May 2022: the lowest point

It’s the week before Eurovision, I am en route to the beautiful land of Greece on what is technically my honeymoon (thanks COVID). Little did I know at that point how much was soon to change.

Skip forward a week and I’m sat in the terminal at Athens Airport watching Semi Final 1 on my iPad – trying to understand what’s going on because of course the commentary is in Greek and my entire Greek vocabulary consisted of “roz vaz”, which shockingly did not come up.

I was doing my best to pretend that I wasn’t going home to a completely new reality. During the trip, I separated from my ex and had no idea what I was going to do next. I was holding on to the last moments of ‘normality’ and feeling like I had a place in the world.

Of course so much of my life was intertwined with my ex, friendship groups, our dog, even our workplace. The only certainty was that this flight also signified the end of a hugely important era in my life.

What followed was months of dark, difficult depression. I moved in with my cousin to a very small village just outside Glasgow. As I spent less and less time with friends due to difficulties in working schedules and public transportation, I grew more and more isolated.

I put a brave face on and pretended I was okay, even though I truly was struggling, but a turning point came from an unexpected place – a gig ticket.

November 2022: the Reawakening

I purchased a ticket to see a band called MUNA at SWG3 Galvanizers in Glasgow.

I honestly don’t know what drew me to it. I knew only one song, thanks to a corny Netflix film, but the ticket was only £15 so why not?

The first track they played that night was What I Want, and within seconds, it was like the room disappeared. The lyrics hit with a stunning clarity:

I wasn’t expecting it, but tears began to roll down my face. Right there, in the middle of a packed venue, I let the moment wash over me. That song put words to the storm inside my head. It reminded me that I was allowed to want more for myself. It didn’t have to follow what others thought my path should be, I could do what I wanted just because it was what I wanted to do.

Not long after, ads for Melodifestivalen and Eurovision in Concert started to appear on my social media feeds. I was intrigued.

Old me would have hesitated. I didn’t speak Swedish or Dutch. I had only watched Melfest once. I didn’t have anyone to go with. On the other hand though, I knew that Eurovision had brought me a lot of joy over the past few years. And after everything, I deserved to do something for me. So, with the power of MUNA pushing me forward, of course I bought the tickets.

okay, why are you telling us all of this?

It turned out that these tickets weren’t just for the events, they were for a new era of my life. Ever since I made this decision, it’s been a non stop whirlwind.

Over the last two years, I’ve been able to go to Eurovision events with people I’m proud to call friends and made a new bestie who I started niallpoints with, and honestly I don’t even know how any of it happened.

What I do know though, is that despite the fact that a lot of negativity still surrounds the ESC bubble, I’ve found a community that has accepted me for who I am, who cares about me, who will back me up and remind me I am good enough.

This brings me to the reason for this post. If you follow me on Bluesky, you’ll know that I’ve been going through a rough spot on and off for the past few months, and although its mostly been okay, its an unavoidable reality of living with depression and anxiety.

I’ve been lucky enough to have friends who reach out and make sure I’m okay when I’m low, who encourage me to talk about how I’m feeling and what I’m going through.

This was evident again this week on Autism Awareness Day.

Working full time, studying, creating content, making sure the dog is fed and walked, doing all the chores around the house, trying to eat better, making sure I spend time with friends, spending more time with family, well it’s recently all amounted to a lot of stress culminating in some burnout.

I posted about how this made me more aware that I was likely autistic, despite not having nor wanting any official diagnosis. The outpouring of love and advice from other autistic people, who didn’t invalidate how I felt and offered themselves up as someone to talk to, who had been through it all already. Apart from being slightly overwhelming, it was so uplifting that I began again to see the clouds parting – which considering how sunny it had been that day was pretty much a relief.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m not a writer. This blog is probably a great example for why we’ve used the word ‘ramblings’ on this new site so often.

But I wanted to show you, that even when you’re at your lowest, when you think you’re at the end of the road and the only way is further down. You couldn’t be further from the truth. There will always be ‘your people’ out there just waiting for you.

All you have to do is embrace your passions, live life for yourself, buy the ticket and think “there’s nothing wrong with what I want.”

And if you are struggling, just remember that you already have one person in your corner – me.