Finding HopeIn The Mourning – Out Now!
Posted on March 1, 2025
I know I’m pretty late in my announcement – things have been beyond hectic since the song was released and my insomnia has been brutal – but, as of Wednesday 19th February, my new single, ‘In The Mourning,’ is out in the world! If you follow me on social media, you will, of course, already know this but I know that there are those of you who don’t and I wanted to make sure you knew as well. This song means so much to me and I’m so excited (and a little bit nervous) to have released it…
If you read my post about ‘Write This Out,’ you’ll know that these two songs are part of a bigger project, the details of which are still to be revealed. I’ve only been mentioning it because I want you all to know that these songs are connected, that they’re not one-off singles. ‘Write This Out’ set the foundation, establishing the need to get the story out of me, but this song – ‘In The Mourning‘ – is the beginning of that story: when I was diagnosed as autistic.
When I sat down to write this song, it tumbled out, like it had just been waiting to be written – it was, after all, more than five years since I’d been diagnosed. I’m not sure why I’d never written about it before: maybe I’d thought that I didn’t have anything to say about the actual diagnosis, only about my experiences of being autistic. But it seems that there were a lot of emotions and moments from when I was processing the diagnosis that have stuck with me, that I’d apparently needed to express. It was definitely cathartic to write and one of the things that makes it so special to me is how, when I listen to it, it really feels like how I felt during that time; yes, the lyrics describe that but the song also manages to convey the emotions I was feeling within me and around me.
Again, this isn’t an easy song to listen to – I was trying to process a lot of grief and confusion and uncertainty – but it isn’t without hope. I had been feeling so lost and so broken and suddenly I had answers and information and the beginnings of a new way forward. I’d never felt in sync with the world around me and suddenly I knew why. That didn’t change exactly but knowing why made such a difference and it helped me to see the world differently, to see the places I could fit rather than seeing all of the places I couldn’t.
Photographer: Thomas Oscar Miles // Cover Design: Richard Sanderson
If you’ve been diagnosed as autistic – or anything that turned your life upside down – did it take you a long time to process it? Did you go through a mourning period of sorts? Maybe you relate to this song, maybe you don’t. But if you do, I hope you know that whatever you feel – or felt – is valid; I hope you’re talking to people who love and support you and I hope you’re moving through it as smoothly as possible. No state lasts forever. Change is, after all, the only constant in the universe.
I’m so grateful to be able to put this little piece of my heart out into the world and I’m so grateful to everyone who’s already listened to it, who’s left a comment, who’s reached out to me about it… If you haven’t listened to it yet, you can find it here. I’ve never been one to say ‘I hope you love it!’ because I think many songs inspire more complex emotions than love. So, instead, I tend to say, ‘I hope it makes you feel something.’ I’m going to sign off here: I hope you’ll take a few minutes to listen to the song and I hope it makes you feel something. And if you’d like to share that with me, on here or on social media, please do. Nothing means more to me.
Write This Out – Out Now!
Posted on January 15, 2025
If you follow me on one or more of my social media platforms, you will already know this but if you don’t… SURPRISE! My new single, ‘Write This Out,’ is out today! I’m so excited and I cannot wait for you to hear it!
‘Write This Out’ is the very first single in a much bigger project, one that I’ve been actively working on since 2021 and thinking about for even longer. But details about the project will have to wait. Today is for ‘Write This Out’ – my first song to be released since ‘House on Fire’ in 2023. It was inspired by this fear that I’ve always had: the fear that, if I forget the details of my life, then I would be losing all of the pieces that make me who I am. I think this is very tied up with my OCD – in the form of memory hoarding – but I think it’s also connected to a lifetime of masking and my struggles with unmasking; my memories anchor me and without them, I would have no idea who I am. This manifested as a desperation to keep these memories safe and so I’ve been writing everything down for years. The memories are preserved and so I don’t have to try to hold onto every moment of my life at once: as an autistic person, I can find it really hard to regulate my emotions and they can get utterly overwhelming and I cannot function if I’m trying to hold EVERYTHING – the past, the present, the future – in my head. So if I’m going to function – and function I must, to some degree at least – I have to get those feelings out before I start to lose things and ultimately lose myself. I have to write it all down, something that is completely exhausting but feels impossible not to do. I have SHELVES of notebooks in my room, filled with my thoughts and feelings and experiences.
And beyond that being a part of my life that I wanted to express in song form, it was a concept that felt like a really important one to begin a project about being neurodivergent – although more specifically about being autistic – with because writing about my experiences of being neurodivergent, of being autistic, is something I’ve really wanted and needed to do. I never wanted to hide these fundamental parts of my identity but being open about them can feel really vulnerable and as much as I wanted to write about it all and put it out into the world, it took me some time to get there, as well as other life stuff – autistic burnout, chronic illness, mental illness, trauma, therapy, and so on – getting in the way. But I started writing songs because I never heard anything that I related to and I think every song I’ve written has been a stepping stone to this moment, to this project. I wanted to stop holding all of these feelings and experiences and difficulties and write about them, write about my reality, like every other songwriter gets to.
