Am I stranded on an island or have I landed in paradise?
Here's what's been going on with me this year
(Just a slight prewarning that this is quite a heavy, dense and emotionally taxing piece – don’t read if you aren’t in the mood for that!)
By all metrics, you could say this year hasn’t been my best.
As you all know, I live in the south of France now where, from the outside, everything looks dreamy. For the most part, it is – but this has quietly been one of the heaviest years of my life. Slowing down here has effectively forced me to confront a decade’s worth of things I thought I could outrun, and to realise just how hard of a blow my twenties had dealt me.
It’s been a long time since my mental health was at its prime. Like everyone, my sanity has its ebbs and flows, and it’s been that way for around twelve years. I think I do a fantastic job of hiding it. I haven’t really felt normal or well-adjusted throughout the entirety of my adult life, yet I managed to forge some kind of meaningful existence during my twenties, even if it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
I tried university straight out of school but, much like my teenage years, I found it near impossible to study and be as productive as a course like journalism required. I met another closeted boy during my first few weeks and fell hard – my first ‘partner’ in a romantic sense who was, like me, emotionally immature and completely unprepared to let somebody else in. Things went sour, I lost him and all of our mutual friends in an instant, and soon enough I found myself sobbing on Bournemouth beach in the early hours of the morning, contemplating walking to the end of the pier and not stopping.
That was the first time I recognised that something was wrong – back then, depression was the answer I landed on, as did everyone around me. I made new friends and tried to carry on as normal, but the damage was done. I passed all but two exams during my first year, which meant I had to retake the entire thing. By then, my energy was spent and I’d realised it wasn’t where I belonged, so I dropped out.
Then came moving back home at a time when I’d already had my first taste of independence, and I could feel the tension of wanting that freedom back, but also embracing the comfort of being back under my parents’ roof. It was during this time that I was also trying to maintain a relationship with my dad, who separated from my mum when I was two years old. We’d seen each other often as I was growing up – aside from the times he’d forget to pick me up from school or simply wouldn’t show up at all, as I’d watch cars that looked like his drive past without stopping and cry.
I’ve always been quite oblivious to everything. I’m a daydreamer, I live in my own world and it takes an active effort for me to pay attention. That’s why I never noticed any lack of love or respect from my dad towards me growing up, even during the time he went two years without seeing or contacting me. My memories are largely all wonderful. I especially loved spending time with my nan, my dad’s mum, who loves horses and ran a stable with my auntie and cousin. I’d go and help out as a kid, spending long Saturdays in the summertime riding ponies and running riot around the fields.
One winter evening in 2016, just after I’d dropped out of uni and started working at H&M, my nan invited me to a party. By this time, it wasn’t often that I saw this side of the family – I would usually be the one reaching out or visiting, and I’d been living away for a while. They were throwing a big awards ceremony for their horse riding community, full of familiar faces I’d grown up with and met multiple times throughout the years, and some I didn’t know at all.
The latter included a man who instantly took a liking to me, despite his “girlfriend” also being in attendance. I’d brought a half-full bottle of vodka with me, planning to keep it tame – at that point in my life, I’d been to enough freshers events, student nights and house parties to be able to guzzle alcohol without it even touching the sides. I’ve also always been overly careful and extremely aware of my limits. I hate throwing up, so if I start feeling anything less than 100%, I know it’s my cue to stop.
I was on my second drink when this man started pulling me onto his lap, dragging me away from conversations I was in the middle of and essentially harassing me. I distinctly remember him constantly insinuating that I was gay, despite me not yet being out to anyone beyond a few close friends. He was inebriated and sweaty, and I was uncomfortable, but I’m too much of a people pleaser with an anxious disposition to ever stand my ground. He then pulled me up to dance, and suddenly it was 12 hours later and I was in my bed at home, still fully dressed in a vomit-stained shirt and jeans.
