Finding Hope2022 in Review
Posted on December 31, 2022
TW: Mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts.
This may be the hardest post I’ve ever tried to write. I did seriously consider abandoning it but something in me kept me from doing that; I don’t know what or why. Everything I feel at the moment, and for the last year, (even when I’m feeling nothing) is so overwhelming that it’s very hard to see straight, to think straight. But I do know, without a shred of doubt, that this has been the worst year of my life, my depression as devastating as a drought. It sounds dramatic but the metaphor feels accurate. It’s hard to write about but, for some reason, I’m still trying. Here’s my best attempt to sum up 2022.
In the past, I’ve separated the year into chapters of sorts but that’s hard to do with this year. For the first half of the year, I was on medication (first ADHD meds – which fucked up my relationships with food and sleep in a way that I’m still struggling with – and then antidepressants) but I was so depressed and suicidal that I had to come off them. But things haven’t improved since then. I’m still depressed and consistently suicidal, overwhelmed by anxiety; it’s beyond miserable. (This is partly why I dislike – and therefore haven’t been – writing about it, because I just feel like I’m complaining, even when I’m simply stating facts.) On the worst days, I feel like there is no joy to be found in the world, and on the best days, the joy to be found can’t possibly outweigh the bad. And there’s just so much bad. I miss feeling safe. I feel like, somewhere along the way, something in me was irreparably broken and there’s no coming back from that, not properly. I miss who I used to be. I miss who I thought I would be. And I’m just so tired: tired of feeling this way, tired of trying so hard, tired of not knowing what to do, tired of tearing open my chest multiple times a week at therapy and feeling like I’m only making things worse. Like they’ll never get better. Like there’s no point trying to get better because there’s nothing worth getting better for. I feel like as deep as I reach for the words to describe how I feel, they’re never enough; that agony that comes with feeling like the world is just too difficult and painful to live in, I’m not sure that that’s something you can truly understand if you haven’t experienced it. I’m not sure you can understand it unless you’re in it, and maybe not even then. This year has been a war, and one I didn’t sign up for.
Looking back through my photos, I can see that, objectively speaking, good things did happen: I got to spend time with people I love, I saw beautiful art and music, I cuddled with my cats…
I don’t want to diminish those moments but they very much feel like the odd, precarious stepping stones across an ocean (I know, my metaphors are all over the place in this post). They were good things but they were fighting to be heard through all the noise of the bad. It’s like what I said in my Grateful post this year: I can know that they were good even if I can’t feel them in a way I could eighteen months ago. And it’s hard and messy because the good also reminds me of the bad, of the feeling broken, of the things that feel impossible, of the ever-present presence that is my depression. It’s also hard to talk about – the good things existing amongst the suicidal thoughts – because for each understanding response, there are so many negative, judgemental ones.
I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know what I want it to. I didn’t want this year. I didn’t expect to still be here and I’m not happy or pleased or grateful for that. I feel pathetic and stupid and cowardly; I feel broken beyond repair. I feel frozen, overwhelmed by all of these big feelings. If feelings could kill you, I think these would have.
I really have no idea if I’ve managed to accurately capture my feelings about this year; all of these feelings are so big and overwhelming that it’s hard to really know anything. It’s like trying to find your way home in a blizzard. I don’t have a neat and tidy end to this post either. This is just how things are.
Grateful 2022
Posted on December 24, 2022
TW: Mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts.
I think it’s safe to say that this has been the worst year of my life. I’ve been so depressed and suicidal and that has just swallowed up the whole year. And feeling like that, it’s hard to access gratitude, even when you know that there are things to be grateful for. So I’m trying, according to my yearly tradition, to focus on the things that I know I’m grateful for, even if I can’t always feel it properly.
My Mum – What can I say, my Mum is amazing. So much of this year has been so awful and she’s been with me through all of it; she’s never given up, even when I kind of wish she would. She has been my champion. She’s the best and I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve her.
My family – I’m not sure what more I can say about my family, about how great they are. I have not been easy and my issues have taken up a lot of energy and yet, they have been there for me, supporting me in whatever way I needed at the time without judgement. There are so many different things I could write about, moments I could mention, but the most important thing to say is that I love them, more than I could possibly express.
