Songwriting: a vehicle of hope and joy for Young People in Care

Molly’s story

Content warning: Suicide and mental health issues

Molly is a Care Leaver aged 18-25 and participated in our Hope Creative programme, which had a life-changing impact for her. Molly’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

Molly grew up in the care system and was three years old when social services first entered her life after her mother experienced domestic violence and turned to drugs. Molly suffers from a variety of mental health issues and uses creative writing and sound scaping to “turn [her] thoughts around” and “as a way of helping [herself]”.

Molly spoke to us about how Hope Creative gave her a safe space to share her ideas without judgement, connect with other care leavers and produce and perform her own pieces.

“A few years ago, I lost my friend to suicide. I felt like my world came crashing down as we had met when I was in the darkest part of my life and I felt I had no way forward. I had just been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) which I thought would be good as it finally gave me answers why my brain is the way it is but then I realised that there was little to nothing I or anyone could do to help me cope with the condition and I lost all hope. I spent four months in the Bristol Royal Infirmary and spent my sixteenth birthday there. I hated it as I felt like I had no place. That’s when I met Gemma. She helped me to see that there was a point to life but unfortunately, she was also let down by the system and took her own life as an inpatient. From this point, I used writing words and music to help me cope with my emotions and put down my thoughts. I just wish Kirsty could have been around to hear it.”

Molly was part of our group of care leavers who performed at the Housewarming, our reopening celebration event in November last year with performances across various stages and spaces at Bristol Beacon.

“At the Housewarming, it was crazy at first. I felt very anxious as it was my first time performing ever and as someone with autism, it’s a struggle but after the first part of my performance, I felt good and didn’t feel anxious anymore. Everyone was very supportive and some people in the crowd even came over to me afterwards, saying that they related to my pieces as they had either lost someone to suicide, struggle themself or also have BPD.

It made me very happy and proud to be in such an amazing group. Everyone’s performances were great to watch and gave me the courage to do mine, as mine are about hitting home and topics that aren’t spoken about enough, especially by those who have been through these things.”