You’re rich but you feed the hungry.

You’re rich but you clothe the poor.

You’re the best fucking rich person this world has ever seen.

Maybe poor people are to rich people what people without children are to parents. Everyone is a perfect parent until they have a child and everyone would save the world until they actually have money.

You keep having different versions of the same dream.

You open your mouth to speak the truth but nothing comes out.

Just a silent scream.

What are we doing? Stop scrolling, stop buying. You just want to be left alone. To enjoy your life while you have it. What happens when they come for you and no one looks up from their screen? A tear or two is shed for your burning body. For the anguished cries of your children, then they put on pants and go to work. You are already forgotten.

And no, no one deserves this but what did you expect? For people to care more about YOUR suffering? For your pale, fragile skin? No. No one cares the way they need to. The way they needed you to. The way they needed you, too.

When it was someone else you cried into your coffee cup, maybe clicked a link to donate. $20… no, you know what? $25.

There.

You feel better.

You play golf, you go to a yoga class. It’s important to take care of yourself first in hard times. The oxygen mask theory. Always put yours on first…but then what? I know there was a second part to it. Oh well. Plane’s going down. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Made it on vacation. Man you needed this. Life is stressful. It’s important to enjoy yourself when times are hard. Joy is rebellion, right? More joy, more joy, all the joy money can buy.

Come home, go to church. Listen to the teachings of this dude called Christ and say “Amen” but you don’t connect the dots. What a disappointment you would be to JC if he were here now. Love thy neighbour, love thy neighbour, but your neighbour is the problem. Can’t you see? You’re not the problem, your neighbour is the problem. You didn’t send him away, you’re just Pilot. Washing your hands clean. Not your problem. Not our problem.

Not yet.

I know he would disagree with me saying this, and I understand why. He is currently lying in a hospital bed with his chest sewn back together, a broken sternum, and 4 brand new arteries that are learning how to distribute his blood properly. I won’t speak for him, but I imagine it’s the hardest thing he’s had to go through physically and emotionally, short of losing his mom at 10 years old. When you look at it from this vantage point, it doesn’t seem like much of a gift; but it was. It was one of the biggest I’ve received in my adult life.

My siblings and I have been incredibly lucky, knock on wood, with our parents’ health. Aside from some pretty nasty viruses, and one particularly scary bout of pneumonia (mom), they have been steady and strong my entire life. They are active, they eat well, and they are sharp as tacks. So you can imagine everyone’s shock when, just a couple weeks ago, dad received the news that he had a ticking time bomb in his chest that required just about the biggest surgery you could have; a quadruple bypass.

I’m not going to share details because that is his experience and his to tell. What I will share is my own experience and what I left the hospital with.

I arrived at Saint John Regional Hospital on Sunday, Father’s Day, around 6PM. Dad had been admitted that morning and the surgery was scheduled for the following one. My mum, sister and my aunt, dad’s sister—a retired nurse who, for a large portion of her career, worked in cardiac care, thank goodness—were already there. The mood was light and the jokes were many, which was unsurprising as this is how my family copes with just about anything. Then it came time to say goodnight and leave my father for his first overnight stay in a hospital. Ever.

There are a few things you should know about my mother. The first is, she is superwoman. If Superman were real, she would crush him with her stamina and ability to stay in control. There is no worker-bee more skilled and no one more selflessly helpful than this woman. She holds it all together.

That night, leaving her love at the hospital was the first time I have ever seen her look helpless, and I watched her relinquish control for the first time in my life. My sister and I held her in the hallway for a moment before we all went to the hotel to have the worst night’s sleep.

We were back at 5:30AM at my mother’s request to be there long before dad was sent in. All of us anxious, my sister bribed a nurse with her tears to let us in when the security guard was away from his desk. She made sure nothing was going to stop us from being there. It worked.

Nurses, doctors and an anesthetist came in and out, every one of them amazing. Saint John is known for its cardiac care and they DID NOT disappoint. Then it was time. He was wheeled to the OR and we followed him as far as we were allowed to see him off.

We all knew the statistics of this surgery. It’s something like a 98 or 99% success rate. To me, much like flying in a plane, my brain knows the statistics, but my body thinks these are my last moments on earth. This was MY dad on the operating table and we were all really, really scared.

So now we wait. We wait a really long time. My brother arrived from Fredericton, leaving his wife to wrangle both their boys in his absence. My aunt was still there, unwilling to wait for news anywhere else but as close as she could be to assisting the actual surgery itself. Dad is one of 6 kids and mom is one of 7. They were all messaging and waiting for news, offering their support in anyway they could. Cousins, uncles, and friends offered us places to stay if we needed. Countless people sent stories about people they knew that had had they same surgery and how it changed their lives for the better. Priests are praying, our grandmother starts an online prayer circle from her care home, endless love and support is pouring in from every walk of life, including that very waiting room. You get to know the families of the other surgery patients as you wait in the trenches together in uncomfortable chairs. That waiting room in the ICU in Saint John, NB, was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Five and a half hours later, dad did great. His stay in the ICU and his first couple days of recovery were as well as could have been expected. Again, he might disagree. I’m not the one that feels like they got rolled over by an 18 wheeler.

So, what was this gift I was talking about??

Well, aside from the best of humanity being present in the ICU waiting room, it was a reminder of just how incredible my family is, how much I love hanging out with them, and how insanely lucky I am that I was born into it.

My brother, who had never spent a night away from his boys, bringing his work with him and squishing into a hotel room with me, my mom, and sister. Constantly volunteering to make other people’s lives easier. Someone who can laugh when you need it and cry when it all gets to be too much.

His wife, taking care of two of the busiest boys on the planet so he could be there and encouraging him to do so.

My aunt, the true definition of the word “family”. The biggest cheerleader and so, so smart. Interpreting for us laymen what the doctors and nurses were telling us and reassuring us that it’s “normal”. Her husband driving everyone everywhere. Silently helping the entire time. Her daughter, my cousin, checking in every step of the way.

Dad’s siblings, mom’s siblings, cousins and Nanny Barb. All showing up in so many different ways, all equally valued and important. Dad’s grandkids for the messages and videos they sent.

My husband, working full time and moving his schedule around to take our daughter to school, work late and make it to pick her up again.

My sister, keeping us fed, building an army of healing energy with her Reiki network. Making sure dad gets his extra pillow and never being afraid to ask questions immediately when the rest of us might take some more time. Her husband, keeping their family going in her absence.

My mother. With her giant heart and her notebook full of every update and every word spoken by every healthcare professional. Keeping track of everything so she can be the best care taker when he comes home. Sleeping in a chair beside his bed so she’ll sleep better than in a hotel bed. Maybe not better, but definitely calmer.

And finally, my father. Imagine being someone who inspires all this. Someone who, at the first sign of trouble, has an entire army running to his side because they wouldn’t be anywhere else. Imagine what kind of person he is. I don’t think I have to explain it. The actions of everyone around him already have.

That’s what my father gave me. The gift of being present and aware of everything that matters most.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. I forgot to say it on Sunday. I owe you a gift.

It’s been about a week or so of actually engaging with publications and notes outside of the 7 or 8 that show up in my inbox upon my subscription request. I started engaging because I turned on my paid subscriptions and thought, “hey! Maybe I should figure out this new platform I’m telling everyone is so great.”

Up until this point, I’ve had no reason to think otherwise. I subscribe to a few writers whose work I really enjoy, and a few pals who I think are excellent writers. To me, SubStack was where the writers went to write and the readers went to read again. More long-form content and so much less noise.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.

The moment I turned on my paid subscriptions my SubStack algorithm decided to show me all the publications that are devoted to helping you grow on SubStack. And guys…there are so many of them.

People are writing how-to’s, best practices, and making money off of helping you figure out this “very different platform where nothing you’ve ever tried will work for you unless you pay to subscribe to MY method”.

