Erica Cody has opened up about a particularly difficult low period she experienced last year. The singer was speaking on the Craic On podcast about the past twelve months, and how she struggled during the pandemic.
However, anxiety is something the singer shared that she has always dealt with since she was a teenager; “For me, I’d always suffered anxiety from my late teens and I always sort of had those feelings and then as I started going through things as I got older they started getting a little bit worse.”
“So I had to put myself on a path to make it better, which was a lot of self care, a lot of meditating, a lot of things that make me feel good without trying to please someone else because I’m quite a people-pleaser, trying to just fit in.”
In particular she shared that last summer was very difficult and some of the lowest she’d ever felt; “Even though I was really depressed, it was something I had to reassure myself when I didn’t want to be reassured.”
“I didn’t want to wake up every day and not want to get out of bed and cry myself from morning to night. It was a totally different side of me that I hadn’t had to sit with and deal with especially in a pandemic, I couldn’t be around anyone.”
“It was a challenge but I’m grateful that these things happen because it shows your growth… and I love the new version of me,” she added.
“I have to be careful now with what I consume and who I surround myself with so my circle is very, very small… and just protecting my peace.”
The Dublin native shared that the reason why she has opened up about how she felt is that she hopes she can help someone else; “Last summer I started feelings ways I had never felt before.”
To get through this difficult period she shared that she went through “intensive counselling and different kinds of therapy” to help with her mental health.
She also spoke about how the Black Lives Matter movement triggered some of her own past traumas.
Speaking about the movement she shared that; “It was one scenario in particular that blew up but it definitely triggered PTSD in me that I didn’t realise I had. I then figured out I had PTSD from childhood traumas of racism and stuff like that.”
“I think when you’re a young mixed race girl from Dublin, I’d say I do have trust issues and I’d say I got those trust issues from things not being dealt with or people being held accountable.”
Continuing she added; “It’s not just that one scenario but it’s a lot of things that build up over your life that you block out and you don’t want to deal with because you don’t think you need to but you’re actually suppressing them so far down to the point it can take one incident to trigger them and that’s what happened with me.”
