Volunteer #31 - H

Star Signs:

Sun - Taurus

Moon - Libra

Rising - Scorpio

Communities I feel part of:

Pop-Punk/Emo Community

Cancer Community

Where do you feel you fit into your communities?

The pop-punk community is such a huge family, generally full of people who maybe struggled with having friends when they were growing up and then found rock music and found all these other people just like them and fell into this community through a mutual love of this type of music. I feel the people that listen to rock music portray this as their whole personality, like the music is the most important thing to them and they base their who life around it including the people they hang out with, and I feel like that's exactly how I feel about the music I listen to as well, I just want to talk about it all the time with people that equally share the love I have for this music and these bands I adore so much. I feel most at home when I'm surrounded by people at gigs and I feel like I'm just in the right place with my people.

The cancer community came rather unfortunately to me when I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 19. It's something that's completely changed me and its such a huge part of my life now and its nice to know there are others out there that feel the same and have been through something similar and I think other young people that have been through it like that there are others like me that they can talk to and feel a mutual feeling about cancer and what we've been through with it.

What drew you to them? Although I mainly came to this community because I love the music, I love the people in the pop-punk community. I love that everyone shares the same obsession of this music as I do and I just love talking about it and dancing and singing and going to gigs with people and just sharing the excitement I feel when I interact with the music. The people are always so interesting and fun and different to generic people and I love weird and different people so much, I think they're so special, and this community has brought me some of the most amazing friends and I love it so much. Regarding the cancer community, having been through such an insane thing at such a young age, its sometimes hard for other people that haven't been through it to understand it, so its nice to be part of a community that gets me when I have a little moment of PTSD or have some worries or even just when I want to talk about the experience with someone. How do you express them in everyday life or do you feel that you hide them?

Most obviously I show off being part of the pop-punk community as its the music that I listen to but also it's what I kind of base my identity on, fitting the stereotype of a pop punk girl in that I have lots of tattoos, bright coloured hair, wear a lot of black, wear dr martens etc. I think it's fairly obvious that I'm part of the community in the way I express my image and I'm proud of it.

I dont tend to express the fact that I had cancer in an open sense. I express it in a lust for life that I feel sometimes when I think about how lucky I am to still be alive despite what I went through. Or sometimes when I'm feeling low or scared about it, I'll show it through anxiety attacks or things similar. I guess I try to hide it a bit cus it's not the kind of thing you would like show off to everyone but I like to talk to people about it, cus it was so important in shaping who I am now and people do find it very interesting to listen to when I tell my story. Do you believe communities help make up our identities? Massively! Finding people that are just like you can help you bring out who you want to be in life, or help you decide who you want to be. I didn't really know where I was in society till I fell into the pop-punk community and now I feel like I belong somewhere, somewhere that no matter where I am in life, I know will always have my back and make me feel comfortable. Favourite lyrics/song/album/quote:

My favourite song of all time is Drown by Bring Me the Horizon. This song came to me just as I was diagnosed with cancer and the words just felt like they were written just for me. The lyrics in the chorus: "Who will fix me now, dive in when i'm down, save me from myself, Don't let me drown" just, (god even writing them now is making me cry lol) it just gets me, as all the way through my treatment, I was just trying not to metaphorically drown both mentally and physically and even now this song just makes me feel so many emotions. Other lyrics from the song: "What doesn't kill you, makes you wish you were dead" really speak to me as well as when I was going through treatment I felt sometimes like I just wish I was dead because of how horrific the chemotherapy was and how mentally exhausting the whole ordeal was and sometimes it just made me want to give up. But this song helped me get through it, and the first time I saw this live (and every time after tbh) I just cried so hard knowing that I made it through and I survived cancer and now I can see one of my favorite bands sing to me, my favorite song, a song that meant so much to me in such a hard time and its all worth it to be able to see it played live.