Ok, I’m paraphrasing, but that is the gist. And if it’s not someone trying to sell me on their program that’s definitely there to help ME, then it’s people pretending to want to connect with other people and support them by describing their own target audience. It looks like this:

“Hey! Are you a woman in mid-life writing about mid-life things and have less than 1000 subscribers?? Comment below because I WANT TO SUPPORT YOU!”

Give. Me. A. F’ing. Break.

SubStack is masquerading as the supportive and friendly platform when it is very clear to me that most people are using the same social media tactics to gain subscribers by luring them in with something that has nothing to do with anything. It’s exactly what I came over here to get away from and Lo and behold, here it is again.

So much click bait. So much like-seeking by sharing quotes by other people. There is so little original thought in my algorithm, which is so frustrating because I know there are a lot of people on here sharing original thoughts. But for some reason, it doesn’t please the click bait overlords. I started getting emails for brand associations. Seriously?!? On SubStack??

It doesn’t mean I don’t think I can carve out a little corner of this place with people who are interested in what I’m making. I think I already have that, thanks to all of you. It does mean that I will be disengaging from the Home Screen of this app and sticking to my current subscriptions and maybe some word of mouth recommendations. Possibly from my subscribers?? Feel free to share some of your own recommendations here.

Here is my promise to you, dear reader. I am here to make art and to write out my thoughts and if you like that, I’m thrilled. If you don’t, I won’t chase you. Growth is subjective. I’m here to grow into an even more authentic version of myself. Algorithm be damned.

Yours in long-form frustration,

JOANIE

Xo

And this is annoying because I am a top-tier decision maker. I can follow my gut like no one else and know it is the right way (for me) to go. I am a Capricorn, after all.

Cut to a few days after the decision has been made or the post has been posted or the publicly visible display of my heart has been publicly viewed and suddenly I am wishing for a time machine to take me back to the moment before I shared so I can stay hidden instead. I have a point, I promise.

Read more

This is a note to let you know that my paid subscriptions have been turned on but FEAR NOT!

If $5/month to gain access to live videos, thoughts, song previews, early live performance access and access to the digital album, “If I Were A Bird”, is NOT in the cards for you, please know your presence is still of the utmost importance to me and you will still have access to my newsletter, as well as public posts I will keep up with regularly. You’ll also have previews of all paid subscriber content to stay in the loop.

Thank you for being here in The Room. Thank you for supporting an independent artist in any way you can. So much more to come.

JOANIE

xo

The buzz phrase people are reacting to is this:

AI is inevitable so don’t get left behind.

Celebrities are pushing it hard, especially AI for women.

“Did you know a significant number of women are NOT using AI? LADIES! Don’t get left behind!”

Fucking LEAVE ME BEHIND.

Women aren’t using AI because we’re smarter. I’m sorry to all the incredible men reading this post, and please know this statement is a generalization, but if you’re new here on my SubStack you should know that I believe women, as a whole, hold more knowledge and wisdom. If that is news to you, you may not be in the right place. I’ll give you a moment to decide if you’d like to take the off-ramp right here…

…

…

Still here? Amazing. I’m so glad. Let’s continue.

Now that we all agree women are smarter in general, let me admit something to you:

I HAVE USED AI.

It’s true. Like most people, for awhile I bought into the “it’s inevitable so you better get onboard” sentiment. And there were things I used it for that made my life easier like admin tasks, formatting, things that help me have more time for my actual job, which is creating. I’ve experimented with how I feel about AI in many different ways, and for awhile I thought it would really help me as a self-employed artist who can’t afford to hire an assistant. But I did something radical; I changed my mind.

Something that became very clear to me, even with the limited exposure I had to a free* tool like ChatGPT, is that I was losing cognitive function. The more I used it, the more I deferred to it, and the more I deferred to it, the more my own brain lost the ability to do

menial tasks. Much like social media, I could feel the dependancy seeping in and then the pattern/trajectory was clear. (*free for now)

AI is free right now to get us hooked, to take our own knowledge and then commodify it and sell it back to us at a premium. In layman’s terms:

Tech giants are stealing our brains and selling them back to us. AND making us believe we’re getting a good deal.

Suddenly, I sound like the crazy hippie from the 1960’s who’s living off the land and who’s homemade t-shirt reads “F*CK THE ESTABLISHMENT". GOOD! I want to be that hippie. I want to grow and share food and ask a human for advice and have to work hard to get my self-employed self a human assistant to do admin tasks so I have human interaction in my work life. I want to not have the answer to something and wonder what it is without someone looking it up on their phone. I want to think and think and think outside of an algorithm that tells me what to think. I want to make art and consume art made by humans only, because it is the only thing that captures what our experience on this little blue marble is really like.

A robot can’t feel the sand between its toes, or the moss beneath its feet, or know how sweet the air smells on a summer morning when it rained overnight. It can only describe the actions of it. And this lack of depth and lack of feeling bleeds into our lives when we consume it. I don’t want any part of it. Leave me behind.

Before you go there… I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW the counterargument—that AI is just a tool and isn’t inherently bad. It can help us solve world hunger, and cure cancer, and give us more time in our lives for the things that matter because it’s taking care of the tasks we don’t want to do.

I HEAR YOU. Human advancement, science, flying cars, peace on earth…

GREAT! If that’s what it’s going to be used for, great! But we all know whose hands AI is in and if we’re using our critical thinking skills, we know that’s not what it’s being used for. It’s already happening. Companies are laying off hundreds, sometimes thousands, of employees because of AI advancements. What’s the plan for the thousands? Administrators, graphic designers, artists, labourers, they are all losing their jobs—what’s the plan?

• Spotify is being taken over by AI generated music.

• Artists are having their music or voices stolen and released on streaming platforms.

• Disney eliminated 1000 positions, including most of the visual development team at Marvel Studios.

If this is the inevitable evolution of human-kind, we’re in deep, dystopian trouble and that’s without even touching on how AI is being used in the military or HOW MUCH WATER and electricity are needed for these precious data centres that are ruining the drinking water in the communities they are built in.

We need to fight back and AI needs to be regulated

I’m not delusional, I don’t think AI is going away anytime soon. But I do think that someday soon we will look back and realize this was the point in the story where we still had control. AI is being pushed down our throats because they need us to need it. It hasn’t reached its tipping point of global dominance…yet.

Over half of this readership is new here, and you were driven to this SubStack because of a post I made explaining how I removed my entire catalogue off of Spotify and would not be releasing my new project on any streaming platforms. That’s one way I’m trying to resist what is happening in the world. From the response I got to that post, a lot of you are doing the same sort of thing.

Something obviously more valuable than an indie artist trying to stick it to Spotify is to call or email your representatives to press them on regulations for AI. Gather a group and do it locally. Our current systems are anything but perfect, but occasionally, when a group is loud enough, they still work.

Thank you all for being here. I’m over the moon you’ve even taken the time to press the subscribe button. Now back to some regularly scheduled JOANIE content; human to human.

xo

JOANIE

When I started this JOANIE project it came to me in a fully formed idea:

Announce you are making an album and release it one year from the announcement.

I had nothing done, I just had a renewed fire to create something and I wanted to hold myself accountable. Luckily, I have a few major hype people in my life that told me it was a great idea, so JOANIE was born.

I have to tell you that it was VERY unlike me to put anything into the world that wasn’t fully rehearsed or ready. The beginnings of JOANIE, in my perfectionist opinion, has been clumsy. She’s been finding her footing and it’s been a lot of trial and error in regards to what this project is and what I, Alicia Toner, am trying to say through JOANIE. But through the clumsiness, a new concept has been born and how I’m going to share it is… a little different.

The project has become larger and includes a rather ambitious live show to go along with the album. A lot of the songs on this album have been inspired by three of my favourite writers; Lucy Maud Montgomery, Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf, and the live show explores the interesting parallels between them and JOANIE as she grapples to understand their tragic endings to avoid a similar fate.

