My mother didn't want to drink with me that night. And a part of me died.

The next morning, I woke up not myself, or at least, not the person that had gone to bed. We were something different.

We tried to tell her, and she didn't know what to do with us. It must have been scary for her. Your child saying that they aren't your child anymore but some stranger, trapped in your child's body.

She texted.

“If you're under my roof, you follow my rules. If you don't like it, there's the door.”

So we left.

We didn't come back.

-

I've since come to terms with the notion of being Plural. It doesn't affect me nearly as much as it once did, although that comes with time and comfortability in oneself and several medications. I am "me" most of the time, and can distinguish between the others. We have pretty good communication. It borders on fun, some days.

But at the time, when I wrote "HAPPY" in my room at the homeless youth facility, using chords borrowed from the beginning of the verse of "Fill Me Up, Buttercup", I wasn't "me" a lot of the time.

"I don't know who I am

And I don't really care

Cus I get nice and dizzy

When I'm choking on air"

I was an alcoholic, barely off of benzos, digging out half-smoked cigarettes from those metal butt bins to roll the tobacco out of and try to fashion myself a durry.

So much of me wanted to give up. At least, the me that was most consistent at t he time wanted to give up. The rest wouodnt let me. Even dobbed me in to the staff at the place we were at to get my balcony doors locked. Just in case.

There were waves of anguish and despair, and this song, at the time just called "The Happiest Song", was written in one of those moments. I felt so disconnected from my culture, from any support networks, from my very sense of self, like there couldn't be any hope at all.

"I don't feel I have any family or friends

And I probably wouldn't mind if my life were to end

But I'm trying to think on the bright side of life

So I guess I'll just go out and get real drunk tonight"

But I also remember very distinctly, a moment before I got into the temporary shelter, when I was properly on the streets, walking in the city in one of the side streets between Currie and Hindley, where a huge flock of birds flew over head and turned the sky near black, just for a second or two.

For some reason, I thought that was so beautiful, so inspirational, so awe-inspiring, that I had to keep going.

I'm so glad I stuck it out. WE stuck it out. Someday, we'll do an album together.

In the meantime, the single "HAPPY" is about to be released and the album "Take Your Meds" drops on the 2nd of April, 2025.

Turns out, recording an entire album about how fucking depressed and mentally ill you've been over the past 15 years is actually quote emotionally tedious.

But was it worth it? Absolutely. In every way, 100%, so worth it. And I'm so excited for everyone to hear it. Honestly, April cannot come soon enough. And the mastering is even done yet!

It's got indie pop, hyperpop, pop punk, RnB influences, even some country influence in there.

And I'm also so so privileged to have been able to get my family in on it too.

Especially with the song "She Keeps Me (Up At Night)".

It's my molestation song.

And I got to record it with the people who kept me the most safe in that situation.

COCSA is a weird beast. Some people have experiences incredibly similar to mine and don't come out traumatised for life over it. And for those people, I am so happy. I'm glad that these experiences didn't scar you, or fundamentally change the way you make friends, the way you interact in relationships, your people pleasing, your ability to say no.

I don't remember if I said no. I guess I didn't, and it's an educated guess, because she didn't like being told no.

"She keeps me up at night

I wouldnt dare out up a fight

I just said Yeah, Alright!

And now it keeps me up at night"

I don't know if she knows what she out me through. I have great sympathy for her though, she got it from somewhere, she was overexposed somewhere along the line by someone. I hope she's doing okay. I wonder if she'll ever know this song is about her.

I don't want her to feel guilty. We were so young.

My father and my sister protected me in those times, when my mother wasn't capable of doing so, for her own reasons.

And I'm so blessed to have them on this track.

Guitar - Shane Rigney

Additional Vocals - Brooke Rigney-Lively

"She Keeps Me (Up At Night)" from the album Take Your Meds, set to release on the 2nd of April, 2025.

When I was 15, i wrote a song. It was about this thing I'd heard about, called Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD. I was already in therapy, had been since my first suicide attempt at age 13. And I was throwing potential labels at the walls of my brain and seeing what stuck. I knew there was something… not right with me, but no one could tell me what. I just knew I had always been an outcast and only found friends in high school due to my apparent talents as a singer (or at least, I thought of it that way at the time.) 

And i felt strongly about very specific people. When my brain decided one person was The Person, it was like ii was afraid of them and enamoured with them at the same time. Being around them made me feel physically ill, and i couldn't stop obsessing over them. I remember one, the older brother of my then-best friend, I would go onto his Facebook profile and trace his profile pictures onto sheets of paper from my desktop screen. I stored them in a folder. I don't remember what I did with that folder.

I'd been feeling this way about Specific People since I was about 5 years old. I didn't get crushes, I got absolutely mind-melting world ending fantasies and obsessions. Dreams and nightmares all rolled into one. I still remember them all, to this day.

To be fair, I DID also get normal crushes. Sometimes I'd like someone a normal amount and be upset when they didn't want to hang out or play or kiss or whatever was somewhat age appropriate at the time. But then every few years, someone would stumble into my life and would make my heart ache, make me wake up in tears, make me wish I wasn't around because it hurt so much to exist in the same world as them, and still all I wanted to do was climb into their skin, bash their brains into a brick wall, only breathe the carbon dioxide they breathed out.  

"All i ever wanted was to feel

Justification

now all I get is

Borderline obsession"

I had been self harming, in some way shape or form since quite young too. I remember repeatedly throwing myself off of swings and hitting the chipped wood as hard as I could, just to make myself bleed. I didn't know I wanted to hurt. I just… enjoyed it.

The point was, that I had exhibited traits of this BPD thing for the whole of life I could remember, and I resonated so deeply with the potential label that I would up the courage to ask my counsellor if i could see a proper psychologist and get a diagnosis.

"Need a diagnosis

need an explanation

Someone needs to know

That i don't have control"

She was, of course, hesitant. I wasn't even quite 16 at this point. But she could see, after many sessions, that it was really bothering me. I needed answers that she was not qualified to give me. So when she went on leave for a little while, she did indeed book me in with the psych.

I honestly wondered if I'd need medication, i was still struggling with depression, anxiety and constant suicidality at this point. I even hhad a friend who'd ended up in a children's mental ward for a few weeks, and I almost idolised that level of crazy. Like, you're struggling and people actually see it so much that they locked you away?! Why can't they see how much I'm struggling!

"Need a clinical dose

Need an observation

I'm crying out

Attention seeking, crying out"

I was not officially diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder by that psych. Not to my knowledge, anyway. But she did affirm for me that it was quite likely. Puberty aside.

My counsellor did not treat this possibility of a diagnosis as gospel, but i think she understood the true capacity of my obsessiveness when i finally stopped counting the days my most recent Specific Person had stopped talking to me since at around 382.

I was not aware of my diagnosis being official until I was 19, and admitted to Craymond Ward.

When i was 15, i wrote a song about not yet being diagnosed with BPD, and what that felt like. The only recording that existed of it up until late 2024 was the version my rapist helped me whip up when I was 16. I've struggled to touch the song because of this. But now, with my new album coming out, “Take Your Meds”, I feel it would be emotionally dishonest to not include this track. It is the epitome of the point of this album.

Take Your Meds is set to release 2nd April 2025