possessed by the false self.

“It’s haunting how I can’t seem to find myself again.” It sends chills down the spine to see yourself in the mirror and not recognise who is looking back. Deep down inside, your pure self recognises that it’s the false self taking all the shots; only the false self is allowed to think, feel, and act. It makes all the decisions and all the self-judgment. And this feels like being possessed by a ghost; an evil, haunting one at that.

The music video

The background theme of the video is shattered glass, representing the irreversible brokenness of the soul.

It starts with visuals of small trinkets and a toy spinning ballerina, signifying innocence and purity that is about to be defiled.

The protagonist is clearly being physically and mentally abused by a twisted father figure. She stands in front of the mirror, clearly unable to recognise who she is, since her true self has buckled under the trauma, withdrawn and dissociated, making room for the false self to take over.

As the hand of her abuser creeps up behind her to grab her, in that split second, we see the darkness, a void in the shape of shattered glass, slowly begin to envelop the screen. This is exactly how it feels to be relentlessly abused; a dark void closing in on you from all around you, taking you elsewhere into a different world, some alternate dimension, cutting ties to this reality as the self dissociates.

We see more of the protagonist: She is dissociative, withdrawn, and unable to connect with others around her. She has a love interest, but she keeps pushing him away because her trauma has cost her her ability to recognise and appreciate when being loved, especially by pure people. She doesn’t feel worthy of being loved, especially not by good people. Purity is something the false self detests because it associates it with trauma and vulnerability. She feels like she does not deserve to be treasured, since she has believed the abuses she’s received. Every loving touch feels like a violation of her hopelessly bruised and exposed innocence. She pushes her lover away.

She looks into the mirror, not knowing who she is… she’s given herself up to the false self, the self-hating persona meant to insulate her from the pain, but in reality, it causes even more harm. The tattoos, the piercings, the self-harm, the deliberate sabotaging of her relationships… it’s all her false self trying to make her feel worthy of the abuse she endured… making sense of the pain so that it is justifiable, and thus bearable.

The video ends with the protagonist finally getting in touch with her real, innocent self, finally seeing her true face in the mirror, touching her reflection, smiling as the broken glass of her soul disappears to make way for light. She smiles as we see the sink drain her tears, having washed away the false self. A good ending…

But here is the most chilling part…

…plot twist

What if this last scene of redemption were an allegory for suicide? What if that were the only act that could make the broken soul whole again, for just one moment before it all ended? In their next album, Linkin Park published ‘Breaking the Habit,’ another song clearly talking about the despair of being controlled by the false self. ‘Breaking the Habit’ is undeniably about suicide… It’s a suicide note, a preamble of tragic irony into Chester Bennington’s own commitment to self-murder. In this song, the artist admits he doesn’t know if it’s worth fighting for, because he’ll never be alright.

“I’ll never fight again
And this is how it ends”

Perhaps this is the meaning of that last scene in the music video of Crawling: freedom, whichever way it comes.

‘Numb,’ the sequel to ‘Crawling’

The music video of ‘Numb’ is perhaps the best visual representation of dissociative identity disorder. The protagonist dissociates from her true self but also from the world around her as a coping mechanism to dissociate from the trauma. She’s created a false self to become numb.

The genius of the music video direction is in the scenes where she seems stationary while the world around her moves in fast-forward, people living their lives while she simply observes as an outsider, unable to keep up, unable to connect. Every time she makes an effort to connect with people, people keep rejecting her, and she can’t blame them. Her social skills from years of dissociation make her come across as weird and depressing… trauma invites more trauma, and on and on and on…

She doesn’t blame people for her affliction. She takes it all in as if she deserves it all. She cuts her flesh, hurting herself as self-punishment, which further pushes people away from her.

Towards the end, she decides to reconnect with her true self by embracing her true values. She finally begins to connect with her real self and with reality. Then, she realises she’s wasted so much of her life not living it, being lived by the false self. So, she runs, runs for her life, to find and connect with the band members, symbolising the only ones who understood her real self since the start — but it’s too late. They are not there anymore. She seems sad to realise that it took her too long to rediscover who she was. She was too late to see whom she truly cared for from the inside, from her innocent, childlike, true self.

It’s too late, and now she must embrace a new kind of pain: knowing what she lost by allowing the false self to take over her being.