The friends who’ve supported me – I am grateful for all of my friends but I wanted to give a special shout out to the friends who’ve been especially supportive over this last year. I’ve felt very alone and when friends reached out to me, it meant (and means) a lot. They didn’t necessarily do anything (although a few friends gave me gifts this year that I feel utterly undeserving of but am deeply grateful for nonetheless) but they sat with me in it, whether that meant actually talking about it all or watching TV together.
New friends – Despite the fact that I haven’t been out much this year, I have actually made some new friends this year, which has been nice. The pandemic hasn’t exactly been conducive to meeting new people and neither has my depression but the new friends that I have made, especially the ones that I have some quite heavy stuff in common with, have been a gift.
The connections that survived the pandemic – There were friends and acquaintances that I didn’t see for a long time because of the pandemic, several of those in Nashville for example, that I worried wouldn’t be the same after so long. Part of that is just my relentless anxiety that maybe no one actually likes me but part of that is also that everyone has a life, has their own stuff, and went through a trauma with the pandemic; I wasn’t sure if some of my relationships would survive all of that and I wouldn’t have held it against them if they hadn’t. But to my surprise and delight, many of these connections did survive the pandemic and even managed to grow over the year.
The cats – I don’t know what I’d do without my gorgeous cats; I really don’t. They’re adorable, they’re snuggly, they’re funny, they’re comforting… The list goes on. I feel very lucky to have them; there’s always one around to cuddle up with or make me smile. Lucy ushers me to bed when I stay up too late and keeps watch until she’s sure I won’t get up again. Tiger headbutts me until I stroke her and then she purrs like I’ve bestowed the greatest honour upon her. Mouse is slowly becoming more affectionate, having always been less sociable than her mother and her sibling, and has started seeking us out for strokes and cuddles. Sooty gets obviously impatient if I don’t make space for her on the sofa and then instantly settles down, stretched out and pressed up against me. Sweep appears and flops dramatically on top of her mother, like they’ve been separated for weeks (and, bless her, still struggles with the cat flap occasionally despite it having been there her whole life). They’re all the sweetest of little souls and I love them dearly.
Finding a private pool for hydrotherapy – It took many months and several attempts but we finally found a private pool that was a good fit for me to do my hydrotherapy exercises. Many of the preceding ‘failures’ didn’t allow me to do certain exercises or required travelling a fairly significant distance, so I am very pleased to have found such a gorgeous pool that has everything I need almost on my doorstep (plus the owners are lovely and their passion for decorating the pool for each holiday always makes me smile). When my routine is running smoothly, I manage to get there three times a week, which is great; sometimes it’s less than that but such is life. I’m doing my best here.
The fictional worlds I can escape into – One of my main coping mechanisms this year has been watching TV shows, old favourites mostly, and reading fanfiction and escaping into those familiar, comforting worlds. They’ve been both an escape and a relaxation technique. They give my thoughts somewhere safe to go when everything else, inside my brain and out in the world, doesn’t feel safe, when all of that stuff feels like a terrifying minefield. I’m grateful to have these worlds to lose myself in, even if only for a while.
When I feel like this, like I’m drowning in my depression with these near constant suicidal thoughts, things to be grateful for feel like a double edged sword. Sometimes they’re things that make me feel like I can keep hanging on, even if just for a little bit longer, and sometimes they feel like weights tied to my ankles, keeping me here when I desperately don’t want to be and I have to admit I resent them for that. So it’s anything but simple. It’s good and bad and hard and confusing; I can feel differently, ten different times in a day sometimes. But these are the objectively good things in my life and I can recognise that. I wanted to honour them for that.
2022 in Songs
Posted on December 21, 2022
This has been a hard post to write, a hard post to maintain through the year. For more than twelve months now, I feel like I’ve been all but drowning in my depression. And when I’m really depressed, I find it really hard to listen to music, to find joy in anything (which, as we know, is a common phenomenon with depression). It got to the point where, as you’ll see, I stopped listening to music all together. Even now, I’m still struggling but I have always loved doing this post each year so I tried to push through, push through my difficulty writing in a way I’m happy with, and finished it. I hope I did an okay job.
