As a teenager, I was aware that I suffered from claustrophobia and panic attacks, but I didn’t know what anxiety was. No one talked about it.

From the age of seven, it took over my life. Growing up, I was too anxious to even get on the bus for school tours, so my mam would have to drive me. I was too afraid that I’d get a panic attack. When I was going through a really bad claustrophobia stage, I couldn’t even go to the cinema or shopping centre with my friends. I get anxiety for absolutely no reason a lot of the time. I’ll have a day when I’m feeling ridiculously anxious and I don’t know why. I have to sit down and write down what I’m nervous about. It’s only when I read over these notes that I realise it’s not a big deal, and it’s just my anxiety.

Among Irish people there’s still a massive stigma attached to it. The only person I really felt comfortable talking to about it was my mam – so it’s great to see more of a discussion of mental health now. Music is incredible. After doing a writing session, I feel like I’ve just had a couple of hours of therapy. I wrote ‘Break Me’ when I was having a really bad day. I went into the studio and talked to my producer, Richey McCourt. I told him that I almost didn’t come in because of my anxiety.

Richey was like, ‘Well, let’s just write about that’. I wasn’t writing it thinking that I’d release it – but in the end, I knew I had to put it out. I couldn’t care less about the numbers or the streams – getting messages from people about what that song meant to them was amazing. That’s all I could ever hope to achieve.

Now We're Talking 2019
A partnership between Lyons Tea, Pieta House & Hot Press.
Let’s break the stigma and take the dialogue about mental health issues onto a new level
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hotpress.com/now-we're-talking

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