Plus there’s a huge population of neurodivergent individuals that have very little music written directly about the experiences that often make us feel separate from those around us. That’s not to say that every neurodivergent person WILL relate to this song and the songs to come but I hope that some will and that they can find some validation and some connection from them. We deserve music that covers our experience of the world, that makes us feel seen and validated and understood. As I said, no song is going to resonate with every neurodivergent person – being neurodivergent doesn’t automatically make us the same and grant us the same experiences – but I think we need more neurodivergent artists in the world and I’ve been so excited to see the number of artists talking about their neurodivergent experiences rise exponentially over the last few years. I’m proud to be a part of that, even as a little indie artist with a relatively small audience.
This isn’t an easy song to listen to: it’s bursting with panic and desperation and urgency. And if you relate to that, I feel for you; it’s an awful, exhausting way to exist. But I hope that, if it does resonate, you feel seen and you feel heard and you feel understood. Maybe this song can help you write out all of the feelings that are overwhelming you. Maybe it can help you say them out loud or scream them at the sky if you need to. You’re not alone.
Photographer: Thomas Oscar Miles // Cover Design: Richard Sanderson
As I said, I’m so excited to finally put this song out and for people to finally hear it. I can’t wait to hear what you think. Here’s to ‘Write This Out‘ and to all of the songs to come!
2023 in Review
Posted on January 1, 2024
TW: Discussion of depression, self harm, and suicidal thoughts and ideation.
Much like last year, I have no idea how to sum up this year. I don’t think I have it in me to write a long post that involves such intense emotions and I think that, if I wait until I do, we might all be waiting a very long time so I’m just going to write until I can’t anymore and that’ll be that. It’s just too hard.
While there have been good moments (some of which can be seen in the collage below), it’s been a fucking painful year and it’s now the third New Year’s Eve that I’ve spent crippled by depression, suicidal thoughts, and overwhelming fear and dread around the future. I’m pretty sure I’m in full autistic burnout and I feel like I’m living in a fog. Last year, I think I described my depression as a drought but, this year, I think the better metaphor is drowning: I feel like I’m drowning in this depression and I have so little energy left that staying afloat is feeling more and more impossible. I’m so tired. I’m tired of trying so hard, of feeling like I’m not trying hard enough; I’m tired of feeling this way, of feeling like things will never get better, like there’s no point in even trying to feel better because there’s nothing worth feeling better for. It just feels like there’s so much bad in the world, so much agony, that it isn’t a world I want to live in. I feel broken; I feel like a prime example of a defective human being. There have been good things, like I said, but it seems like they can never just be good things: there’s always so much bad or hard twisted up in them that enjoying them isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. I miss feeling safe. I miss feeling safe to feel things.
A big, hard part of this year has been that I started taking Phenelzine again, for the third time. I didn’t want to and I felt coerced by the circumstances to take it. I was so angry about it all that I made potentially my most dramatic, self destructive move so far: I cut my face and then, when it got infected, I was so reluctant to treat it that I’ve ended up with a fairly visible scar. The most confusing part of it was that, even though I didn’t want anyone to bring it up, I was surprised that no one did; it seemed like the kind of thing that would trigger some alarm. Just as I imagined voicing consistent suicidal would but no one’s really commented on that either. It only makes the experience more isolating and lonely. But back to the Phenelzine: while it helped me get out of bed and go out now and then, it hasn’t had the same impact that it’s previously had on my mood, even on the higher dose. And that means that I’ve officially run out of medication options. I’ve been going to therapy consistently, for the most part, but I feel like it’s getting harder and harder; there have been sessions where I’ve left feeling traumatised. We’ll be trying something different in the new year but I’m struggling to feel hopeful, but that’s not specific to just therapy.
I look at the collage I made for this year and although I remember each of these moments, I feel disconnected from them; the emotions feel dulled. A lot has happened, somewhat to my surprise…
I went to multiple small shows; I went to hydrotherapy religiously and started physiotherapy; I got adopted by a puppy and then had my heart broken when she was taken away; I went to Nashville for Tin Pan South; my application for an Autism Service Dog was successful; I released my single, ‘House on Fire,’ as well as creating all of the visuals for it; I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia; I went to art exhibitions (and even helped to build my favourite art piece, Breathing Room); I hung out with friends, online and in real life; I travelled to Germany for the wedding of one of my best friends and was reunited with multiple friends that I hadn’t seen in years; I got to hang out with some of my American friends when they performed here; I fought for Taylor Swift tickets; I had my heart broken again when the rescue puppy we applied for was homed with someone else; I went to some amazing concerts; I met Amanda Tapping again and she’s still one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known; I started performing again; I read books and watched movies and TV shows that are now among my favourites; I adopted a puppy (which still doesn’t sound real to me); I swam 5km for Mind, raising over £600; I went to multiple Maisie Peters shows and got to meet her too; one of my cats got very sick and we had to nurse her back to health; my aunt died; I changed heart medications; and I worked on lots of different musical and academic work. I know all of these things happened; I remember them clearly but it’s like watching them play on a screen. I know these memories are mine but they don’t feel like mine. It’s weird and sad.
I’m so tired. I’m tired of masking but I don’t know how to stop. I feel broken – physically, mentally, and emotionally – but as hard as I try, it never feels like enough. Over ten years later, it should be getting better not worse, right?
I don’t know what else to say. Life feels increasingly scary, internally and externally, and I just feel too broken to manage. I don’t know how people walk around without all of the fear and grief and anxiety that I do, that I see as such an intrinsic part of being human. As I wrote last year, “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.“
Finding Hope 