No One Compares to U! Alas, clinically, we all compare with U.
Sinéad O’Connor’s pain and suffering and finding her way to personal safety in this TAR world.
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The death of another icon of the music industry has all of us noticing our mortality and marking the time we have left on the planet. We all seek to renew our awareness of their God-given talents, how they’ve made us feel through their music, and how much we will miss them.
As a psychologist, a trauma-informed therapist, and a lover of music, let me make one thing perfectly clear. No one did — or ever could — compare with Sinéad O’Connor. She gave us one of the most beautiful and melodic voices we have ever heard.
She used her voice to break out of an emotional prison, beginning with the child abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, proving her authenticity — despite risking the ruination of her relationship with her mother.
Sinéad also used her voice — as well as her actions — to call out priests as pedophiles. She was ahead of her time in recognizing the sins of these “messengers of God” and those who enabled them to remain in posts where they should never be allowed.
The most renowned of these enablers — Pope John Paul II — was authentically and publicly vilified when Sinéad tore up his photo in effigy on Saturday Night Live (SNL); however, most people loyal to the Pope took the position most hurtful to Sinéad with their criticisms, boos, and hisses even though she never sexually or physically abused a single child in her life.
Many people in the world, in addition to the crowd at the Madison Square Garden concert honoring the achievements of Bob Dylan, criticized Sinéad because we/they have fallen victim to the cultural chains of complicity and compliance that keep us dysfunctional and obedient.
TAR — our acronym for Toxic Abusive Relationships — was tacitly acknowledged by Sinéad more than 30 years ago on SNL, before the concept was a gleam in my eye. Little did she — or I — know that her authenticity and self-awareness would give rise to this important movement designed to eliminate transgenerational trauma spawned by ignorance and apathy. Sinéad was silenced just like so many musicians, artists, and…
