Media Secret: Hidden Johansson

Finding the words

I practically found my way home hardly looking up from the ground kicking stones as I walked down the pavements, I guess when your in a state like that either people don't notice you or don't want to piss you off.

Cars racing past you as your mind is spinning a million miles away that you feel like your drowning in the noise of life.

As I got home from the interview I didn't go to my house but to my mums i headed to the basement. The recording studio is what I needed, I pulled my first ever guitar off the wall out of tune with missing strings but I was apart of the me I was still holding on too. Grabbing some fresh strings and a tuner, and shutting the door.

...

The room was chaos. Paper littered the floor, scrawled with half-finished lines and scratched-out verses. Some pages were crumpled into tight balls, thrown in frustration against the far wall. Others lay where they'd fallen, trampled underfoot in my endless pacing. The guitar was sprawled out on the rug, a few broken strings lying next to it like casualties of my battle with the song.

For hours—maybe days—I'd been chasing something just out of reach. The words, the melody, the feeling I needed to let out but couldn't quite pin down. It clawed at me, restless and unrelenting. Every attempt felt wrong, every line too polished, too detached from what I actually felt.

I sat in the middle of it all, my legs crossed on the rug, staring at a blank page. My pen hovered above it, trembling slightly in my grip. The air smelled faintly of stale coffee and the burnt edge of one page I'd set too close to a candle in a fit of frustration.

I could feel the weight pressing down on me again—that familiar, suffocating pressure that made my chest tighten and my hands shake. This song wasn't just a song. It was a reckoning. A fight to put everything I'd bottled up into something tangible. Something true.

I dragged my hand down my face, sighing heavily. The clock on the wall ticked louder than it had any right to, marking every second I failed to find the words. My guitar pick rested between my fingers, but I hadn't touched the strings in hours.

"Come on, Tom," I muttered under my breath. "Just write it. Say what you need to say."

But the words wouldn't come.

Instead, memories flooded in. Waking up drenched in sweat, heart pounding, my mind trapped in the past. Sitting in therapist offices, trying to explain the things I couldn't even explain to myself. Pushing away the people who tried to help, not because I didn't care, but because I couldn't bear to let them see me like that.

My hand moved almost without thinking, scrawling the first line across the page.

"Say you're there when I feel helpless..."

I paused, staring at the words. They felt right, like they belonged there. Like they belonged to me.

I wrote another line, then another. The pen moved faster now, the words spilling out as if they'd been waiting all this time for me to stop fighting them.

"If that's true, why don't you help me?
It's my fault, I know I'm selfish..."

I scratched out one line, rewrote another, but I didn't stop. The walls I'd been holding up for years began to crack, and for once, I didn't try to patch them up. I let them fall.

"Stand alone, my soul is jealous
It wants love, but I reject it..."

The door creaked open behind me, but I didn't look up. I was too lost in the words, too focused on the way they felt like they were ripping out of me.

"Tom?" Mum's voice was soft, hesitant.

I didn't answer. Couldn't. The melody was forming in my head now, weaving around the words like it had been there all along. I grabbed the guitar, ignoring the missing strings, and began to hum it under my breath. The sound was rough, imperfect, but it was mine.

"Tom," Mum said again, stepping further into the room. I could hear the concern in her voice, but also something else—hope. "What's going on in here?"

Finally, I looked up. She was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed, her eyes scanning the mess of paper and broken strings.

"Working," I said, my voice hoarse.

"Looks more like a tornado came through," she said lightly, but her smile was cautious. She stepped over a pile of crumpled pages, her gaze landing on the one in my hand. "What is it?"

I hesitated, my grip tightening on the paper. "It's... a song."

She raised an eyebrow. "A song?"

"For me," I said quickly, defensively. "Not for anyone else. Just... something I need to do."

Mum didn't say anything for a moment. She just nodded, her expression softening as she sat down on the edge of the couch. "Let me hear it."

I looked down at the guitar, at the scribbled lyrics in my lap. "It's not ready."

"Neither are you," she said simply. "That's the point."

Her words hit harder than I wanted to admit. I took a deep breath, adjusted the guitar, and began to play. The missing strings made it sound uneven, raw, but that only made it feel more real. My voice wavered at first, but as I sang, it grew stronger.

"Say you're here, but I don't feel it
Give me peace, but then you steal it
Watch them laugh at all my secrets
Scream and yell, but I feel speechless..."

The words cut deep as they left my mouth, but I didn't stop. I let it all out—the anger, the pain, the longing. By the time I reached the chorus, my voice was rising, filling the room with a power I hadn't realised I had.

"Grab my hand, I'm drowning
I feel my heart pounding
Why haven't you found me yet?"

When I finished, the room fell silent. I let the guitar rest in my lap, my chest heaving as if I'd just run a marathon.

Mum didn't say anything at first. She just looked at me, her eyes glassy, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

"That," she said finally, her voice thick with emotion, "was beautiful."

I shook my head. "It's a mess. The chords are wrong, and the lyrics don't even—"

"Tom." She cut me off, her tone firm but kind. "It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be you."

For a moment, I couldn't speak. The weight of everything I'd been holding back threatened to crush me, but for once, I didn't feel like I was carrying it alone. Mum was here. The music was here. And for the first time in years, I felt like I could breathe.

"It's not finished," I said quietly.

"Then finish it," Mum replied. "But don't stop. Don't hold back."

I looked down at the paper in my hand, at the words I'd been too afraid to say out loud until now. And for the first time, I felt ready to let them out.

This chapter captures the chaotic, cathartic process of creation and the breakthrough moment where Tom begins to reclaim his voice through music, with his mother grounding and encouraging him along the way. Would you like to expand or adjust any part of it?