The scope of this project has increased drastically, and because of the funds and the time needed the album will no longer be released in June of this year. I would say I’m disappointed in not following through on this challenge, but the new direction of the project has me too excited to be disappointed. A lot of pre production work has been done on these songs and it is already my favourite body of work I’ve created.

This leads us to how the music will be accessed:

I’m done with streaming.

I am not a new artist. I have been around professionally for two decades now, in one form or another. I’ve put my hours in, I’ve gained provincial, regional, and national recognition, and still I have to pay for the opportunity to have people discover my music on streaming platforms and get paid (on average) $0.003 - $0.007 per stream. And then there is the rise of AI produced music killing the indie musician even more. It’s enough. We’re doing something different this time because artists deserve to be paid for their work.

This SubStack will soon turn into a portal to all my music. I’ll turn on paid subscriptions and you will have the choice to pay as much or as little per month as you’re able to access music, videos, behind the scenes making of the album/live show and early access to any live show happening. These updates and thoughts will remain free in case you’re not into subscribing, but if you are able, know that you will be helping to build a sustainable artist career for even a few dollars each month.

My hope is that this becomes a community that really engages, away from the addictive scrolling of social media.

Photo by Manuel Harlan - Curve Theatre 2026

That’s it for now, other than to let you all know that I’m currently in England with our beloved Harmony House, bringing a bit of Prince Edward Island to incredibly appreciative British audiences for one more week. It’s been wonderful and a beautiful break from being buried in snow.

Once again, my sincere gratitude to all 108 of you, as of this newsletter. I hope it grows slowly and organically, one real person at a time.

Much love,

JOANIE

Don’t get me wrong, I love some high-stakes, top-level, stress-inducing games as much as the next guy. I was in Toronto celebrating in the streets when Crosby got the game-winning goal for Canada in 2010. I tune in for the Olympics, the World juniors, occasionally the World Cup and I’ve been a fair weather Habs fan for most of my adult life. I couldn’t, however, name you more than 4-5 guys on the roster and I certainly couldn’t tell you their stats or their history —game related or personal. I’ve never been a true sports fan—least of all baseball.

I was six years old the last time the Jays were in the World Series and I remember when they won. My babysitter was a HUGE fan and I still have an old coke can with Joe Carter on it. I treasured it because their win meant so much to her. But baseball wasn’t on in my house and no one in my family played it. We were a hockey household and my dad actually preferred to watch NASCAR over anything.

Even when I grew up and moved to Toronto the Jays meant one thing to me; don’t take the Gardiner home from Hamilton because it’ll be a parking lot.

I had friends who were Jays fans, boyfriends and eventually a husband (first) who loved them but I never caught the fever. I’d watch because they were watching, uninterested in the story that can go along with any team.

Cut to this Spring and I find myself back in Toronto doing a show and surrounded by a cast full of Jays fans. I’m talking stat-knowing, merch-sporting, win-or-lose loving Jays fans who wanted to go to the home opener. I’d never been to a baseball game but these were the right people to go with so why the hell not?

I went, I saw them play, I saw them lose (badly) but I saw a few other things as well. I saw the cast of the Lion King sing the national anthem as they rolled out the Canadian flag in a very tumultuous time. I looked around and saw 40,000 people sing along with them. I cried.

“Ok, baseball, I see what you did there.” My interest was piqued.

Throughout the rest of the regular season I was working with those same fans. I heard more about the players but now I recognized their names. I heard more personal stories, more history. My husband (second) got a Sportsnet subscription. We started watching the occasional game. Pretty soon, I started to join in the baseball conversation because not only did I know the full starting lineup, I now had opinions. Opinions about how they played and how they pitched. Most of all, I had opinions about the team itself.

I started watching how they interacted with each other on the field but also with the opposing team. Quite frankly, I’d only seen sportsmanship like this on TV. Ted Lasso comes to mind—the later seasons when the team really starts to gel playing total football and Roy Kent can no longer hide his love for Jamie Tart. They were pulling me in with kindness and empathy. Their post-game interviews—usually the worst part of anything sports related—were chalk full of praise and love for one another. Trey Yesavage’s first interview comes to mind when Vladdy was throwing sunflower seeds at his head just out of frame to make him laugh.

They don’t beat each other up for mistakes. They don’t take all the glory when they make an incredible play. They win AND lose as a team. I can’t think of a better metaphor for exactly what the world needs more of right now in this moment in history. The way they play and the way they conduct themselves on and off the field—pure class, love and empathy—is one of the biggest political statements of our time.

“But baseball isn’t political! It’s just a f’ing game!!

Everything is political. Baseball is no exception.

I’ve seen and heard a lot of people say they don’t like sports because it’s a bunch of millionaires owned by billionaires playing a game. It’s late stage Capitalism. It’s the Roman Colosseum. It’s part of the problem.

Sure.

Although unlike the Colosseum, we now pay people way too much to entertain us instead of kill them.

Here’s how I see it, and I’m right so sit down:

Just like famous actors, musicians, writers, painters and, now, influencers, we pay people at the highest level too much money to put their lives on full display for our amusement. It’s not new. Watching millionaires play a game is no different than watching millionaires tell stories. We give them lots of money for unfettered access to their lives in interviews, on the field, at a stage door, at an exhibit or when we see them on the street. They live different lives because of this invisible social contract and while I’m not defending the systems that have blown the wealth gap wide open and have given opportunities to some and none to others, I am defending the artists and the athletes who train and work and sacrifice so we have something to cheer for or something to make us cry. They take monumental amounts of criticism and hate just for being good at the thing we want them to be good at. There are so many reasons we place importance on greatness but in the sports world, what I have come to understand is that one of those reasons is community. We do it for entertainment—yes—but we also do it for hope. To believe in something and to find common ground in our homes, our cities and, in this case, our country.

This year for Halloween, my husband suggested I go as Davis Schneider because my safety glasses looked like his playing glasses. So I did. I drew on a bushy moustache, donned the uniform, grabbed a bat and took my 5 year old trick or treating.

EVERYONE I passed commented on my costume with a “Let’s Go Blue Jays!”. Grown men gave me high fives, women smiled and said “nice one”, even kids yelled “I LOVE YOUR COSTUME!”.

A team like this one—the one that finished dead last in 2024 and made it all the way to the 11th inning of Game 7 in the World Series in 2025—is special. The loss was crushing. I’m still recovering. But I’m not devastated at the loss of the World Series—I’m sad for the team. It felt like this World Series was the ultimate movie script—the underdog coming from dead last to take it all. It seemed like the ending was already written. The feel good movie of the year. Seeing their faces after the loss was too much to bear.

In the last 24hrs, I’ve watched all the post-game interviews because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this cast of characters and it was almost worth the loss to see how these guys handled such a crushing blow.

Tears. Empathy. Love.

The ultimate display of positive masculinity. They were undeniably sad about the loss but even more devastated to say goodbye to each other after what they just went through and gutted by the reality they won’t get to see each other every day. I’m sad about that, too. I feel like my favourite book just ended.

The Blue Jays taught me how to be a fan and they have me for life now.

And they did it with the power of friendship.

And something about it feels… impossible. Not in the dramatic, "I can't believe it!" way that people say when they’re trying to make small talk. I mean like the math doesn’t add up. It’s almost as though I haven’t grown up enough yet. Like the version of myself who just brought her home from the hospital, still stitched and stunned and sleepless, trying to figure out how to hold a baby and a coffee and a sense of self all at once, does not feel five years evolved.

And now she’s five.
Five.
Not four. Not toddler-adjacent. Five.

It feels like a hinge. Like a door quietly closing behind me.

She’s stretching out. Legs are longer, sentences are sharper, the softness of her babyhood giving way to this confident, curious person whose cuddles now come with terms and conditions. She crawls into my lap when she needs to, and just as quickly wriggles out of it when she’s done. And I let her.

