How Substack Changed My Life
Reflecting on writing, 10K subscribers, and our communal prefrontal cortex
Song of the week: Time by Angelo De Augustine
August 17th 2024 at around 10pm, I wrote my first ever Substack. I’d spent the weekend with my best friend, Gobind, and it was this weekend that changed my entire life. I’d just come back from Greece and I was feeling lost in the way most of us do in our twenties. I didn’t know that though, it felt like I was the only person in the world that felt this way. Ever since I was a child, I’d have all of these thoughts that would weigh over me. I have spent most of my life feeling misunderstood and strange; growing up in a small town, I didn’t ever feel like I belonged anywhere. I’d change myself into different people trying to work out who they wanted me to be. Always on the search for home, I realise now it had always been inside of me. I’d look at everyone else and be sure they had it all figured out, I was sure there was just something wrong with me. Gobind encouraged me to start this Substack, and for him I’ll forever be grateful.
It was a Sunday night, and I made my account quickly, not thinking too much about what it could be. I hadn’t written anything in years, nothing good anyway. That weekend was a blur, I’d had a botox appointment I’d walked out on and ended things with a man that had asked me to be casual. It was easy to write about. I wrote out at the end, ‘-shit I think my prefrontal cortex just developed’.
I pressed publish and then thought to post it on my TikTok too. I had a thousand or so followers on there from posting videos of my old brick apartment in Nottingham. ‘Not many people will read it’, I calmed myself but it still scared me. I told myself it’s good to do things that scare you sometimes. That night, I went to sleep and a new life waited for me when I woke up.
I checked my phone as I usually do in the morning and to my shock I had found you. Thousands of notifications filled my phone; ‘I’ve booked in for botox and this might have just changed my mind’, ‘please never stop writing’, ‘just cancelled my appointment’. It was the strangest feeling to have, maybe for the first time, told the full truth and been completely myself, and had people understand me. I think I am the luckiest person in the world to be able to write out how I feel and for people to hear what I am trying to say.
My next Substack was easy to write, I wrote one of my most read articles - ‘what the fuck is a situationship’. It’s still one of my favourites, sometimes writing can feel like running a tap and this was one of those times. My substacks often feel like closure from the person I write about and this was no different.
One of the greatest ways Substack has changed my life is through friendship. In October, I had a message from someone in LA, she was visiting London and we met for dinner in Covent Garden. Fast friends, we still keep in touch as she travels the world. In November, Cathy commented on my TikTok saying she enjoyed my writing, we went for coffee in Shoreditch, and she’s now one of my closest friends. From LA to Australia, with no common ground except a shared city for a while, I find it insane to think of all the things that might not have happened if it wasn’t for August 18th. These are just a few of the life-changing people I’ve met through here.
To be a writer means to notice life and that is one of the greatest gifts Substack has given me; to walk through a busy street and see strangers as friends I’ve not met yet. My perspective on life has changed slowly but consistently every day.
Like pressing play on a song I hadn’t heard in a while, writing became a practice I did each week to share with you all. I learnt how to do something I’ve spent my whole life attempting; I managed to accept myself. To let myself be raw and undone and share it anyway; even if it’s messy. To look at who I am in the clean light of an empty page and fill it with thoughts I’d previously hid. My favourite thing is meeting some of you and you tell me you found the confidence to do the same. Whether it’s through sharing your own writing or telling people how you feel.
I was lucky enough to meet some of you at my book club in March. All of these women in one room to make friends was one of the greatest nights of my life so far. We’re often told we live in a world devoid of community, that London is a lonely city incapable of connection but maybe we are like flowers growing between the cracks in concrete. I always like my substacks to have a happy ending because quite often writing doesn’t. There is always sadness in them but also lessons and love. I suppose what Substack has given me is hope.
It is now almost May and I suppose this is a love letter to all of you, to say thank you and to say you shouldn’t be so scared of your own voice - there are people waiting to hear from you.
-Shit, I think our prefrontal cortexes just developed.