I’ll never know what actually happened in those twelve hours, but I’ve heard enough and had enough time to piece it together. I know that my cousin found me in the bathroom, with this man next to me in some proximity. I know that I was naked from the waist down and she had to redress me, which I found utterly humiliating. I know that I was in such a bad state that I didn’t even know my own address. Neither did my grandparents, who had to try and get me home. I know that they somehow managed to find where my parents live, and brought me back to them as I threw up into a plastic bag.
My parents were having a party of their own at home that night, which meant I had the added pleasure of my unconscious body being paraded through the house in front of an audience. My sister even recorded it, and I still have the video on my phone. It’s terrifying. I don’t hold anything against them for finding it funny, because they thought I’d just gone overboard with the booze – and despite that video being really hard to watch for me, I can’t get rid of it. It’s the only tangible thing I have that tells me I’m not crazy and overthinking what actually happened. In a way, I’m glad it exists.
I didn’t immediately consider the possibility that I was sexually assaulted, but now I’m old enough to recognise those tactics, and now that same man has publicly come out as gay, I think I’m intelligent enough to assume. I couldn’t even hold myself up, let alone take my trousers and underwear off. It’s funny, because my two main worries at the time were my arsehole boss (who refused to believe I was spiked, and instead told everyone at work that day that I was just hungover and lazy) and the fact my cousin had seen me naked.
My familiarity with my own mental health was still limited back then, and I was more focused on finding an actual career after dropping out over anything else, including addressing what had happened to me. There was some initial anger on behalf of my family, but I never pursued anything legally and I never publicly named the man who did it, even when he sent me a Facebook message and tried to follow me on Instagram in the years following. My cousin kept him in her circle, and instead of seeing that as a sign of complete and utter disrespect, I assumed the fault lay with me instead. Looking back, it’s one of the first experiences I buried, but over the years it’s become one I’ve actively had to sit with.
I then tried pursuing a proper career, because leaving university and ending up in retail made me feel like an utter failure. I managed to get a job in Tunbridge Wells as an entry-level copywriter, lying about graduating on my CV to land the role. Then, after a year or so, I met another boy – and this time, it was serious.
It was so serious, in fact, that our burgeoning relationship spurred me to finally come out to my family at 22. I’d spent years being unnecessarily worried about the reaction of those closest to me, but on that particular day, I just felt ready. I came home from work, told my sister, then told my mum and then everyone else, and nobody had a bad or hostile response. After unknowingly feeling quite low about myself and what had become of my life thus far, it felt like freedom – I could finally be myself and embrace everything that came with it.
Then came London. As is typical of me, my then-boyfriend and I fell fast and hard for each other, our first date being an entire weekend spent at his home on the Isle of Wight. He’d recently moved near Stratford for his studies, which naturally meant I wanted to follow. I found a new job, another copywriting role for a massive betting company situated in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, and I moved in with my friend who’d graciously allowed me to stay in her lounge.
Impulsiveness is something I’ve always struggled with, but never truly recognised until very recently. It’s why I ended up living in the city, and why I immediately felt like a fish out of water upon arriving. Despite moving in with my friend, my dependency meant I was constantly asking (and sometimes near-begging) to stay at my boyfriend’s. It wasn’t always possible, of course – sometimes he wanted his own space and sometimes he was busy, but I was reluctant to take no for answer.
But then the lines started to blur, and I wasn’t quite sure who was truly at fault for our quickly deteriorating relationship. His housemates started to noticeably resent me; whether it was my constant presence in their home, or me stealing their friend away, or infringing on their bond as a group, I started getting paranoid. Loneliness was the main emotion and it made me feel like I was back at university, being cast out without ever really being able to understand why, and becoming frustrated at myself for knowing I should pull back but being completely unable to.
And then there were the times like when the passenger seat was fully reclined in his car, and I noticed it because I overthink everything, and I was already on high alert because he’d left me alone the night before to spend time with his hot Brazilian friend that he’d talk about constantly, and he’d ignored my messages and said he was going to sleep but he’d still be online, and I’d spiral. There were many of these moments, times where I’d feel blatantly disrespected but put it down to my mind being on overdrive – so before things got too much, I took myself to therapy.
