3 October 2026
For the first time in my whole life, I know what I wanna do! And for the first time, I’m gonna do it!
Author’s Note
I originally wrote this post back in July 2026 when recovering from surgery during my sick leave. This is a censored version of my original post, as the original was just a bit too personal for the internet in the end. In the following months since, and now due to my departure from SOS Presents, I have rewritten this to act as a historical record of my year from September 2025-26. Some parts were written during my sick leave and others have been added to between and post my departure from SOS Presents which may explain some inconsistencies.
No More Panic Attacks Over Fun Things
Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.
I had been off work for two weeks because I had surgery. As I made my way towards the end of my sick leave, I stopped to think and reflect on the events over the last year or so. Sometimes it takes being forced to stop before you can make sense of everything you’ve been going through and I felt compelled to write it all down.
Recently, I was asked what I wanted for dinner and I cried. In hindsight, this probably shouldn’t have been particularly surprising to me. But, I was shocked and couldn’t really understand why when it happened.
This year has been a busy rollercoaster. I joined a committee as Secretary, changed jobs, learned an entirely new technology stack including PySpark and Synapse, built and deployed software, and built a match-3 game. I lost weight in a good way (nice!), lost weight in a bad way (oh no!), went in and out of hospital and doctors’ appointments, came away with two new diagnoses, explored neurodivergence and had surgery. I performed in Sweeney Todd, Hen Night Epiphany, Oklahoma! and showcases, rehearsed and auditioned basically every week, helped market multiple musicals and events, wrote policies and a 10,000-word members’ handbook, worked on society governance, organised hundreds of meetings, produced rehearsal resources and organised public performances. Somewhere in there, I also rediscovered photography, edited hundreds of photos and videos, cross stitched several projects, handmade costume pieces, renovated my house and garden and, most recently, looked after a litter of abandoned kittens.
And somehow, I still repeatedly thought:
“I don’t feel like I’ve achieved very much lately.”
Through all of the pain that coloured my year, I had this impossible expectation to function like a normal human being and keep taking on more and more… and more…to reach some unknown threshold of “you are worthy”. I have many reasons for why this came about, but to explain I need to go back to the beginning and talk it through.
Autumn 2025
No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
September, like many months, was a busy one. I was newly elected as Secretary and it started out great. I spent the beginning of my term, as one often does, sorting out membership, emailing out renewal requests, updating email lists and handling other forms of communication and support during the launch of Sweeney Todd. During this time I was also supporting James in his theatrical, career and educational endeavours. I did my best to stay on top of the house, make lunches and dinners, keep our calendars organised in between projects like painting our stairs. I thought things couldn’t get any busier. (I was wrong!)
In late Autumn, I experienced a sharp, excruciating pain in the middle of the night. It was a new, weird pain in my stomach that I hadn’t experienced before. After a few hours, it wore off and I chalked it up to probably a severe IBS episode. My job had been very stressful and I was under a lot of pressure in my personal life.
During this time, I got to work on one of my favourite projects: updating the SOS members’ handbook. I really wanted the handbook to reflect the history of SOS and bring forward some of the wonderful work from Terry O’Farrell, who was a long-standing committee member and archivist for the society. It took many hours of research, collating photographs, memories, text, policies and soon became a 10,000 word document. Releasing it to the membership, I felt proud and hoped the work I did would be able to help new members not only get to grips with things like show week, but also feel like they were part of something big.
To round off, other things I got involved in included helping to organise various SOS Entertainers events including the Carols/Christmas cabaret in the Christmas run-up. I think I have made so many rehearsal tracks I can only hear music in midi form now. However, a standout memory to me is crying at Marwell when we were stranded too far to retrieve a forgotten speaker before a performance and my glasses broke. This should maybe have been an early sign that perhaps there was a lot I was shouldering - but I definitely ignored it.