But sometimes, when she reaches for my hand, I have to do a double take, because it’s bigger now. It feels different. Her hand. And it reminds me that, someday, it won’t reach for mine so often. It’s still small, but I can feel its future in my palm. I look away and take a deep breath.

Maybe it’s hitting harder because I know I’m not doing this again. No more babies. No more first steps. No more tiny socks, or milk-stained everything, or that primal, raw sense of being absolutely essential to someone’s survival.
I’ve made peace with that decision and I know it’s right for me and our family. But now, on the edge of five, it’s like my body is remembering all the good and painful parts at once, storing them in my chest and releasing them as sudden, inconvenient tears every time she does something ordinary like climb into the car or put on her own socks.

I keep thinking:
This is the last time she’ll be four.
This is the last time I’ll put a four year old to bed.
This is the last summer before she is “school-aged”.

Savour. Savour. Savour.

But it doesn’t work like that. Tomorrow she’ll return to stalling getting ready in the morning and I’ll go back to wishing time away because life and motherhood is a paradox.

But today. Today…

She’s five.
And I am lucky. And I am undone.
And I am holding both.

— Joanie

I thought I’d be a little sad to see her go but, in truth, all I feel is an excited itch that’s about to be scratched.

Tomorrow I’m launching a new creative project called “JOANIE”. If you follow me on social media, you’ll see “Alicia Toner” disappear and “JOANIE” take her place. She’s my new (to you) musical persona and while she is a bit of a character, I feel she is more authentically me than Alicia Toner has ever been. Being myself in music and in all my artistic practises has drained me. Alicia Toner is a consummate people pleaser, and no matter how much work I do to beat that out of myself, it’s my default setting. I second guess everything, I delete posts, I edit all my insane, weird quirks out of what I present to the world to the point where everything is a cloudy, diluted mess.

So it’s time for the people pleaser to step aside and make room for the one who knows herself, fully.

JOANIE is all the quiet parts of my brain said out loud. She sees the world a little differently and she’ll always tell you the truth about it. She is the person I’ve been getting to know for the past 5 years, and I have grown to love her. It’s ok if you don’t because she doesn’t need your validation. She’s not for everyone. I do hope you’ll vibe with her though. I feel like if you’ve enjoyed reading Autistic Traits, you will have a deep understanding of JOANIE.

This Substack will continue with the same content under a different name. Tomorrow it will change to “This is JOANIE”. I hope you’ll stay with me as I’ll still be speaking mostly to the late-diagnosed Autistic experience. Probably more-so. But it will also include some announcements about upcoming musical projects so if that’s not for you, I completely understand. Thanks for being on this journey with me as far as you have.

For the last time on the internet,

Alicia

The working class is having a huge awakening. We have passively watched as capitalism has convinced us that convenience and consumption are what we deserve in life, and anything less is to be hated. They’ve convinced us to shutter local businesses because Amazon can get it here fast, cheaper and right to your door. They’ve convinced us to hate unions that safeguard our rights because unions “slow down progress” and cause YOU, the consumer, inconvenience. They’ve convinced artists that their music should only cost people $12/month and that they should pay to have their music on that platform. That platform that will only pay you pennies/stream or NOTHING if you don’t reach a certain threshold. They have convinced us that we are worthless and should pay them for the opportunity to be worth something. And we do it.

On the East Coast of Canada there is an Association for artists and musicians called the East Coast Music Association. It was created in a time that the touring musician had a chance by the people who benefitted most from those musicians touring; industry folk. For decades now, the music industry has been making money and benefitting from a small pool of artists that make money touring every year, and maybe one or two newcomers that will soon be money-makers themselves. It is a glorified high-school reunion each year, as industry professionals (some who come every year) are flown in to see the East Coast’s best and brightest artists. They mingle, mostly with each other, get wined and dined and watch artists perform for them in hopes they will be hired for their festival and can string together enough other festivals and dates to make one barely passible summer of income. This used to work pretty well for a handful of artists, especially the artists who happen to be represented by the founders of the ECMA. But who, I ask you, who is it benefitting now when touring is no longer a sustainable option for ALMOST ALL artists? Costs for everything are up, fees for festivals are not, and the most glaringly obvious NON adjustment is the fees of booking managers and managers.

I’m not saying they deserve less—they work hard, they deserve their 15% (if you’re lucky) cut of everything you do—but what I am saying is once again, the artist takes the hit. So in a conference that is promoting touring, touring, and more touring, who is benefitting and why are we so willing to accept this is the best course of action?

A year ago, the ECMA did something exciting; they hired a young, qualified, exciting woman to be the new CEO of the ECMA. She came with new, fresh ideas about building sustainable careers for artists on the East Coast, engaging more underrepresented artists, fostering diversity, equity and inclusion, and guess what? She wasn’t all talk. She went ahead and did exactly what she said she was going to do. She made big changes and those changes more than ruffled a few feathers.

I know—it’s shocking when someone actually does what they say they are going to. It’s so f’ing rare.

One of these sweeping changes was a big shift in the beloved export program that was meant to expand it, not diminish it, to make the program not just about exporting cause let’s remember TOURING ISN’T SUSTAINABLE RIGHT NOW for ALMOST EVERYONE. This organization is supposed to be a resource to all its members, not some. So in waltzes someone with the guts to do something about it and can you guess the rest?

Here comes the battle cry.

Power was threatened and the internalized patriarchy reared its ugly head, started an online bullying campaign with no end of grievances against this woman, some made up, some inflated, and maybe one or two actual real things they didn’t like, they called her incompetent, and before she had been there for one year, the board of directors fired her. They claim they can’t talk about it because it goes against HR confidentiality. Convenient.

Now the big, main event is coming up in May and some artists have opted out of their nominations in protest and are avoiding the event altogether. I’ve seen so much support for this outgoing CEO by artists who were excited about her vision and who are so confused by what has happened. I’ve seen some artists ask questions of their fellow members like “Woah, that was weird. What are we all doing/feeling about this?”, then announce their nominations. I have also seen a lot of artists, who participated in the online bullying, say nothing, and return to the status quo.

To my fellow East Coast artists with their heads in the sand:

If you do not see the correlation between what is happening in the world and what is happening in your own backyard, you need to open your eyes. If you are an artist that speaks up about injustice far away from you but says nothing when it directly affects your community, you are part of the problem. Kindly lay off the social justice issues if you cannot take care of your own community.

When the news broke of Blanche being fired, I saw some artists calling for conversations to be had. That this should open the door to meaningful conversations. I, respectfully, disagree. The time for conversation was when a woman was being bullied out of her job. The time to question was when an online petition was circulating calling for transparency when she had been nothing but transparent from the beginning. The time to check in with your fellow artists’ feelings was when you saw artists, represented by the company that started the petition, personally going after the CEO. Now it’s all gone up in flames. She is without a job. Who’s holding the match? The time for conversation has passed and the time for action is upon us.

I have seen some artists comment on how they will be taking action at the conference, and I applaud that. Not all activism is done from boycotting, some is done from the inside. I can only hope that is every East Coast artist’s plan—if you’re showing up, show up to benefit your community and ultimately yourselves as well.

We can talk until we are blue in the face but that won’t change what happened. We should be all collectively be angry about this, we should be asking the BOD a lot of questions but we should all be reflecting inward on how we got here. How did I play a part in this? We all have a little piece of that match in our hands, whether we struck it or not is irrelevant at this point. If history teaches us anything, it’s that conversations don’t change anything. Conversations usually land us back at the status quo.

For the love of your own artist sustainability, don’t go back to the status quo.

*Photo of me showcasing at the East Coast Music Awards. I love it, too. I want it to work for everyone.