It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone professionally about my mental health, and it helped me massively. I found a private therapist in Finsbury Park, fully ignoring the financial impact of these sessions (because money is another thing I’ve always been helpless with). I attended a couple of times and made plenty of progress in those two hours – he correctly identified some potential sources of my anguish, painting a clear picture of why I might have been feeling the way I was.
But it wasn’t enough. On my way to one of these sessions, my boyfriend and I were arguing over WhatsApp. The night before, I’d found myself near Canary Wharf after work drinks and couldn’t get any further home due to transport delays – classic London! He happened to be in Canary Wharf, at the home of that same Brazilian friend with a few others. He also had a car and wasn’t much of a drinker, so I messaged him asking if he’d mind taking me home once he was wrapped up. I was happy to wait around, and I understand now that he probably felt some pressure at me just… showing up – and part of me definitely wanted to be invited up, to finally be in with the crowd who he’d not yet introduced me to.
That didn’t happen, and instead he ignored me completely. I don’t really remember how I got home that night, but I do remember how furiously we were messaging back and forth as I neared my therapist’s office. I dropped a message that obviously crossed a line, and he unleashed a flurry of angry texts in response that kept my phone vibrating for the entire hour I vented about him. As I exited the session, I saw that he was on his way to see me, which I knew couldn’t be good.
I remember walking the streets by my flat (well, my friend’s flat that I was still crashing in) with The Night We Met by Lord Huron on repeat, shamelessly crying as I floated down the dark streets of Archway. He eventually arrived and, as I’d expected, he ended things. I protested and cried and sobbed and screamed in the same passenger seat his friend was laid back in a few days earlier, but nothing could salvage it – the relationship was already beyond repair, and so was I.
I remember going to drive back to my parents’ the next morning to be met with a dead battery on my car, and having to wait in the pouring November rain for it to be revived by the recovery services. I remember stopping at my now ex-boyfriend’s on the way to pick up my things, hugging him desperately before reluctantly leaving. I remember crying for that entire weekend, sending rambling messages to him promising that I’d change and suddenly become sane, as if that was ever my choice.
Once I’d grieved what I’d lost, the pendulum swung hard the other way. I got Christmas out of the way and then moved into a house in Stratford of my own. It was a proper hovel, an unlicensed HMO with seven other housemates and a kitchen with yellow fluorescent lighting and no windows. My bedroom’s radiator was constantly on, which meant my bedroom windows had to be open nearly all of the time – and I took up what was essentially the lounge, the front room of the house on the ground floor, in a part of Stratford that’s renowned for violent crime.
None of that mattered to me, though, because I was determined to prove to both my ex and myself that I could thrive in London on my own. And that I did – I finally began to learn how to feel comfortable on my own, and started settling into the job I almost lost after breaking up with my boyfriend because I took a week off to pull myself together, my boss warning me not to do that again during my probation period.
Speaking of that boyfriend, we tried to rekindle things a few months after breaking it off. I’d never known any other romantic partner and nor had he, so we were keen to give it another shot – but it didn’t work. The same problems existed, and I was perhaps growing even more unstable than I was the year prior. He went to LA for a month and I’d do things like watching his Snapchat score go up and taking it as proof he was secretly seeing the other guys out there that he’d talk about all the time.
One night after he’d gotten back, I’d been to see Mariah Carey and upon returning home, realised I didn’t have my keys and was locked out. For once, my bedroom windows were closed. So I messaged him, asking if he was awake and if I’d be able to stay the night. I’d been doing it less by then, feeling more comfortable with myself and happier in my own room – as uninhabitable as it might have been – so I felt less guilty for staying over. However, I didn’t get a response, and presumed he’d already fallen asleep.
I messaged his housemate instead, who then informed me that he wasn’t even home at all. That led to a blowout argument over WhatsApp the next day, which then led to him once again taking it upon himself to drive over. Instead of me falling apart and grovelling, though, I lost it. I swore at him, told him I never wanted to see him again, and slammed the front door shut. I didn’t, in fact, ever see him again.
