There is one important encounter I’ve not yet covered: the encounter with myself.

I've presented this documentation through the aesthetics of the personal because, ultimately, I've realised this project has been deeply personal. It's been a process of meeting myself six years ago, when I was very afraid and very vulnerable and very alone. It's been a process of seeing her, recognising her, and letting her speak.

In our discussions of character, Haeyoung and I talked a lot about the me and the not-me. Unlike prose, theatre has three perspectives at play at all times: the audience, the character and the performer. Balancing and developing the work was often about playing with when and how the perceptions and realities of these figures aligned. The performer – me – and the character and audience – not-me – were in constant orbit around each other, variously in sync and entirely opposed in what they perceived to be reality.

Ultimately, the characters became facets of ourselves, overlapping, pulling out the most flawed versions of ourselves and our experiences. I think this was a very interesting and rewarding way to explore both character and the sense of reality in the work, but it also bolstered this sense of meeting a past or alternate version of myself.

I didn't set out to do this. My initial intention was to explore an underrepresented phenomena (care and codependency) that I felt very informed about: certainly not to re-evaluate and reflect on my own trauma. This was perhaps naive of me.

I have not hurt myself through making this work; I think it has been a necessary conversation and a healthy re-working of something terrible that happened into something that is, I hope, artistically valuable – whatever that means.

Developing this work has made me aware of the fact that the girl from six years ago has not been previously given space to breathe, or heal.

At the time of writing, I've just moved back in with my parents. I've left my partner, my golem, of almost nine years. I hope I will come back to him, but I have ultimately realised through the space this project has given me that time is not always enough: we need to look after ourselves as well as each other, and I can only do that through space, and art, and friends.

I don't think that theatre should always be personal. But I think it should, in some ways, make us look at ourselves and each other and the space between us in the world.

I'm not ok, but I think I will be.