On Being Loud

Deciding if the things I hate about myself are worth changing

At the close of every year, I choose a theme for the next year instead of a resolution. The idea is, rather than a lofty goal that remains achieved, the themes are general and something I can act towards a lot or a little. The theme doesn’t have to be something earnest, one year it was simply ‘slut’ (it was a very successful year). I wanted to be more impulsive and I finished off the year in Europe on tickets that I booked on a whim and moved into a house that I couldn’t afford because it had a pool. 

The one year I chose the theme ‘body’ I accidentally developed disordered eating and got into a fight with my psychologist about it. I fought with her after she gently suggested that I stop going to the gym for two weeks. As 2024 was ending I was trying to decipher the parts of my life that I wanted to change and why. The thing that has impacted my life the most over the past year (and the several before) is the immense sense of guilt I feel after a night out. 

Since turning 30 my hangxiety is all-encompassing. Sometimes after a night out the hours of lying in bed and worrying about what I said or didn’t turn into days or weeks. The only way I can turn this off is by asking every person I interact with if they hate me in some roundabout way. 

“Soooooo good to see you both last night!

“Oh my god, it was so much fun.”

Then, I gauge if my friends' reactions were too lukewarm for my liking. 

They’ve never said anything but I can tell that the people around me are starting to get over having reassured me that they don’t hate me and that I was fun. I mean, I’m a fun drunk. Loud, crass, a bit of a bitch, but fun. I think.

Throughout this year I have wondered about my relationship with alcohol and if it is healthy. I have been around different kinds of addicts throughout my life and wondered if my life would ever veer into a full-blown addiction outside of the fluctuating tobacco addiction I’ve had since I was a teen. 

Like many people my age who didn’t fit in with their surroundings, my later teens became consumed by Tumblr and the accompanying glamorisation of mental illness and one afternoon I posted a screenshot of a film from the 60s overlaid with a quote about killing yourself which remained one of my top reblogged pictures until I deleted my blog in late 2021. (The only other post that I made that had any kind of traction was a GIF of the America’s Next Top Model contestant Allison Harvard that fit in with my pale grunge online aesthetic). Before Tumblr, I had been attempting to find any film or TV show about addicts or the mentally ill. Girl, Interrupted, It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Suicide Club.

In the same way since my late 20s (which was not that long ago) I have been obsessed with literature centred around someone slipping into madness. It’s a role I can see myself in, snapping completely. Not something I want, but if the potential paths of my life were laid in front of me - it’s an option. Most of the protagonists in these novels are also addicted to a substance which, in part, fuels the perception of them by the reader. I worry that even though I don’t drink to escape anything or even that often, my behaviour when I do drink changes the perception of me to those who were drinking with me. 

All of that is to say I was always adamant that at some point I would end up sectioned or an alcoholic — but ultimately it was probably just buying into the glamorisation of mental illness. And for that, Tumblr owes me (and all of those affected) a cheque. That doesn’t mean I still don’t question if my relationship with alcohol is healthy. 

Because of my presumption that I will end up as the worst version of myself, I worry constantly that perhaps my love of a pint is bordering on obsession on the way to addiction. When I first started drinking (at 14) it was common to drink to excess. Every party I went to in my teenage years ended with someone getting their stomach pumped and the police turning up. At university it was the same, people used to cheer me on as a strawpeedoed an entire bottle of wine. Now, I will go out and have two or three beers or not drink at all. But the times that I do allow myself to get a bit pissed, I feel guilt-ridden for days after. 

The guilt stems from the idea that I am too old to be drinking heavily and that, when I do drink I am loud. Not the sort of loud that sucks all the air up in the room, more boisterous, camp, a whoo girl. 

For a few years in my early 20s, I worked in a job that was dynamic and often exciting. When I get excited or lost in the moment - I find it hard to modulate my voice. This was a topic of conversation, both to my face and behind my back. I was somewhat used to it, as it has been a through line since I started primary school. I cannot remember a single class where I wasn’t sentenced to a desk facing the wall away from my peers. I have been taught quite thoroughly to hate how loud and effervescent I can be. 

Through understanding that, I decided that it’s time to work on confidently being a bit loud, someone who likes to have a pint and explain all the ways they love their friends, and someone who laughs a little bit too loudly. I aim to continuously work on unmasking the parts of myself that I keep hidden for fear of being disliked or the subject of whispered scrutiny. 2025 is the year I stop outsourcing my confidence by asking for reassurance and begin to produce my own supply.