And so began my year of hedonism, the last year before a global pandemic would change things for good, and one that I’ll cherish forever. I started going out more with my housemates, spending nights at Knickerbocker in Hackney Wick and Ministry of Sound, dressed like a poor Kesha impersonator in 2010 with smudged glitter and ripped DIY clothing because my approach to everything was “fuck it”.
I went to incredible parties where I danced with Grammy winners. I started smoking. I’d spend days in the summer in West Ham Park, portable speaker blasting BROCKHAMPTON, a bottle of factor 15 and a pack of B&H Blue in hand. I went to concerts, I partied at Prides, I started dying my own hair, I completed a music production course and I had my eye set on success. I wanted so badly to be this unapologetic, raw popstar, a story of doing it yourself and emerging from London to take over the world, and I truly believed it was within reach.
I also met a guy during this time, someone who became a rebound completely unintentionally. He’d ended up staying at mine after a night out, me being completely oblivious to the intentions behind it because I’d never seen him as more than a polite acquaintance. Things were pretty good for a few weeks – he was romantic, charming, a bit of a fuckboy but respectful enough for me to appreciate how different he was to my ex. I had no idea he was still in a relationship when he stayed the night, and I didn’t know I was effectively the homewrecker in that scenario until we were official.
This was towards the end of the summer, and my complete disregard for my mental health was rearing its head. On one day in September, the weather was typically terrible and I was walking home from work after having an argument with my friends from university. I cannot remember what it was about, and it doesn’t matter – I was in the wrong. I’m horribly stubborn and have a tendency to be selfish, no matter how much I regret it in the aftermath, and I was also unknowingly unravelling. I think I told them not to contact me again instead of being mature and talking about things and to their credit, they did try, but I was too far gone to appreciate the efforts.
Things just felt heavy – from what I can remember, my dad had a cancer scare that same week and even though the distance between us was growing further, it still scared me. I got home to my hovel which, by this point, had already endured two bedbug infestations. My boyfriend was insistent in coming over that day after work drinks under the pretence of comforting me, but he was also incessantly sexual and I wasn’t in the mood to entertain it once the inevitable occurred.
He showed up anyway, despite me telling him not to. As I mentioned, my bedroom windows were always open when I was home, so there wasn’t any chance of me avoiding him. He came in, we spoke for a bit, then he wanted to take things further and I really wasn’t in the mood, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t undress me, but he got on top of me and pinned me down for what felt like forever until he realised his efforts were futile. He left soon after, and I got in the shower and cried.
Still, I didn’t acknowledge what had happened to me as assault. It wasn’t until the year after, once I’d moved out of that house into a much nicer place with three of my closest friends, that I sat down to watch Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and saw a scene play out on screen that was uncomfortably close to my experience. That was the hardest I’d ever been triggered by something, but I’m so grateful for it – it allowed me to understand the impact it had on me and to realise I wasn’t alone in it. I did open up about what had happened to me then, but I never got the chance to really say how it made me feel, or to truly acknowledge the pain and anger that started oozing out of me as a result.
Some of you will probably remember how volatile and uncharacteristic my actions were back then, just before the pandemic. I had my run-in with Piers Morgan after I sought an outlet for my misguided anger and chose him, launching a petition to get him fired over his transphobic views. That then led to months of torrential abuse and threats, which didn’t do my mental health any favours. It’s something I hold great shame and embarrassment over – not for what I did, but for how I did it and how I handled it. It’s also something I hold deep anger over, because the response and sheer lack of support I got throughout that entire ordeal just sent me further down the spiral.
I ruined Christmas that year by escalating an argument over politics, and had to hang my head in shame the next day once I’d regulated my emotions. My family dog died the February after, and I spent that night on my own in my bedroom, crying into my pillow as my friends went out and partied. And then, lo and behold, we collectively experienced something completely unprecedented – COVID.
Much of my experience during the pandemic is a blur. I remember feeling extremely low throughout 2020, just before meeting my now-husband, Xavier. That was a total chance encounter, one that I wasn’t ready for and wasn’t actively seeking out. I’d messaged him on Instagram on New Year’s Eve and we flirted back and forth, but I expected the conversation to fizzle out as it always usually did – I wasn’t ever usually interested in taking anything further with anyone.
