Writing the Pain Away

I write empowering songs in catchy pop formats not because I think the world is fine—but because I know it isn’t.

Depression doesn’t always look like sadness. Often it looks like exhaustion. Like losing your sense of future. Like knowing too much about how broken things are and feeling powerless to stop it. I live in that tension every day. I pay attention to history, politics, injustice, and human cruelty—and I also have to figure out how to stay alive inside that awareness.

Music is one of the ways I do that.

I don’t write songs to escape reality. I write them to metabolize it.

When the world feels dark, abstract, and overwhelming, the brain looks for anchors. Melody is one of the oldest ones we have. A simple chord progression, a hook you can hum, a familiar pop structure—these things aren’t shallow. They’re stabilizing. They give your nervous system something predictable to hold onto while your emotions are anything but.

That’s why I deliberately write in accessible, catchy formats.

There’s a misconception that depth has to sound heavy to be real. I don’t believe that. I think some of the most powerful emotional truths land best when they arrive gently—wrapped in something you’d actually let play again. A chorus you remember means a message that returns. Repetition isn’t laziness; it’s how hope gets rehearsed.

My lyrics often start in places of fear, grief, anger, or numbness. I don’t pretend those feelings aren’t there. But I refuse to let them be the final note. The songs move—sometimes slowly, sometimes quietly—toward resilience, self-trust, or simply staying. Not triumph. Staying.

That matters to me because hopelessness lies. It tells you this moment is permanent. Music can interrupt that lie for three minutes at a time.

I’ve had periods in my life where getting through the day felt like a genuine accomplishment. In those moments, I didn’t need art that demanded more from me. I needed art that met me where I was. Something emotionally honest but not punishing. Something that said: you’re not weak for feeling this way, and you’re not alone inside it.

So that’s what I try to create.

I also know that when a song is catchy, it travels farther than the person who wrote it. It slips into someone else’s headphones on a bad night. It plays in a car when someone doesn’t want to think anymore. It reaches people who would never seek out “mental health music” but still need the message.

That’s not accidental. That’s care.

I’m not trying to fix anyone. I’m not offering solutions or pretending music cures depression. What I am doing is offering companionship—proof that someone else sees the darkness clearly and still chooses to create something light enough to carry.

Sometimes empowerment doesn’t sound like strength. Sometimes it sounds like softness. Sometimes it sounds like a pop song that helps you breathe long enough to make it to tomorrow.

And right now, that feels like something worth making.