So, here’s the thing… I’m not even American, and still the first four days of Trump 2.0 has hurt me deeply. I’m hurting for my American friends, for the undocumented immigrants who are scared, and for the beautiful trans community who have just been legislated into non-existence —which we know is bull-shit as trans people have existed forever and will continue to exist forever. I’ve watched the world respond with shock, fear and one single question; how did we get here?

The question is rhetorical, of course. We know how we got here. All we have to do is crack a history book—sorry, type in a search engine—and we can recognize the pattern of the fascist playbook at work. It’s quite magnificent in scope, really. The time and dedication it takes to infiltrate peoples’ news cycles, algorithms, and minds is a kind of patience I wouldn’t expect the rich and powerful to possess. I suppose, however, that when the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is complete world domination, it’s worth the wait.

Even if we don’t buy into their shit, the rich and powerful have done a fantastic job of isolating us. When my daughter was born, I was lucky to have my mother come and help us out for 3 weeks, but we don’t live in the same province, so eventually, she needed to go home. She has other grandkids and other responsibilities. And what was I left with? My husband went to work, and I spent long days alone with my daughter. I’ve been taught to consider that a luxury. A vacation from working. It wasn’t.

“It takes a village,” a phrase synonymous with raising a baby, and yet most of us have been taught to handle it on our own. Asking for help is a last resort and friends shouldn’t be bothered with your burdens. So you suck it up, drink another cup of coffee as the silent tears roll down your cheeks and you scroll on your phone to feel connected to something. Anything. Maybe you buy a new sweater when the ad pops up. Yeah, I deserve something new. And when the ad for how tired I am because my gut health is total shit get shown to me for the 67th time, I’ll buy that, too. Actually, I’ll subscribe to it because it’s cheaper that way. What a deal for the answer to all my problems! An extra $81/month is nothing. My health is priceless.

Further and further we fall down the rabbit hole. Our news source is social media, our talking points are from social media, we livestream genocide and then watch a baby with a puppy. We have our hearts ripped out of our bodies so often that we become numb and nothing surprises us anymore. We become consuming zombies with really nice sweaters and healthy guts.

We know it’s wrong, too. We can feel it. I’ve been craving, down to my toes, an intentional community for years now. Food sharing and weekly gatherings. Singing songs and talking about beauty, horror, love, and hate together. Giving each other perspective. But most nights and most weekends I’m just surviving the onslaught of stimulation I get from my daughter, then a screen, then more screens, then my daughter again. I don’t organize anything, I wait for others to do it for me. I don’t make an effort to get out in my community and help in the myriad of ways I could be helping, I sit on my couch and long for some alone time to scroll, consume, and watch others stream the life I wish I was living.

Want to hear the ironic part of this rant? I know how to stop being a cog in the wheel. I’ve always had the answer and it’s not a stupid green powder to muscle down every morning. It’s to put my energy into fostering community. It doesn’t cost any money and I already have all the tools I need. How very boring and liberating at the same time.

Some things I’ve been doing very recently to de-influence myself:

• Canceled my Amazon Prime subscription—I made a lot of excuses for this one for a long time. I liked the convenience and the lower cost of things. I’ve made a new commitment to myself not to buy anything on Amazon ever again. If I need something, I’m going to shop local. If I need something I can’t find local, I’m going to GO TO A WEBSITE directly, ideally a Canadian business, and order from them directly. It will help contribute to my local economy and if it’s from a Canadian company it will likely be delivered by Canada Post—which leads me to my next point.

• Support local Unions and community services—Unions set industry standards for all workers. Do you know why Amazon costs so little? I know you do. So you also probably know that where you put your money really matters. Let’s try to stop giving it to billionaires who exploit workers and give it back to community services that make a difference. I know a lot of people think Canada Post should be obsolete or that they’re useless—I saw the videos during the strike—but I’m here to tell you that a community service like your mailman is a community strengthening, incredibly important job. There are a lot of seniors, especially if they live rurally, who’s interaction with their mailman is the only human interaction they have all day. Removing services like that for convenient and quick parcel drops at your door, by employees that don’t make a living wage or have any kind of job security, only isolates us even more. Support unions. I know they’re not perfect, but they are our BIGGEST line of defence against capitalism when it comes to the workforce.

• Started taking more time away from screens—LOOK AWAY. It’s so simple and yet so impossible. We’re addicted. Put your phone down for longer and longer every day. Take a walk for the sake of taking a walk, not for posting about it. Remember, our brains have not evolved as fast as technology. We’re not meant to be taking this much information into our brains.

• Stared gathering with friends—I love being alone and I can forget to see people sometimes. I’ve been scheduling gatherings much more often and there is a noticeable shift in my mood and my perspective. Gather and find joy, as often as you and your personal community can stand it.

• Started writing again—I’ve started writing my feelings, planning art projects and collaborations with people I love.

There is still so much more I could be doing to truly contribute to my community around me, and I plan to. Baby steps. These are just a few things that have made me feel like I am taking a practical stand against hate. This has been a bit long-winded, so if I were to distill it down:

Grow your communities, look around you, and find joy everyday. It’s a radical form of protest.

There nothing hate hates more than love.

-a

This post isn’t about the validation I felt or how I wanted to run to anyone who had doubted me, mainly my family doctor, and chant “nah nah nah nah nah” at them while holding up my receipt. No, this post is, I suppose somewhat unsurprisingly, about how irritated I felt.

My assessor was Autistic herself, and from the moment we started chatting, she spoke as if I were too. As if everything I said made sense to her. It occurred to me several times that I didn’t have to explain myself to her. While this was a relief in a diagnostic setting, I couldn’t help but see my life in a series of flashbacks to all the times I’ve been misunderstood. To all the scenarios I ended up in that I never wanted to be in. To all the people who only saw versions of myself that I was presenting to the world, and never the full, uncensored, unapologetic me. I found myself being so irritated by this thought.

I used to get a long with everyone. In high school, I was friendly with at least one person in every social group, in college same thing, in the beginning of my theatre career I would just try to blend in as seamlessly as I could. If people were talking shit about other people, I would too. If people were being kind and generous with each other, I would too. Whatever the vibe was, I could replicate it.

But since going through a traumatic marriage/divorce that left me asking myself things like, “who the hell am I"?” and “how did I get here?”, I only have one vibe and it doesn’t resonate with everyone. I’m fine with that because it does tend to resonate with the kind of people I want to be around forever, but a huge piece of this puzzle would have been nice to know so much longer ago. It would have been a huge relief a whole lot sooner to drop the act and realize I just see things differently, most of the time.

A few other irritating things:

• I felt I needed this diagnosis for people to take me seriously, even though I advocate for self-diagnosis.

• My husband didn’t fully believe me (self admittedly) until it was an official diagnosis. (Case and point)

• I didn’t fully believe me until it was an official diagnosis. I knew, but I kept doubting myself.

• The world has SO FAR to go in terms of catching up with how Autism presents itself in women. I’ve now gone back to school to pursue a Master’s in Counselling Psychology for this very reason. I look forward to someday soon helping folks like me who have self diagnosed and are having trouble believing themselves.

As I mentioned, the day I was diagnosed I went and performed with friends in a beautiful old church in front of 300 or so people.

In August of 2023, I took an office job. It was a 1 year contract and even though I knew I didn’t enjoy an office environment, I thought I could suck it up for a year. It didn’t take long before my insides were squirming and the stress of the situation, not the job, started to show itself on my skin.

The job itself was not complicated, but my reactions to it were. Being around people constantly, never wanting my chair to squeak, never wanting to get up and stretch or walk around or even go to the bathroom. I would go home for lunch every day and have to convince myself to go back for the afternoon every time. I had terrible eczema on my face, I was sick every two weeks and eventually the contract ended early with me getting pneumonia and being unable to go back to that environment.

I’m back to being a full time artist and I have much more on my plate than I did at that job, only now I’m back to working from home, spending time alone every day, resting when I need to and working passionately and endlessly without getting tired.

