An essay on perception, pressure, and personality   Updated March 2026   “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anaïs Nin   Part I   ‘It’s like I don’t even know you,’ someone said. ‘You’re behaving like someone else,’ said someone else. These are also things I’ve said. It’s odd how, over time, it seemed like something threatening to become a universal truth: that we...

I was not digging around in the past. It was enough to know where something was buried, that there was something buried to begin with. The tangibility of it gave my pain acknowledgement and in having that, I was able to admit and address my issues without as much fear.   I had to trust that between the time that thing was buried and the unearthing of it, I have grown...

As a person, you are judged. Regardless of where you take or make your stand on any spectrum, if you’re alive, you will be judged, try as you might to avoid it. You’re judged when you’re too straightforward and judged when you’re too vague. You’re judged if you stand up for yourself but you’re also judged if you simply let someone take advantage of you. You’re judged for taking yourself too seriously...

What’s normal? What is typical, when so many of us hide who we are and therefore hide so much of the human condition itself? Normal has always been challenged but the perception of normal is now rapidly changing whether people like it or agree with it—or not. There is a difference between someone who identifies as autistic and someone who is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (previously known as Asperger’s). Autism...

Letting go does not happen all at once. People say: let it go, let it go. Oh, okay, that’s done now, then. I feel better. I’m cured. That’s not how it works. For some, there is an unreasonable expectation that that is how it happens, if only to provide convenience, a good time, an easy co-existence. For others, there is appreciation of the wave-like process that is grief. Grief isn’t just...

One of my favourite photos in April of this year (2026) is an impromptu selfie as we waited on time between activities. It’s a favourite because there is significance in that moment that goes beyond ‘mother and child together’; for me, it captures something that society tells us we ought to hide beneath a brave face. My cheeky, feral child, arms swung around my neck in affection and love and pure...

There is pressure from people: some who want me to prove myself for its own sake and some who want me to prove something to them. Overall, my feelings and thoughts about it are quite level: it’s simple enough—I know my capabilities and I know my limits and I’m aware how they fluctuate. Trying to articulate that has been my focus for a long while and fiction writing has taken a...

Write. Be specific, stay real, let it be as raw as it is; that’s the point. That’s the point of writing about it. Where I cannot write about it, I ask why? If I cannot express it in art, what am I hiding from myself? Is there anything I’m hiding? Or is it only a constraint on time and headspace holding me back? The latter, for sure And these days, when...

Here are seven life lessons I wish I’d known when I was younger which also double as seven things I never want to forget:   1. Take Chances There are a million reasons not to try. You could fill a stadium with those reasons: What if it’s the wrong decision? What if you’re not good enough? What if you fail? If you never try, that’s the same as failure. Success is...