Here is a Spotify playlist with almost all of the songs (some are yet to be released) so you can listen along if you would like to.
1. Unsteady (Erich Lee Gravity Remix) by X Ambassadors
I was so depressed in January that I wasn’t really listening to music at all. But, on the couple of occasions that I did listen to music, I was usually looking for songs that matched how utterly miserable I was feeling, something that was really, really hard to find. But something about this song resonated though and listening to it, I cried and cried and cried. It wasn’t bad crying though. I mean, yes, I was crying because everything was awful but I needed to cry so I was grateful to have a song that helped.
Favourite Lyrics: “Mama, come here / Approach, appear / And Daddy, I’m alone / ‘Cause this house don’t feel like home // If you don’t love me, don’t let go / If you love me, don’t let go // Hold, hold on, hold on to me / ‘Cause I’m a little unsteady / A little unsteady”
2. Another Way by Kina Grannis
This song isn’t new (the album it’s a part of, It’s Hard To Be Human, came out in October of last year) but it’s felt very relevant and very poignant recently. I’ve spent so much time recently (and generally) worrying – and I mean, panic attack level worrying – about whether I’ve made the right choices, whether I could be contributing more if I was doing something different, whether I’m following the right path, doing the right things… Hearing this song whilst in the middle of these worries, it didn’t fix them – I don’t think any one thing could – but it was really comforting. The bridge in particular really hit home: “So what if we choose that we’ll let go of / All the things we’ve no control of / What if we learn to love whatever comes to be.” That lyric reminds me of a Halsey quote that I’d recently heard – “I need to start enjoying my life for what it is right now instead of mourning the expectation of a life that I was probably never meant to have” – and between them, I’m trying to ignore the scary thoughts that tell me I’ll never achieve enough or achieve the things I want to achieve.
Favourite Lyrics: “Maybe this could be / Exactly what should be,” OR “How would you know if someone wiser / Wasn’t forging in these fires / What if you’d washed away what could’ve set you free,” OR “So what if we choose that we’ll let go of / All the things we’ve no control of / What if we learn to love whatever comes to be.”
3. I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers // Humble Quest by Maren Morris
I wrote about how much I loved this song (and the album it belongs to) last year but then, in March, I got the chance to see Bleachers live in Boston when they played the Strange Desire in full. It was an incredible experience that I feel so lucky to have had. Hearing all of those songs was amazing – ‘Like a River Runs,’ which is probably my favourite Bleachers song of all time, was a very close second for this list – but the energy, both from the band and from the crowd for this song was just unreal, unlike anything else I’ve experienced. I love the song and hearing it live is something I’ve wanted for so long: it didn’t just live up to my expectations, it blew them out of the water.
WARNING: FLASHING LIGHTS!
Favourite Lyrics: “Woke up this morning early before my family / From this dream where she was trying to show me / How a life can move from the darkness / She said to get better // So I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet / And I crash my car cause I wanna get carried away / That’s why I’m standing on the overpass screaming at myself / ‘Hey, I wanna get better!’ // I didn’t know I was lonely ’til i saw your face / I wanna get better, better, better, better / I wanna get better / I didn’t know I was broken ’til i wanted to change / I wanna get better, better, better, better / I wanna get better”
I love Maren Morris and the fact that her new album came out the day I flew into Nashville felt like some kind of magic. I listened to it on the plane as we flew from Boston to Nashville and I fell in love with the album but specifically with this song. It was my favourite from the moment I heard it. The lyrics are stunning and so deeply relatable – to so many things and so many situations. I’ve been trying to find my way and find my footing and it’s been so hard and I feel so lost sometimes but this song soothed some of that turmoil. It’s uplifting and encouraging and was just what I needed. I like that it isn’t resolved – “I still haven’t found it yet” – because it’s a lifelong search. That was an added comfort. It’s kind of funny to me that this ended up being my favourite song when I really wasn’t sure about it as an album title when it was first announced.