Winter 2025/26
Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
I started a new job in December, leaving the council after nearly five years of service. It was a scary decision, but one I knew deep down I needed to make. I had been a part of many projects over the years, but in the last few months I often found myself having similar conversations about similar problems over and over. I had built the team up to a position where they were ready to fly on their own, and was really pleased to be able to promote one of my direct reports into my position as I left. I’m at a life stage where I am trying to figure out where to take my career next, and the only sensible course was to try something new and keep developing my skills.
My new job was an opportunity to work with technology hands-on again, as I had before I became a manager. This was exciting, as I love learning new technologies and solving problems with brand-new tools. Initially, when I started, things seemed to be going well until my third day, when I had to ask my new boss if I could go home because I was too unwell to stay in the office. Trying to impress your new team while your body is working against you is not only exhausting, it’s quite embarrassing. Having to request to go home made me feel like I had failed at the first hurdle. At times, I questioned whether I’d made the right decision leaving my old role at all, because at least in my old job I was already well-established and respected. I spent Christmas sick.
Meanwhile, I was cast in Sweeney Todd as part of the Quintet and was settling into my first few months as Secretary, getting to experience the society from both sides for the first time. Sweeney was such a brilliant show to be part of: my God, what a score! Unfortunately, not long after is where I started to get sick. Show week meals consisted mostly of dry crackers. I had lost so much weight that my costume didn’t fit from when I first tried it on. Running off the stage as a lunatic every night always led to my petticoat round my ankles. I still have so many good memories of being part of that show and I’m incredibly glad I got to do it, but it wasn’t how I had pictured it.
Despite several hospital trips, once anything immediately dangerous had been ruled out there wasn’t much I could do except wait for tests and results. Any twinge of pain scared me. I was afraid of not keeping my food down, and I was struggling with constant fatigue and troubled sleep. Not knowing what was wrong or when I would find out sat forever in my mind, running through all possible scenarios.
Looking back, I’m proud that I got through these feelings and kept going, and I can’t thank my job enough for the support I received. I was in despair at the situation, but I quickly found that being honest about my limits was okay as long as my work continued to speak for itself. In no time I was working independently across PySpark, Synapse, Power BI and semantic modelling, taking ownership of increasingly substantial pieces of the reporting platform and doing my best to establish myself as a valuable member of the team. I slowly started to feel confident in work again.
Eventually, an ultrasound revealed the issue was gallstones, something which had earlier been ruled out, frustratingly. The best course of action was surgery and so began my second wait on the surgery waiting list. The weight loss also uncovered another health issue that I’m not comfortable discussing publicly. I will say that it was the answer to a lot of problems but continues to punctuate my life with difficulty. However, for anyone reading, this is not something to be concerned about and I am getting the help I need.
Spring 2026
Laughing. Crying. Tumbling. Mumbling. Gotta do more. Gotta be more. Chaos screaming. Chaos dreaming. Gotta do more. Gotta be more.
Apparently, my response to everything going on that winter, was to find even more things to do. Some of the below could be (and are!) blog posts in themselves, so I will try to be brief.
In my spare time I quite like picking up little coding projects - readers of the blog would know! This year myself and my friend made an agreement to build a game by the end of March as a New Year’s Resolution. So I combined my skills to make a little game called Bee Garden. This was such an achievement to go from nothing to game and it was so exciting to have actual friends play it. (Side note: for those wondering yes I am working on Bee Garden version 2, which will not only save your progress as you go, it will hopefully be a downloadable app!).
I also picked up a new toy - my Sony camera! The last time I did photography seriously was for GCSE (shout out to my Photography A!) and was always in the back of my mind as something I wanted to do again. This year, I pulled the trigger and even splurged a little extra on a beautiful prime lens. My initial thinking was for rehearsal photos, but eventually, one of my favourite uses of the camera was actually at a family reunion this year with many people I’d not seen in years or had not met. They were all delighted with the pictures which felt so worthwhile.
Performance-wise I had a few things going on. I also helped organise and performed in Ollie’s charity concert in March in aid of Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. It was a really lovely experience to help bring together and showcase musical talent whilst raising money for a charity extremely close to his heart. Oklahoma! began as well, which I will come back to later.