I’m still recovering from that office job. Burnout is intense and I still feel it in my energy levels and how I can be quick to irritate with my daughter and my husband. Somedays it feels like I can’t lift my limbs or am so weak I can’t hold on to anything in my hand. Feeling confident in how my brain works prior to taking that job would have helped me advocate for my needs a lot better, or prevented me from taking it in the first place.

Overall, I guess this diagnosis is good? Knowing is better than not and I sure do like to be right…

…I will say this; I hope my diagnosis helps others with their own knowing. If you are deeply identifying with the Autistic experience, you deserve to be a part of that community. And you deserve to be believed.

*If anyone reading this would like some recommendations for resources, leave a comment.

For months, tragedy, death and violence have scrolled through our feeds. I pull my phone out at work and see a flash of a murdered child. “Breathe”, I say to myself. “Don’t cry at work.”

I reach for my phone to put a song on for our dance party with my 3 year old and I accidentally see a row of bodies pulled from the rubble, wrapped in white sheets. Some of them are so small. My daughter waits expectantly. “Mama, put the song on!’, she cries. I cry, too, and I hold her tighter while we dance.

I share all the things on Instagram, I attend rallies, I throw money at organizations I know will help. I watch my followers drop away. They were never followers, anyway. I notice colonialism at work. Not the kind I was born into. Not the kind I didn’t notice because it was watered down with false promises of reconciliation. But real, in your face, no-holds-barred colonialism in all its horror. The kind that “others” and dehumanizes whoever stands in its way. Palestinians? Terrorists. Protestors? Antisemitic. Encampments at Ivy League Schools? Uneducated children who don’t know what they’re talking about.

I watch us turn on each other on the pro-Palestinian side. This person hasn’t spoken up enough, this person did it wrong, and this person FINALLY posted but it’s too little too late!

In 2015, I was working in theatre at a summer Festival with an actress I’ll call Jane. Jane was Jewish and one evening she was at my house for a gathering. My then-husband and I had just bought a SodaStream and we were offering fizzy water to those who cared for it. Jane refused, citing that Sodastream was an Israeli company, complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

At the time, I knew nothing of the Israeli occupation or the plight of the Palestinians and instead of educating myself, my 28 year old brain brushed off the comment and continued using my Sodastream, even though every time I pressed the CO2 button, I heard Jane’s voice.

After October 7th, my feed was flooded with pro-Israel support. For days, I felt the noncommittal, both-sides argument as innocent people grieved their losses in Israel and Palestine. Then I started following Palestinian Instagram accounts and the education I had brushed off nearly 10 years ago was finally beginning.

Palestinians were screaming, begging to be heard, their voices hoarse because they have been screaming for 75 years. When I finally woke up do you know what didn’t happen? No one screamed, “FINALLY! Where have YOU been for 75 years??” No one condemned my ignorance or asked me to explain myself. Of course, I don’t know anyone in Palestine personally, and I am not a celebrity with a huge platform, but what I have witnessed from Palestinians themselves every time someone else joins the movement is gratitude.

I mentioned that I broke today but it wasn’t from the horrors I’m witnessing. Of course, my heart is being shattered into a million pieces every day, witnessing tens of thousands of innocent lives lost, people injured and displaced with barely any food or water. I am in a perpetual state of brokenness with the world. But today I broke from witnessing people I know, calling out others for showing up late. For finally posting an AI generated photo to show they are not ok with this. I’ve seen posts that say “now that you’ve performatively posted something you better educate yourself.”, without offering any resources. That, in itself, is a performative act.

This movement needs every soldier, in whatever capacity they show up. If you have been pushing people to show up and they finally knock on the door, don’t tell them their knock was too weak. Open the door, invite them in and let them know, now that they’ve crossed the threshold, some actionable ways they can move out of the foyer and into the living room.

If you started showing up for Palestine after October 7th, you are late, too. I’m late, but I’m here now, firmly in the living room and if you’re hesitant to knock on the door because you’re afraid of being late I say to you, we were all late. That’s why this is happening in the first place. Every weak knock is a step in the right direction. Every hesitant Instagram story is a win.

No one is better because they started sooner and if you are using your energy to tell people you are, that is energy that could have been spent helping, organizing, donating, emailing or welcoming. Rage against your elected officials, love on each new solider.

-a

xo

In the past, I thought I was sharing after-the-fact. Something traumatic would happen and then it would be over and I would share it as some form of art thinking I had it all figured out. Only to realize, as time would tell, that I was still very much in the beginning stages. The cycle looked something like this:

1. Traumatic Event

2. Traumatic Event ends

3. The overwhelming need to create something out of it

4. Spending time alone, creating

5. Planning the release of the creation into the world

6. Release

7. Cower and hide in shame and deal with massive vulnerability hangover

8. Recoil from all forms of social interactions, including social media

9. Realize I may still have some stuff to deal with

10. Go to Therapy

A classic example of this cycle was the birth of this very SubStack. After deciding to release some writing I had been hanging on to for some time, on my 37th birthday I began this SubStack journey and then spiralled myself so deep down into a pit of shame that it took me nearly 5 months to claw my way out. Now that I’m back from the depths, I have distilled my thoughts down to one sentence.

“I am not perfect.”

I have spent most of my life striving to be just that; perfect. Not perfect on my terms, I still don’t even know what it means to be the version of myself that I want to be. No, I was striving to be perfect by everyone else’s definition. Which meant I had oh so many different versions of myself.

It’s exhausting, trying to be exactly what any one person needs you to be. Studying everyone’s body language, energy shifts, subtle eye movements and hand gestures to figure out when to back off or when to lean in. Learning to be the perfect daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, niece, student, friend, wife or leader has been a full time job, and often left me feeling empty, confused and hurt. Being perfect for everyone neglects the one person you should be paying attention to.

When my parents dropped me off in Ontario to begin my post secondary education, the last thing my dad said to me before they left was, “you can’t be perfect all the time.” He had my number. I wish it hadn’t taken me nearly 20 more years to stop trying to prove him wrong.

Now I sit here, in my 37 year old skin, with nothing figured out other than this one, personally shocking revelation; I am not perfect.

I am going to share things too soon. I am going to make people uncomfortable. I am going to lose friends I wasn’t meant to have. I’m going to get it wrong sometimes and I reserve the right to change my mind and to add or subtract labels I think are important or ones that no longer serve me. I am going to use this space as a place to process all these complicated feelings and thoughts and most importantly, I’m going to keep sharing this journey from the “messy middle”, as Glennon Doyle would say, for one very beautiful reason:

Every time I share from this place, this deep, soul-screaming, life-questioning place, so many of you reach out to say thank you and share your own experience. For that, I am grateful, and for that, I will keep going.

So, from one recovering perfectionist to so many others I say, hello from the messy middle. Thank you for being here. Let’s figure this s#!t out together.

Cheers to the chaos,

-a

Mother

...even the word brings me to tears. It evokes all the word encompasses. Sacrifice. Love. Steadiness. Unsteadiness. Devotion. Fatigue. Identity. Bliss. Agony. Isolation, while never truly being alone again. Worry. Google. Dr’s offices and thermometers. Belly laughs full of joy and heartaches of the most exquisitely intense kind. Resentment and longing mixed with gratitude. Exasperation with brushing and bathing while relishing every bedtime song ever sung.

Making yourself ill to provide everything. Realizing, you already have everything.

Mother is loss and grief and nature and beauty. She is the lighthouse in a storm, keeping the light on until you find your way. She may be lost, too, but she is love. At her core, she is love.

-Alicia Toner

Winter is when I shrink into myself. I am cold at night, I am cold in the morning and I am freezing cold when I go outside. My body has more ailments. My blood vessels constrict. No matter how well dressed I am for it, I always reach a threshold of dangerously and painfully cold if I am outside for too long. I’ve wanted to love it. I continue to find the joy in the cozier moments, in front of fires and under blankets with steaming hot beverages warming my hands because I live in Canada and it is survival. But I am not a winter. The label has never fit. Neither have the clothes.