But for some reason, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. We met in person in February of 2021, and we instantly clicked – it only took a few days for us to start actively dating. It’s safe to say we had the opposite of a honeymoon phase, though. I had years of unaddressed trauma and flailing mental health weighing me down, and it took a few months of us figuring each other out before things got better. We liked each other so much that we fought for it to work, and I’m so grateful we did, because now I’m here.
It’s because of Xavier that I’m taking the steps I need to get better. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a level of unconditional love and support outside of my immediate family, and I love him so much in return that I want to be the best version of myself for him. It’s also because of Xavier that I’m here in France, after a rough conclusion to our time in London that I’m still not ready to talk about.
But it’s an unrealistic expectation to think anyone else can actually do the work for me, much like it was an unrealistic expectation to think moving abroad would solve all of my problems. Instead, it’s like I’m sitting in the middle of an empty, barren room with stacks of unsorted files around me, and I can’t get free until they’ve all been addressed and put in order, and there’s nobody around to help me do it but myself.
It’s a fitting analogy, really, because my severe disorganisation is just one of the many symptoms that recently made me realise I have ADHD and autism. It’s been quite the revelation – looking back at the past 29 years through a whole new lens has quite literally changed my life. Neurodivergence is debilitating, no matter where you sit on the spectrum, and I’ve felt it to an intense degree since moving here. It’s made me feel deep regret at how harsh I’ve been towards myself over the years, how often I’ve berated myself for being unable to see things a certain way, how much I’ve struggled to fit in everywhere I go, how I’ve struggled to maintain any meaningful friendships and how I’ve been trying to navigate life for so long without knowing why I felt like everything I did was wrong.
I recently sought out a therapist to help me sort through my issues, and I spoke about it with her. I said how it feels like I’ve been sleepwalking since I arrived in France last year – I’ve barely learned the language, I haven’t absorbed as much of the culture as I’ve wanted to, and eighteen months have flown by without much to show for it.
Of course, I’m probably putting unnecessary pressure on myself (as is also typical of me), but it’s starting to scare me how low I’ve sunk. I have no motivation to do anything, whether it be work, writing, socialising, going out and exploring – I’m borderline agoraphobic with how much I struggle when leaving the house. I never return people’s messages. I’m irritable to a worrying degree, snapping at the slightest thing, feeling a deep rage at current affairs and letting it taint my personality so much that I’ve become a horribly pessimistic and miserable person.
But is it any wonder? I highly doubt I’m the only person out there whose depression has overcome them as a result of the world we live in. Things are dire, to say the least. Deleting my Twitter account at the beginning of the year helped, and I found refuge in TikTok instead – it’s been one of the things that has gotten me through 2025, being able to creatively talk about my life here and how much of a vast improvement it is over the UK.
It feels futile, though, when everybody else is actively struggling and I’m not exactly living the dream just yet. Everything is antagonistic, too, and another reason I realised I’m autistic is because of how highly sensitive I am. A troll with zero followers can leave a shitty comment on one of my videos and instead of ignoring it like anyone else, I’ll let it eat at me and I won’t be able to settle until I’ve responded. My therapist said it sounds like I’m in fight-or-flight mode because I’ve lost all protection, and I’m choosing the former because the latter didn’t work out. I think she’s right.
For example, the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk lit a fire under me. I didn’t care for him in life – to me, he was simply one of many right-wing reactionaries, funded by the government and those in power to spout whatever inflammatory views were fed to him. I found the public outcry in response to his murder absolutely mind-boggling. It was one of many instances of me being completely and utterly unable to understand how so many people could willingly overlook the disparaging things he’d said about people like me.
One of those people happened to be a family member on my dad’s side of the family. By now, I haven’t spoken to any of them for half a decade. There wasn’t a specific reason for us drifting apart – the incident at the horse riding ceremony changed the dynamic, sure, but the pandemic meant I couldn’t see any of them in person even if I wanted to and, because I was always the one making the effort, I decided to stop. It’s been five years since, and I’ve realised it’s not worth grieving something that wasn’t ever really afforded to me in the first place.