However, the performance highlight of spring came in a surprising format. Because of the illness, public failures and colossal rejection, I was in a low place with my confidence in myself. I decided I needed to be better at handling rejection (yeah I don’t know why this was my conclusion). In a bizarre attempt at ‘rejection therapy’, I had a look around for auditions and found Hen Night Epiphany. A play (never done), with an Irish accent (which I can’t do), with complete strangers. What could be more terrifying and the perfect route to rejection than that?
Except, by some miracle, I was actually cast as Una, the bride-to-be. I couldn’t believe it. I got the train over to Romsey twice a week, and found some time away from Southampton to have something for myself. Show week was rewarding, but at times tough. Having to channel a character going through abuse whilst living with my own struggles was hard emotionally, but also cathartic and the cast and team were very supportive. A part of myself lives within the character of Una, and I will never forget my time on “Cnoc na Ri”.
Overall, spring was busy and I did a lot but nothing felt like it was enough. It had some of the worst life stresses I have been through in years, which I cannot fully detail here. My world felt out of control, and I was suffering deeply. Every win had a reason in my head why it wasn’t a win. This continued into summer.
Summer 2026
This is a battle, a war, and the casualties could be your hearts and souls.
Oklahoma! tested me in entirely different ways. I was cast as Vivian, one of the dancing girls, which meant throwing myself into a much more physically demanding role while still dealing with everything going on health-wise. But it also gave me the opportunity to work really closely with my dancing girls (… and Ellen), and that became one of my favourite parts of the whole experience. For all the challenges that came with Oklahoma!, the friendships, ridiculous moments backstage, dancing together and feeling like our own little unit within the show are things I now wouldn’t trade.
Due to committee circumstances, I had also volunteered to help out as Assistant Business Manager. It wasn’t something I was particularly keen on doing initially, but where I was in the team and had helped over the previous year I wanted to lend my support.
One thing about me is I can never do things by halves, and so came the hours and hours of work to market the show. I worked on everything from audition and sponsorship campaigns to social media, photography and video, local press and business outreach, organising public performances, leaflet drops and even inviting the mayor, and just generally yelling “please omg come and see Oklahoma!”
During this time, I met some great people who I have formed relationships and friendships with. Through networking I was able to find one of our new rehearsal venues to keep costs down. One of my favourite moments was picking up Kevin the horse for the Totton Carnival float, a last-minute hilarious endeavour. I started to really enjoy the business side of things more than I ever thought I would.
Throughout it all I was still holding down the fort of communications as Secretary, alongside governance work, proposals, the new WhatsApp community and even pitching a new summer show. It was all a lot of work anyway, but living with the director as well meant the show really took over our lives. I threw myself into all of this while performing in the show at the same time, balancing work, other shows, illness, renovations and more. It was gruelling.
When the curtain closed on Oklahoma!, I cried. From all the work, all the emotion and all the pain felt throughout the show, but also from the joy of meeting incredible people, being a part of bringing my partner’s vision to life and delivering a really successful show, that beat summer show ticket-sale records.
In August, I took a “break” and did The SMS Showcase. This was a turning point slightly for me as it really reminded me why I do musicals in the first place: a love of performing and singing. This was a group of particularly lovely people and I met and “re-met” lots of people who it was a delight to be around. It’s been so enjoyable just singing together as a group and putting together individual talents to make something very cool. It was also the first time in a long time I felt a bit more seen as a vocalist and it was great to have a win under my belt for the year where I had taken a lot of hits (with more to come, I would soon find out!).
You’ll notice that throughout this blog I rarely say, “I was struggling, so I stopped for a while.” Instead, I tried to do my way out of struggling. Productivity was my way of coping. Overwhelm must be solved! No amount of work felt like enough to make up for things and, rather than seeing everything I had achieved, I increasingly felt like I had nothing of value to offer at all.
Stopping
There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.
Now you’re probably thinking: how in the heck does a person do all that and still function?
Short answer? They don’t!
Here comes the burnout!