In Spring, I am a caterpillar in Metamorphosis. It is a rebirth, yes, but birth is painful and full of waiting. Mother Nature takes her time, especially where my roots are. She flip flops, unable to commit to the rebirth herself. She lets herself feel the pain and then retreats back into winter for awhile. Numb and waiting. That is Spring, to me. Painful. Slow. Messy. A birth. 

Because of Mother Nature’s uncertainty in herself, it takes me a long time to trust Summer. Will she stay or will she try to retreat to the numbness for awhile? When I finally relax into the warmth and trust it is here for the duration of its season, it is half gone. Then, the crushing guilt of not spending every moment outside if it is a “nice” day. Nice days must be appreciated, taken advantage of and seized. If you are inside on a “nice” day, you are wasting it. This different kind of hustle sends people into a Summer frenzy. Building season, growing season, hurry up and relax outside season and don’t forget to enjoy it because it is SO fleeting! Summer is stressful.

But then September. September hits us with her glorious breeze of “change is coming”. The biting bugs get their first whiff of cool air and they retreat. The days are still hot, but with an undercurrent of cool. The sun sets and there are sweaters, jackets, bonfires and bug-free, cool, crisp air. In the day the sky is cloudless, haze-less and so blue you remember noticing it for the first time as a child. The evenings are full of stars and songs and stories. The hustle of summer is over. Hibernation is coming, but not yet. September is the summer month you wanted but were too busy to appreciate. Then, within her 30 days you catch the first glimpses of yellow, gold, orange and fiery red as it paints the leaves on the maple trees. The birches are yellow, the poplars, too. You stand and stare, awe-struck every year that this happens. That such beauty exists. The whole world changes into vibrant colour and the ocean is still calling you to swim in her while the beaches empty out of tourists. Fall. My season.

My wedding rings are yellow gold even though they told me to wear silver. I wear the colour orange even though it was instilled in me I would never be able to. I wear it with confidence and people of similar undertones say to me “wow, that looks good on you! I wish I could wear orange. I’m a winter.” 

“So was I.”, I think. 

My entire life, I have been called a “woman”. A cis-gendered woman. I have relationships with men and I identify with the parts I was born with. A normal, heterosexual woman. Something about this label has always been wrong for me. Growing up, I never had the knowledge or language to question that label so I shrank myself into it. I shrank my body by starving it, I shrank my mind by not challenging it and I shrank my spirit by not investigating what made me whole. I am a woman and this is what a woman looks like. Small, agreeable, able to bend and shape shift into whatever someone needs her to be. That’s me. The peacekeeper. A woman. Winter. 

It never occurred to me that not every “woman” found other women attractive. It never occurred to me that the men I did find attractive at the time either were who I thought I should be attracted to or had a lot of feminine energy themselves. It never occurred to me that I could be any other season but the one I had been labeled; winter.

I am married to a man. A beautiful, sensitive, incredibly smart and sexy man and I count myself lucky every day that I found him. That he found me. That we saw each other. I fell in love with his soul. I recognized it immediately and we fought like hell to be with one another. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also know that soul could just as easily have inhabited a woman and I would have built a life with that soul in that body just as I have with my husband. I can easily pass as cisgendered. I’m married to a man and we have one child together and we move through life much easier than most because of that. For that reason, I didn’t think coming out was necessary. It seemed performative. It required a new label and I didn’t know if I had the right one yet. Bisexual? That’s not quite right. The only label that I connect to is queer. I connect to it because of this definition: 

queer
/kwir/
adjective

denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.

This definition feels like Fall. It’s not what I was labeled. It’s not the norm. But it’s where I feel the most at peace and the most relaxed. It’s full of colours I was told not to wear and ideas I was told not to think. But I still wear them and I still think them and that is when I feel like me. 

Even though I’ve felt this for some time, I didn’t think I needed to talk about it. I thought I could just be that and no one really needed to know. It doesn’t change anything for me in my relationship. My husband knows and loves this about me. I am still fabulously in love with him and everything he is. I’m not really queer enough to tell people I’m queer. It’ll seem fake. It’ll seem performative.

I see now, with everything going on in the world, that’s it’s important for people like me to speak up. I’m not just an ally, this is my community. And in my community, there are a lot of people whose rights are being stripped away all in the name of protecting children when the truth is, they are being hurt. The 2SLGBTQIA+ community is broad and it comes in every shape, size, colour, cis-passing and every kind of person or family you can imagine. It is vast. There are so many more of us than people realize and we will not let anyone in our community go down without a fight. Hate is born out of fear. Fear makes us “other” people. The internet makes us turn on each other until it is “us and them”. We are all human and human beings need connection. They need to hear stories from their queer neighbour to understand why pronouns are important. They need to hear about a drag story time in their community and see how it promotes love and acceptance and saves young, queer lives.

Someday I hope there are so many letters for 2SLGBTQIA+ that we stop labelling and just start human-ing in peace. But while we’re still putting labels on ourselves if we are seasons, I am Fall. If we are humans, I am queer. My jewelry is gold and my heart is full of fiery red. I reject your winter.

I've had eating disorders in different forms from the age of 10 but finally, for the first time, someone else was calling the shots. If I didn’t eat every 2 hours on the dot I got sick. This little fetus was filling me up and nourishing me in a way I had craved my entire life. A pattern this tiny soul would continue earth-side. 

I gained 50lbs while I was pregnant and I LOVED myself. I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I had never done that before. I had crackers on my bedside table in case I was furiously hungry when I inevitably woke up 13 times/night. But what really struck me was how beautiful and powerful I felt. I felt full. Full of life, full of love and full in my stomach consistently. 

After she was born, my love for myself and what I managed to do didn’t fade. I had a different body and it took up more space but it was nourishing someone else. It had such purpose. I loved that. It felt so foreign and so important. 

When she was about 9 months old, I started to have chronic inflammation. I was stuffed up every day like I had a terrible cold, but it lasted for 8 months. I went searching for answers and ended up in the office of a Naturopath. Food sensitivities. A Million of them. From gluten to dairy and so many things in between, I was to eliminate it all for the next 3 months. Empty.

For someone who has controlled food most of her life, this was familiar, just a coat of a different colour. I restricted everything I wasn’t supposed to eat and could no longer eat out anywhere. I started to become scared of food again and in 3 months I lost every pound I had put on in my pregnancy. I would go to bed hungry. Malnourished. Empty. It was a long lost friend I had hoped would never return. An abusive relationship that has the ability to pull you back in the moment you crack open the door. You know how to be in it. You’ve been there before. It’s a frigid embrace but the touch feels wanted. Hello, emptiness, my old friend.

Disguising an eating disorder with an excuse is really easy to do. I was so practised at it from all the cleanses I used to do for "health reasons. I had to do this elimination diet for my health. Never mind that I was now a size zero and crying at the drop of a hat. Empty stomach, angry mind. But the only thing worse now than being empty was being full again. Full becomes the enemy. A personal failure. Feeling empty is a triumph as I lay my head on my pillow and struggle to get to sleep. Maybe I should try melatonin? CBD? Another bandaid to cover over the fact that your brain is screaming for fullness. Just eat something. I would rather die.

After the 3 months were over, it was time to start reintroducing different foods. It was going to be easier to eat again. Terrifying. I touch my body to try and make sure it is disappearing. Any indication of a rebellion means I wasn’t empty enough that day. I measure my thighs with my hands. I pinch the perceived fat on my sides. It’s just skin. Why can’t skin be empty? 

It took a long time to realize where I was. This diet was suggested to me by a doctor so this had to be different than disordered eating. But as the weight started to come back I felt another familiar player enter the game. Panic. 

