This Instagram poet is making young people feel less alone

It's a rare but wonderful thing when you see yourself on the pages of the book you're reading. I found myself furiously nodding my head and scribbling in the margins as I tore through She Must Be Mad, a new poetry and prose collection by 22-year-old Insta-poet Charly Cox.

The book is divided into four (highly relatable) sections — namely: she must be in love; she must be mad; she must be fat; she must be an adult. Section by section, Cox grapples with her own personal battles, and in doing so, tackles the universal issues being faced millennials and Gen Z-ers. Things like mental illness, struggles with body image, dating in the world of apps, and coming of age in the era of social media.

Your mind is biased And your brain is blind There's still a store of strength Left in you to find

I had a feeling this book would be right up my street when I read the lines, "for every girl who feels too much" scrawled on the blurb. I am one such girl. I feel, on days when my anxiety is particularly bad, like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. I feel, on some days, like my inner voice — my "confidence thief," as Cox calls it — is my worst enemy. Reading this book made me feel less alone.

'You've got no point in this world!' '...Shut up that's your confidence thief!' 'You should stay in bed!' '...You should take on the world!' 'You look silly in this dress!' '...When did I become this beautiful girl?'

Other women and girls have come forward to Cox since the publication of She Must Be Mad to tell her that they too feel less alone after reading her book.

"I read a quote the other day along the lines of: 'the most personal is the most universal,' I've learned that a lot since the book has come out," Cox tells me. "It's been a really overwhelming experience seeing so many girls find a bit of them in a bit of me."

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Cox recognises that through sharing her innermost thoughts and emotions, she has opened up a dialogue with those who also feel and think in the exact same way. "It's crazy how universal our most inner and vulnerable feelings are when we are always so sure that we are the only ones to have met them," says Cox.

Poetry is something Cox has always written to help her process her emotions — even if she "didn't know what to call the scribbles in the backs of diaries or homework planners" at the time. "It was always a place of coping," says Cox. "A weirdly innate way of processing my pain and confusion." But, this book isn't just a way for her to work through her own feelings. She doesn't think there's enough of "anything" out there about "young people living with mental illness."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"We live in a time where we are all so aware that so many of us are struggling and suffering, we're now starting to talk about it, which is great, but it's not enough, it won't be until we scientifically know more," she says.

Given that recent research by the American Psychiatric Association suggests millennials may be the most anxious generation in history, it's unsurprising that Cox's writing has struck a chord among young people. Cox's frustration at the dearth of relevant poetry about mental illness spurred her on to create something people her age could relate to.

"With poetry I always found a lot of what I'd read with sadness as an underpinning came across as the tortured artist, a bit glamorous," says Cox. "It wasn't showing the full facets of what living with depression is actually like."

Cox says that poetry has tended to glamourise mental illness. But, as most people living with mental health issues will tell you, it couldn't be further from glamorous.

"It made me frustrated," Cox adds. "I wanted to show other young women that they weren't alone and they were justified in the complexities and it's fine and important to not see them as quirky or darkly beautiful."

One section that's particularly resonant is 'She must be fat,' in which Cox explores her complicated, and at times, deeply negative relationship with her body. In the age where being on Instagram fuels constant — and deeply harmful — self-comparisons, Cox's struggle with her own body image is one that many people — young and old — are living through. "We're constantly in a state of comparison," says Cox. "'Why am I not her?' when you're not even sure if she is really her or if it's an angle, or a filter, or a piece of Photoshop."

My idea of beauty was once so different So why have I confined that wonder Into an ugly 4x4 square of imprisonment? That has parameters smaller than the size of my thighs and is duller than the natural gradient of my eyes

Despite Instagram's recent ranking as the worst platform for young people's wellbeing, Cox hopes that she and her fellow Instagram poets — like Rupi Kaur and Yrsa Daley-Ward — are creating a space away from the negativity. "We all have a collective responsibility I think to be kinder minded with what we post now we know what damage it's already done," she says. "Poetry is such a meditative thing to throw into that machine, a small slice of hope or reality amidst the madness."

Cox wants her readers to "feel less alone" when they read her book and "to know that one day, some of this all might make you laugh."

In the meantime, when all your struggles don't seem funny at all, that's fine too. "You are justified and it's real and there are others around you who have tools for you to borrow when you need them," she says. "Even if it is just a poem."