The below section was written during my sick leave from work, August 2026
Ironically, surgery became the pause I’d needed all year. It has been strangely quiet after all the events leading up to it. I’m used to having something on every single evening and now I’ve had time to sit back and actually decide what I might want to do every day AND evening! This has been a bit unnerving actually, I keep feeling like I’m looking over my shoulder waiting for something I’ve forgotten to attack me from behind. I did manage to quietly entertain myself though. James and I took a brief trip to the countryside to unwind in nature, which helped. I finished a cross stitch project I’d had ongoing for a while and picked up one I abandoned years ago.
Even now, though, it’s not totally quiet: AGM prep, sourcing a new rehearsal venue, writing proposals, SMS Showcase and various other commitments. Later on this month, I’ll be abseiling down the Spinnaker Tower [^1] That’s quiet for me! I need to decide how much of this quiet I need to keep. I love the things I do but I need to keep myself balanced and only keep around the things that are worth the investment. No more panic attacks over fun things.
I do wish my break was longer. But being forced to step back allowed me to get my thoughts sorted. Recovery shouldn’t just be about getting myself back to 100% so I can work until I burn out again. It needs to mean making better decisions about what I give my time and energy to, and keeping some of that empty space.
There’s a lot to think about.
[^1] Update: This went super well!
Decision fatigue began to plague me from all the thinking I was doing everywhere else in my life. I struggled to choose dinner, or my clothes, or whether I should do X chore or Y hobby. Having a hidden illness and hidden labour means outside people only see my reaction, not the lead-up. Being close to tears in a committee meeting, ignoring friends for days on end, snapping at the door for making a loud noise… it’s all things that look strange if you don’t know what is happening underneath, and I was terrified of people finding out.
If I’m not useful, what am I worth?
Looking back, I expected too much of myself. One thing I must learn from all of this is that productivity isn’t the same as self-worth and rest isn’t a skill I need to be good at. Caring doesn’t mean taking everything on. I still want to do, I’m a doer. But I don’t need to do and I must remember that.
“You are enough.”
This part I am writing post departure from SOS Presents, September 2026
For me, I care about SOS deeply and wanted to give my skills in the best possible way to the society. I had done a lot as Secretary, and was ready to hand it over to someone who could take it on and fly. After a lot of back and forth, I opted to run for one of the Business Manager positions (Outreach) that I had proposed. I wish this was a happy ending, but I was not re-elected and am now no longer a part of committee.
I won’t pretend the outcome didn’t hurt. After a year in which I’d poured an enormous amount of time and energy into the society, it was difficult not to interpret it as a judgement on whether that contribution had mattered. With a little distance, though, I don’t think that’s fair to myself. A vote determines who holds a position next and doesn’t rewrite what came before it. The work happened. Now, the handbook exists, the shows succeeded, relationships were built and records broken. I know what I gave, and I’m proud of it.
I decided to leave SOS Presents for now. It’s strange because I genuinely didn’t expect things to end this way, and stranger still to put down so many things that are half-finished. But I know I need some time away to reset and grow comfortable in the space again. So this has unexpectedly become my forced break: part two.
A Stitch in Time
But only in their dreams can men be truly free. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be.
I’ve listed a lot of hobbies already, and I could probably keep doing so. However, the important thing is that I’ve been slowly building myself a little collection of places to escape to that aren’t social media and aren’t about proving anything to anyone. Laying the groundwork to get my head out of the expectations I put on myself for other commitments.
Photography, coding, singing, piano, cross stitch and making things don’t need a committee, a boss, a cast list or anyone else’s approval. They’re things I can do simply because I enjoy doing them.
Cross stitch in particular has made a triumphant return for me. It’s a slow craft, which I think is exactly why my brain likes it. Crosses are fixed. You can’t really rush thousands of tiny crosses, and after spending so much of the year being unable to turn off my brain, there’s something wonderfully simple about sitting down and knowing my only immediate responsibility is finding the next square. I’ve started designing my own patterns and making gifts I’m genuinely proud of (read more here… ). I love it.