Panic strikes when you least expect it. When I put on a pair of pants and they feel tighter, when I see a photo of myself and body dysmorphia takes over or when I feel my arm fall differently against my side my body gets hot and I start to sweat. Failure to be empty. The instinct to restrict until I can't feel my body taking up space is overwhelming. It my telltale sign that I am back in the weeds of this disease. 

This time, however, I look at my daughter. My beautiful, perfectly uninfluenced by society daughter and I imagine her feeling this way. Shrinking herself. Trying to disappear when I have been trying so hard to teach her to take up space. Fill the space. Be full. I feel I have failed her. I tell someone for the first time that my devil has returned to my shoulder. I say I want the angel back. I want to be held accountable. I want to be full.

I look at my daughter and my partner and our home that is bursting with love at the seams and I see our privilege in all its forms. I should be standing at the top of a mountain shouting “THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!” to the Gods but instead I pinch my arm fat and cry. 

As if we have been so strongly conditioned by Capitalism, by the Patriarchy, to hate ourselves so much that we miss everything else. As if when I have EVERYTHING, I worry about my pants being tight. As if I waste ONE SECOND being anything but AMAZED at this container I’m in and what it can do and hold and touch and see and taste and move and squeeze and kiss. My daughter looks at me with love and awe and wonder. Why would I look at myself any differently? 

A daily practise of gratitude, embodiment and nourishment has taken the place of emptiness. Therapy has also played a major role and it is not easy. In fact, it's the hardest fucking thing I've ever done but emptiness has no place here anymore. I only want to be full from the tips of my toes to the ends of each stand of hair on my head. I want to be full of love, wonder, lightness, impulsiveness, food, sensuousness, sex, anger when necessary, grief when necessary, human-ness and creativity. 

Emptiness will knock on the door sometimes, but I won’t give her a crack to seep into. I know if I give her an inch, she’ll take the whole world and I won’t waste another moment on a world that is empty. 

Let me back up a bit because this story begins before I asked google this question. This story begins in a very familiar way to many late-diagnosed or late-realized neurodivergent women. This story begins with a baby.

Before I had my daughter, I was a self-employed actor followed by a self-employed singer/songwriter. I mostly lived out of a suitcase. Whenever I got bored I got to pack up and leave and my focus was constantly shifting. It worked for me. I got to socialize at work and then go home and be alone. Socializing outside of work included drinking, which made it a lot easier, but I would still be the first to leave so I could go home and be alone with my thoughts. Now, there are a LOT of things to go over about life before a kid including, but not limited to:

• eating disorders

• abusive relationships

• sensory issues

• masking

• perfectionism

• people pleasing

• special interests

...the list goes on and on. But we'll get to those in due time. This story, as I have mentioned, is about a baby.

After I had my daughter, my world was blown apart. I don't mean in the "I loved her more than I thought possible and my life changed forever" way, I mean giving birth to her had shaken me to my very core and *it seemed to get worse from there. The postpartum anxiety hit like a ton of bricks. I would lie in bed at night, while she was sleeping, planning escape routes for the inevitable break-in/attempted murder that would happen. If I walked down the stairs with her, I would vividly picture us both gruesomely falling to our deaths. We could be sitting safely on the couch together and I would picture something falling from nowhere and crushing her. I couldn't enjoy a single happy moment with her because I was sure it was soon to become a painful memory. I had night terrors that she was sleeping in bed with me and would fall off the bed. I would wake up screaming and looking for her on the floor while my husband told me over and over that she was in her crib. I wasn't coping well.

*Disclaimer - I think it should go without saying that I loved her more than anything in the entire world and I couldn't imagine my life without her, but just in case anyone disagrees, I've said it.

Infancy turned into toddlerhood and I normalized my anxiety and said all the right things in front of people. Her growing brain equaled growing demands, and growing volume. I started to have so many moments when I felt like I was short-circuiting. Like two live wires were touching together and creating sparks. I had always had a lot of trouble with loud sounds but with the sleep deprivation and the constant, inescapable bouts of screaming, it felt like someone had cranked the volume knob without my knowing. Everything felt... more. Every touch, every smell, every texture and every sound that had weighed on me in the past was more. 

One night, as I was getting her ready for bed, she was screaming at me because she didn't want to brush her teeth. 

One scream after another.

Sparks.

Breathe.

Calmly, "Zoe, do you want to sit on my lap while we brush?"

Scream.

Sparks. 

Breathe.

"Zoe, do you..."

Scream.

Sparks.

SCREAM.

This time it was me. A sound I hadn't made in years. A sound I never wanted her to hear. I matched her scream at the same intensity and then I watched her little face contort in fear and confusion. 

Wails. 

Both of us.

Shame.

Shame.

Shame.

Me.

I pulled her close and we both sobbed in each other's arms as both of our brains tried to make sense of what just happened. My husband came home to find us both sobbing in the bathroom. He took Zoe as she screamed for me and I went to the bedroom to bury my head in the sand. 

After that night I found a therapist. 

Before my first appointment, I had some questions for a friend of mine who is an OT. I asked if she had some time to talk and we ended up getting in to the aspects of parenting I find particularly difficult. She listened. She recognized me. Then she sent me a self assessment for ADHD. 

The rabbit hole I fell down after that first self-assessment was deep. I felt like Alice in Wonderland as I fell deeper and deeper, my brain expanding with strange, colourful knowledge that felt as though it had been kept in a pandora's box my entire life that was suddenly open. That same friend, who happens to be Autistic and ADHD herself, starting sending me videos about Autism and suggested I read the book "Unmasking Autism" by Dr. Devon Price. I read it and I had to stop several times as tears fell on the pages. There I was. For the first time in my life, I recognized myself. Everything snapped into focus and fell into place. All the people pleasing, all the masking, all the burn out, all the control issues, all the food issues and eating disorders, all the trauma, all the stimming, all the practice conversations, all the over preparations, all the details and patterns and the way certain notes make my body feel. All the relating through movie quotes and dreaming in colour, be it a daydream or in sleep, all the times I lost my words to tears, all the times I could not advocate for myself, all the overwhelm over changing plans or what seemed like nothing at all. It all made sense. I made sense. I wasn't broken. I didn't need fixing. I am Autistic.

I have friends who are psychologists who would disagree with that last sentence. I do not have a formal diagnosis and therefore there is no way I can know for sure. I want to say that I understand where they are coming from. There are so many other things that look and act like Autism without being at the level of a diagnosis. ADHD, Anxiety, OCD, Trauma, a mixed bag of different disorders that fight each other so you end up with some Autistic traits. I haven't studied it so how could I know? I know this is the world they come from and they must see people improperly diagnose themselves on the regular. How do I know? I don't. Right now, I am pursuing a formal diagnosis so I feel some validation and can properly advocate for myself in a world that needs me to come with a doctor's note. Here's what I do know:

Since this self-realization, I have put myself in therapy, I have started some active eating disorder recovery for the first time in my life, I have come to understand why I have trouble with food and my body, why I continually ended up in abusive relationships, I have learned about the way my brain works, read books, listened to podcasts, read blogs, watched ALL the tiktok videos of real lived experiences and I have started implementing changes in my life that help my beautiful, shiny brain thrive in a world that wants to dull it down. I have started to heal myself, because I can't wait 3 years for a psychologist to confirm what I already know in my bones. Most people don't have access to that sort of care. Should they assume they are not Neurodivergent because they can't afford a formal diagnosis? To me, neurotypical brains telling neurodivergent ones they don't know themselves is like decaf coffee trying to tell caffeinated coffee it has no proof there's caffeine in there. The proof is in the person consumed by it. Every day of my sensory overloaded life is proof enough for me.

If you're still here reading this, chances are you can relate. Hi. If you feel like this is you but no one believes you, I do. If you don't have a safe space to be yourself or share with loved ones how your brain works, this is a safe space. I hope you'll continue to come back and share this journey with me but if you don't and you only take one thing away with you today, let it be this;

It's not you, it's them.