That’s besides the point, though. This person took offence to my stance on Kirk, claiming he was representative of “good Christian values” despite never actually practising those values herself. When I pushed back, things escalated quickly. She sent me a late-night message telling me that “the next generation is fucked because of people like you”. My response could have made a sailor blush, and in one exchange I effectively cut that entire side of my family off. Afterwards, I spent days feeling guilty and remorseful, ignoring the fact that I’d been unnecessarily provoked by someone in close proximity to my dad. It confirmed there was a rift, and it wasn’t one I’d created.
For me, the only explanation that exists is that I wasn’t good enough. He was never consistently there for me as a parent, even though I showed him unconditional love until I was old enough to know better. Plus, as I said, it’s pointless for me to grieve the loss of something I never really had. It doesn’t make it any easier, though – it just adds to the feeling I have that I’m different, unworthy, that I’m just not worth it.
It’s moment like this that bring it all to the surface. For the longest time, I thought I was capable of overcoming all of it without ever wading through it, and I now realise it’s impossible. That’s why I’m deciding to purge it all, to finally look at it head on, to finally stop giving people the grace that I should have been giving myself this entire time.
So, this is me drawing a line in the sand. I have so much to live for, and it’s time I started doing so. I’m quickly approaching 30, and I’m seeing it as a total fresh slate for me. In terms of my dignity, I have nothing left to lose – everything is on the table. I’m a fuck-up, sure, but so is everyone else.
When I look at the bigger picture, I’ve not done that badly for myself at all. Here I am, approaching the end of my twenties with almost two years of living in the south of France. I dragged myself away from a potential life of continuing to abuse my body and mind, found someone who loves me for me instead of an idea of me, became the proud parent of two cats after a lifetime of wanting one of my own, and I’ve recognised how far gone I am and have begun taking active measures to claw my way back.
I have severe depression and anxiety, as well as autism and ADHD – and I’m sure there are a couple more things rumbling under the surface, too. I’ve seen my doctor multiple times about it, and I’ve started out on some medication to see how things go. As I mentioned, I’ve also started seeing a therapist here, and the sessions are going brilliantly. They’re definitely heavy and emotionally taxing, and I’ve needed a nap after each one, but I’m already starting to get answers to things I’ve left unresolved for years. Sometimes, that answer is “there is no answer” – and the key is accepting it and moving on.
Moving on is a heartbreaking concept, really. It’s hard to definitively end a chapter of your life when there wasn’t much closure, and accept that some things are just the way they are. I couldn’t really tell you a definitive reason why I find myself so alone these days, but it’s something I’m learning to accept. I moved abroad for a fresh start and instead of constantly being marred by nostalgia, I have to embrace it. I’m young enough to start again, and I finally have solid enough foundations for it.
I want to discover my lust for life again. I want to make new friends, whether they’re French or immigrants like me, and I want to make spontaneous plans to grab coffee or dinner with them on a whim. I want to master the language. I want to visit more local restaurants. I want to explore this beautiful country. I want to go to concerts and not even think about the crowds around me. I want to be able to drink alcohol without instantly feeling sick and panicky. I want to find the motivation to write and make more music, even if it’s just for myself. Most of all, though, I want to stop bullshitting everyone – including myself – about how I’m feeling.
That’s why I’m getting it all out in the open today. I have to jump over this hurdle in order to move forwards and stop being bogged down by it. Every time I sat down to write something this year, I wanted all of this to pour out of me but I was too proud and stubborn to let my guard down. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about this year, because I’ve had some truly fantastic moments, but I knew I was at my limit and simply waiting for the bomb to blow.
Now it has, it’s only up from here. I promise I’ll be back soon, hopefully with something a bit less taxing. Thanks for reading, mes amis – wishing you all a happy and healthy week ahead. It’s nearly Christmas, after all!