Finally, for readers of my blog, you know about my continual on-again, off-again hobby of reducing my doomscrolling and finding new ways to get off my phone. I’ve deleted apps, reinstalled apps, set limits, coded bots and inevitably ignored or exploited those limits. A now, a wonderful silver lining to leaving committee is I can deactivate Facebook!
My Supporting Cast
No, I want you in, but being in means you have to do something. Not just saying you’re in.
None of this happened in isolation. Some friendships became stronger this year, others didn’t survive it, and some changed in ways I still haven’t entirely made sense of. But throughout everything, there were people who made an extraordinarily difficult year much lighter.
Being part of the Oklahoma cast gave me the opportunity to work with some not only incredibly talented but also incredibly lovely and kind women. Dance rehearsals became a small solace, and working with the dance team to bring to life visions of whirling skirts and pivot steps was a joy.
Then there’s the Hen Night Epiphany cast and crew. What a wonderfully welcoming and incredible bunch. They took a very insecure and frightened me and gave me such confidence, and for the first time in a very long time I felt my spark come back. The whole team were incredible, and although the performances were emotional, I always felt incredibly safe and supported by everyone. I really hope I get to work with them all again.
Work has given me a supporting cast on both sides of a pretty scary change. I’m incredibly grateful to my former colleagues, not only for their support as I left, but for the confidence they gave me to take that next step in the first place. And then, somehow, I landed amongst another group of people who met an unexpectedly unwell new starter with patience and understanding. They gave me the space to step back when I needed to without ever making me feel like I had less to offer, and the feedback and encouragement I’ve received along the way has meant more to me than they probably realise.
Finally, I cannot finish this section without talking about those who did sit with me through the tears, the long rambling oversharing and the moments when I needed someone to put things into perspective. Some of these people are new friends, some are old ones, some sit on the SOS committee I’ve now left and others are from completely different worlds. They reminded me that the catastrophe as I saw it in my mind wasn’t necessarily happening outside it, while still accepting that the emotions I was feeling were real. I’ve learned that stress amplifying a feeling doesn’t necessarily make the original feeling invalid; I can be genuinely hurt whilst also feeling my feelings magnified. Thank you all for reminding me that being me is okay.
A special note to my co-star James: thank you for everything. Even when you were carrying plenty of your own, we always found each other in the dark, and I will always remember that. Thank you for living through this year with me, putting up with every debate, taking on decisions when I couldn’t make them anymore, taking care of me when I was sick, hearing every thought, feeling, and emotion I could articulate even when it was 2am and we both needed to sleep. But above all, thank you for being the best partner I could wish for and understanding each other in ways no one else can.
Overall, having the light of others to pull me out of my mind is something I can only continue to be so deeply grateful for. I’ve had innumerable people support me in small and big ways, and quite frankly it is overwhelming at times. So thank you. So much.
P.S. Got to shout out the cats too. Penny and Basil you make my life worth living.
Curtain Call?
That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?
This blog post features quotes from my favourite film, Dead Poets Society, which may seem an odd choice for me, seeing as it’s a coming of age story about teenage boys. But I love it because it reminds me of the beauty in small things, the importance of art and passion in our lives, and, above all, that we have autonomy over ourselves. Even when life feels out of our control, we are still the ultimate controllers of our own lives. Since being forced to stop (twice), I’ve had to remind myself of the lessons from this film and remember that, whatever I do next, it’s my choice. And I will choose to do the things that make life feel worth living.
What will my next verse be?
There are lots of other things for me to be excited about that don’t involve enabling musical theatre for others. Sure, there will be bad weeks again. But I want to remind myself that I don’t need to try to solve my entire life whenever I get overwhelmed. Thoughts, even intense ones, don’t always need immediate decisions or actions.
I don’t have a neat lesson to tie the year up with. Hopefully, if you’re still here, what you’ve gleaned from this ridiculously long reflection is that nothing is really solved. I don’t entirely know what comes next, but whatever it is, I will make it good.
For now, I am also okay with not knowing. Sometimes, like now, I just need to give myself time until I can see things more clearly.
…
And for God’s sake, take a fucking break.
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