Favourite Lyrics: “Haven’t looked up in a while / Been biting my tongue behind a smile / Falling on swords that I can’t see / Poison my well on the daily / Got easier not to ask / Just kept hitting my head on the glass / I was so nice till I woke up / I was polite till I spoke up // I’m on a humble quest / And damn I do my best / Not gonna hold my breath / ‘Cause I still haven’t found it yet / No, I still haven’t found it yet”
4. Where Would You Rather Die by Kalie Shorr // Free by Florence + The Machine
Something’s gone wrong if there isn’t a Kalie Shorr song on these yearly lists. I could have picked any of the songs Kalie played during her Tin Pan South set but this one was so Kalie in the storytelling – and the backstory. The writing is hilarious but beautifully nuanced and it paints such a vivid picture. I hope she releases it at some point (I feel like, between this song and ‘LAX,’ there’s a running theme of wild adventures in LA) because it really deserves to be heard and her songwriting deserves more recognition.
Favourite Lyrics: I honestly can’t choose. The whole song is so beautifully put together. And hilarious.
This song – if you exchange the dancing for singing or writing songs – could have been pulled straight out of my head, straight out of my heart. There’s so much of me in this song that it took my breath away when I first listened to it. Almost every lyric could be describing my experience in the world as a neurodivergent person with mental health problems and how music is the thing that keeps me going although my love of it and dependence on it does sometimes make life hard. Florence sounds incredible and I love Jack Antonoff’s production, as I usually do. It gives me a lift, not unlike ‘Humble Quest’ by Maren Morris, and I need as many moments like that as I can get.
Favourite Lyrics: “Sometimes I wonder if I should be medicated / If I would feel better just lightly sedated / The feeling comes so fast and I cannot control it / I’m on fire, but I’m trying not to show it” AND “As it picks me up, puts me down / It picks me up, puts me down / Picks me up, puts me down a hundred times a day / It picks me up, puts me down / Chews me up, spits me out / Picks me up and puts me down” AND “I’m always running from something / I push it back, but it keeps on coming / And being clever never got me very far / Because it’s all in my head / ‘You’re too sensitive,’ they said / I said ‘Okay, but let’s discuss this at the hospital'” AND “Is this how it is? / Is this how it’s always been? / To exist in the face of suffering and death / And somehow still keep singing?” AND “But there is nothing else that I know how to do / But to open up my arms and give it all to you”
Note: One of my best friends, LUCE, released her single, ‘Helium Balloon,’ in March, which is not only my favourite song of her EP but is also a song that I was lucky enough to help with the writing of. It’s a very special song and it’s supporting Cambridge Rape Crisis so please give it a stream or buy it to help a really important cause. Another of my best friends (and a frequent collaborator of mine), Richard Marc, released a new EP called Throw Me A Line, which includes three songs that I worked on with him. It’s so cool that this EP is finally out when we’ve been working on some of these songs for so long.
5. Liars Like You by Sarah Close // Seeing Someone Else by Ingrid Andress
This song blew me away from the moment I heard it. I just love the vulnerability, both in the lyrics and reflected by the delicate production. While a big production would sound great, the simplicity of just the piano and Sarah’s sweet voice made the message of the lyrics – addressing the awful manipulation by someone she loved – so powerful. The lyrics are direct and beautiful and the production is warm but contained, really allowing the lyrics to shine. And as much as I loved the song, I loved it even more when the music video came out. On the surface, it’s an aesthetically beautiful video for a beautiful song and that’s great; sometimes it’s that simple and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s something really mesmerising and almost meditative about watching Sarah skate while listening to the song and while it’s a beautifully choreographed music video, you can almost imagine it as Sarah skating and skating and skating, playing through memories and sorting out how she feels and ultimately putting that relationship to bed.
