love letters to storytellers #2 - dodie

This newsletter was initially sent via Mailchimp September 1, 2021.

depression, anxiety, depersonalisation

featured storyteller

I’m 15 years old, still uncomfortable in my skin and with myself. I don’t really know who I am yet. Late at night, I lie in bed scrolling through my YouTube feed, enraptured with attention-starved teens as they try to combat their own insecurities by spilling their souls to strangers on the internet. I am covered with blankets and armor and a million other walls I have put up to protect myself, so I am fascinated with the openness and raw honesty of these strange people.

One such YouTuber was Dodie Clark, who ensnared me with her ukulele strings immediately. I admired this young Brit’s openness and enjoyed her songs, and I followed her career from YouTuber to the well-established songwriter, re-branded dodie, who has a complete album released and millions of followers.

I often used YouTube as an escape during hard times, replacing my own life with others, but I still learned a lot along the way. dodie has always been open about her struggles with anxiety, depression, depersonalisation and derealisation. Her videos, and others the YouTube algorithm “recommends” alongside hers, present me with a narrative of mental illness that is largely missing from mainstream media - one of real people living real struggles and trying to connect with people who feel the same.

I also identify with the intensity of dodie’s feeling. I’ve read many of her Instagram posts, and watched many of her videos that blatantly showcase her deep, intense love and heartbreak for her friends. We are similar, falling hard for everyone we make a connection with, and hurting hard when those connections loosen or break. As a result, she creates beautiful art.

Alongside her songs, dodie also wrote Secrets for the Mad, an illustrated collection of songs and vignettes about her life growing up and her experience with mental illness and surviving an abusive relationship. In the chapter written by a friend of hers that describes how dodie connects with her audience, there’s a line that continues to stick with me: “Dodie succeeds in creating beautiful songs because she isn’t scared of being afraid. The difference between a song that speaks to you and a song that you cringe at is that the success expresses vulnerability without fear.”

dodie has demonstrated for me over the years how powerful vulnerability can be, and that is something that I am now attempting to practise through this is a love story (the format of which is largely inspired by Secrets for the Mad). I don’t want to be scared, anymore, of being afraid.

You can find dodie’s music on all music platforms, on YouTube at doddleoddle and doddlevloggle, and on Instagram and Twitter.

all my daughters

updates

Right now, I’m just at the beginning stages of publication, which means a lot of research, marketing, writing, and editing. A lot of editing. All of my editors are lovely, thoughtful geniuses (guess who suggested using the word ‘geniuses’ 😉) who are very good at what they do, but that doesn’t make the vulnerable process of having your work critiqued and torn up (in a constructive way) any less difficult. I find reading critiques of my work, I always end up going through the five stages of grief: first denial (no, you’re wrong, I don’t need to change that), then anger (who do you think you are, telling me how to write MY book!?), then bargaining (well FINE, I’ll change this, but I’m standing my ground on this part!!), then depression (everything I write sucks, and everything I ever write will suck forever), and then, finally, acceptance, where I can finally admit that actually, they were right all along and now my writing is much better for their critique. They haven’t been attacking me personally but helping to rework my writing into something better and clearer.

Over years and experience of being edited many, many times, I now go through those five stages much quicker. Now I can acknowledge editing as more of a conversation and collaboration between two artists, rather than someone telling me what to do, which I’ve always resisted. But, as I already said, this project is all about vulnerability, so I’m ready.
 

I am also still consistently posting love letters on my instagram and facebook pages. Here are a few of my recent favourites, click through to read them in full:

love letter #29 to: my sister "it is easy to write you love letters. every breath, every day, my entire life has been a love letter to you, since the day i was born and you gave me your own special name for me..."

love letter #33 to: a day at the farm in august "...you know how to just be, and you plant me, and you wait for me while i learn to let go and finally flourish."

love letter #35 to: failure "it begins at my hairline, a slow trickle like an egg yolk, like that back tickling game we played at story time in elementary school. harmless enough, maybe pleasant, kinda weird. then it starts, into my hair & face, and this is where the burning begins..."

Happy September!

Alyssa