My very first song that I wrote was at 12.
It was a goodbye song to my childhood.
I was always such a nerd and like a high achiever.
And suddenly in year 13
I could not handle stress.
tiniest drop of sadness would be like an explosion to me.
I don't know if it was like the brain chemistry of puberty, but it felt like
everything was just too much all the time.
Just with any teenager, you don't know who you are, and you don't know where
your place is in the world.
Just trying to find a sense of belonging was like really tough.
I started realizing that, yeah, I wasn't talking about boys in the same way.
Looking back I wish I had more patience. I wish I knew that I wasn't alone.
Because a lot of the time I felt like I was by myself.
I think just growing up my main issue was self harming.
For me it was just like an act of release and a
lot of the times it's a punishment so you feel bad for feeling bad.
So you need a way to like, let it out.
I got dumped by my first girlfriend so that was traumatic.
And about three days after I got dumped, I invited the wrong friend over.
He took advantage of my vulnerability
and started touching me sexually.
That was probably my lowest point
because I was already so heartbroken from being dumped and then
to have a friend of like seven years who I trusted, who was dating my best friend,
someone who I like shared almost everything with,
to do that to me when I didn't want it,
I remember I took a shower straight after
and I just felt like cutting off the parts of myself that he touched.
When that happened my depression was really bad I couldn't get out of bed.
It just felt like I was sleeping my life away.
And they would just came a time where I was so sick of it I was sick of feeling
groggy all the time, so I went to my GP and I told her everything that I've been
through and that I wasn't coping and she found me a counselor.
That helped heaps.
By the 6th one, I was being productive again.
Music made me feel better.
The lyrics itself can be a way for you to release the feelings that you're keeping inside.
I feel like it's quite a universal teenager experience to be shy,
to not know where your place is in the world,
especially for other LGBTQ it's such an isolating feeling.
I do want to be someone they can look up to because
I know when I grew up I didn't have that.
I want to be heard, I want to be the voice for those who are silenced,
and I hope that when my younger self sees me like that she'll know that she doesn't
have to pretend anymore.