Favourite Lyrics: “And the worst part is how much I miss you / Hate myself cause I want to forgive you” AND “Your voice doesn’t crack when you say it / Your eyes, they don’t give it away that / Even you forget which parts are true / That’s the problem with liars like you / So you laugh like I said something funny / Call me crazy till I think I must be / You’re so good at doing what you do / That’s the problem with liars like you”
From the moment the first chorus came in and the twist in the narrative was revealed, I just loved this song because having someone you love fall in love with someone else is horrible and sad but having someone you love love the person that you used to be but aren’t anymore is so heartbreaking. And a less common theme found in songs. I loved the storytelling, I loved the vocals, I loved the production. I do wish it had a bridge though; I think it could’ve gone in a couple of different, really interesting directions that would’ve added another layer to the song.
Favourite Lyrics: “I think you’re seeing someone else / I think you’re seeing who I used to be / I bet you wish I was the girl that you met / Out at a bar making a mess of twenty three / And if you’re honest with yourself / You know you’re hanging onto history / Yeah, yeah, you say you’re still in love / But it’s so obvious when you look at me / I think you’re seeing someone else” AND “Maybe it’d be better / Maybe it’d be worse / If I had someone to hate / Blame for all the hurt / Well, this won’t work when you’re still here and / I’m not her”
Between mid-May and late October, I was so depressed that I barely listened to any music at all so I don’t feel like I can include any songs because that time is actually kind of marked by the lack of music.
10. Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift
Only Taylor Swift could get me listening to music in the midst of the worst depressive episode I’ve ever had. There are so many songs that I could put in this slot – ‘Maroon,’ ‘Anti-Hero,’ ‘Snow On The Beach ft. Lana Del Rey,’ ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid,’ ‘Midnight Rain,’ ‘Vigilante Shit,’ ‘Bejeweled,’ ‘Mastermind,’ ‘The Great War,’ ‘Bigger Than The Whole Sky,’ ‘Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,’ ‘Hits Different’ – but I listened to ‘Anti-Hero’ so much (and still do) that it comes in first by a mile. It’s fun and funny and very cathartic to sing your whole heart out to. There are so many lyrics in this song that I feel so deeply (maybe even alarmingly so), deep down in a place that I rarely share with people – like, “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser / Midnights become my afternoons” (the latter is so, so true with my difficulty sleeping this year), “I should not be left to my own devices / They come with prices and vices / I end up in crisis,” “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me / At tea time, everybody agrees,” “It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero,” “And I’m a monster on the hill / Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city,” and “I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving / And life will lose all its meaning / (For the last time) – that have developed as a result of being neurodivergent and having both physical and mental health problems; they make me feel like a burden, like I’m taking up too much space or like my stuff is always sucking up all of the oxygen in the room, like I’m not enough for anyone or anything. The song can’t fix those feelings (that’s probably too much to ask for, even from a Taylor Swift song) but being able to sing along to it, loudly and fiercely and shamelessly does release some of the pressure of those feelings, even if only for a few minutes.
The video is also hilarious and full of interesting metaphors…
Favourite Lyrics: “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me / At tea time, everybody agrees / I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting, always rooting for the anti-hero // Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby / And I’m a monster on the hill / Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city / Pierced through the heart, but never killed” AND “I wake up screaming from dreaming / One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving / And life will lose all its meaning / (For the last time)”
11. Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve by Taylor Swift
Midnights came out just as I started seeing a new therapist, which involved sharing my history and a necessary part of that was a relationship that absolutely wrecked me, a relationship that has some very strong parallels to the one that Taylor sings about in this song (although it wasn’t romantic – it was messy and complicated and I don’t know what it was). This song and the themes it touches on – feeling taken advantage of, feeling damaged by a relationship, feeling permanently changed by the experience, feeling ashamed and/or guilty about your own part in it – resonated so strongly that it kicked up a lot of feelings for me, which was only intensified by talking about it in therapy.
