Welcome to my weekly newsletter The Weekly Witness, free to all paid subscribers of my Substack This Woman’s Work. My Substack is my labour of love - as a former midwife I know a lot about labour. And about mental health, through my work in mental health services. But today I am a writer after coming to Substack two years ago and a year later giving up work in the NHS to write full time.- My Substack is the meeting point of my personal, professional and political life. I could write forever, I certainly have enough to write about - mental health, midwifery, midlife, misogyny, motherhood and more. But I need support. For £3.50/$4.80 a month you can join the community, receive all my articles and a weekly dose of witness. I would love to welcome you onboard!
With love and gratitude
Rebecca X
One of the best things about any train ride for me, is the company I keep and for my trip up north to see my parents this week I was accompanied by my youngest daughter Imogen. 16 years old, a thing of beauty, a font of all knowledge, plus a really funny gal.
The journey up was hellish. Back-to-back delays, fiendish heat and ages hanging around on sweaty, overcrowded platforms. Still, all that waiting time gave me a good chance to chat to Imogen. The kid is such a good listener (or she had her headphones in), either way, with hours to kill, I found myself chatting about Substack. And I found that I was not singing its praises.
This looks fun - not!
I was lamenting all the hard work I had put into Substack during my two years here, musing over the changes I am witnessing and the alarm I feel at my writerly space becoming a wannabe ‘Insta’. I am too old to be an ‘influencer’, I can’t even influence my kids. As Imogen well knows.
‘It’s ok to be disappointed by Substack.’ Imogen reassured me as we studied a departure board that stubbornly refused to reveal the platform of our next train.
Oh, from the mouths of babes! Disappointment. That is exactly it. As I stand desperate to find the right platform to travel home, I see the online platform I have entrusted so much with and ploughed so much into going in a direction that feels quite uncertain to me.
‘A writing app’, as I used to describe it to my mum. She had no idea what that meant. In fairness nor did I but I knew it was a place I could come and write and read and connect with like-minded people. A social media novice, I really didn’t think Substack was social media.
‘Notes’ was in its infancy when I joined two years ago. I had no idea what constituted a ‘note’, who would and would not see it and why. I still am probably none the wiser. I didn’t’ know you could ‘mute’ or ‘block’ anyone. I thought that was a bit of a rude thing to do until I hit a MAGA algorithm and then wore the block button out.
No longer feel rude to press it -now feels absolutely necessary.
I was naïve. And hopeful. Hopeful for change and for voices to be heard. Especially as two months after joining Substack, Trump was elected as President. Now more than ever, I, everyone, needed to write, to come together, to share, to support, to provide an alternative to this new and frightening reality. America led by a felon and sex offender. Substack promised to be led by something different.
At first, it felt like it was. Standing on the right side of history. Providing a platform for change but also a living for those who wished to turn their writing, their passions, their creativity into a paid job. Not a fortune. Ordinary people earning enough to live on. I gave up my job in the NHS. I went to work on Substack.
And then the changes came. Both to the platform and the way I found myself using it.