The song itself is written beautifully, making the impact of the story she’s telling even more powerful. With no obvious hook (and the title coming from a section other than the chorus), the song feels almost messy in a very relatable way, rushing towards the end – faster and faster, with more and more desperation – like she’s trying to purge the trauma of the experience. The lyric, “If I was some paint, did it splatter / On a promising grown man? / And if I was a child, did it matter / If you got to wash your hands?” is incredibly powerful – and we know that Taylor has some hard-hitting lyrics in her catalogue – and describes a feeling I’ve definitely experienced, as does “But, Lord, you made me feel important / And then you tried to erase us.” The religious theme, which may or may not reflect Taylor’s personal experience, is very poignant, and fitting for trying to make sense of a traumatic event since a loss of faith, whether in God or something else, isn’t uncommon in such situations. It also makes for very beautiful imagery, like ‘stained glass windows in my mind.’ The bridge may be one of the most beautiful things she’s ever written and all the more impactful for the stunning metaphor and imagery in the earlier lines when followed by the simple, gut-wrenching “I regret you all the time.” And I think we all felt our hearts skip a beat when we heard the lyrics, “Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts / Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” Working through shit like this, there’s that period of time where hitting back and being angry feels good and keeps you moving but after a while, it burns out and just leaves you feeling empty and broken. The idea that she feels like this man stole something irreplaceable, something that was a part of her, is heartbreaking, which makes the following phrase, the plaintive “It was mine first,” even more painful. It also sounds like something a young person, even a child, would say, reflecting back on the earlier line – “And if I was a child, did it matter / If you got to wash your hands?” – which just twists the knife that is the core message: what happened to her was a trauma and one that still affects her deeply.
Favourite Lyrics: “If I was some paint, did it splatter / On a promising grown man? / And if I was a child, did it matter / If you got to wash your hands?” AND “But, Lord, you made me feel important / And then you tried to erase us // You’re a crisis of my faith / Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve / If I’d only played it safe” AND “God rest my soul, I miss who I used to be / The tomb won’t close, stained glass windows in my mind / I regret you all the time / I can’t let this go, I fight with you in my sleep / The wound won’t close, I keep on waiting for a sign / I regret you all the time” AND “Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts / Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first”
12. What Sarah Said by Death Cab For Cutie
I came across this song at random and although I’ve loved it for years – in a it’s-a-beautifully-written-and-absolutely-heartbreaking-song kind of way – it felt like hearing it for the first time. It really resonated and the sadness and helplessness just felt so true to my own that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The piano part is atmospheric and emotive and the lyrics are simple but stunning. It’s not a song with a story – in that something happens – but it’s a snapshot of a moment, of an epiphany, and the attention to detail makes it heartbreakingly poignant, with lyrics like, “And I looked around / At all the eyes on the ground / As the TV entertained itself” and “And then the nurse comes round / And everyone lifts their heads.” There’s a harshness to it – “As I stared at my shoes / In the ICU / That reeked of piss and 409” – but also a fragility – “And it came to me then / That every plan / Is a tiny prayer to father time.” There are moments that just knock the wind out of you and those are the ones that I’ve always felt most drawn to, like “Amongst the vending machines / And year old magazines / In a place where we only say goodbye” and “It stung like a violent wind / That our memories depend / On a faulty camera in our minds.” Those lyrics always resonated with me so deeply and I feel them even more now; they’re the painful truths that we don’t like to think about, just like the the revelation that it feels like the song is building to from the first note. I hear the line, “Love is watching someone die,” and it’s like the world drops out from under you, made all the more gut-wrenching by the following lyric, “So who’s gonna watch you die,” which I think can be interpreted in multiple ways, all of which are very powerful.
Favourite Lyrics: “And I rationed my breaths / As I said to myself / That I’d already taken too much today” AND “Amongst the vending machines / And year old magazines / In a place where we only say goodbye // It stung like a violent wind / That our memories depend / On a faulty camera in our minds” AND “And I looked around / At all the eyes on the ground / As the TV entertained itself” AND “And then the nurse comes round / And everyone lifts their heads / But I’m thinking of what Sarah said / That love is watching someone die / So who’s gonna watch you die”
Anyone who’s been following this blog for a while will know that I am pretty much incapable of keeping to my own twelve song rule but, this year, it seems that I have (which says something in itself about the year). Here we are. This year in music, this year in the lack of it. I hope this was interesting and that maybe you found a new song or two that you like. Again, here‘s the link to the Spotify playlist.
Finding Hope 