Erica Cody: ‘As soon as I stopped trying to please other people, I was unapologetically myself’

The singer is supporting Pieta’s upcoming Darkness into Light event to raise money for lifesaving suicide and self-harm support

Tue, 26 Mar, 2024 - 15:21

Maeve Lee

After reaching “rock bottom” during the covid-19 pandemic, singer Erica Cody has learned a lot about the importance of having support when going through tough times.

“Being in the music industry and the entertainment industry, it’s full of ebbs and flows and highs and lows and I definitely lean on my family and my friends,” she says. “I’m super lucky and super blessed to have that support system at home but I know that not everybody does have that.”

The 27-year-old is supporting Darkness into Light, Pieta’s annual fundraising event to raise money for lifesaving suicide and self-harm support.

Pieta received around 100,000 crisis calls and texts to its helpline last year. Cody says the charity’s work is “vital” for those dealing with mental health issues and who may be in need of the support that she feels so grateful to have in her life.

The ‘Love Like This’ singer describes friends, family and therapy as the “holy trinity” for helping her through a particularly rough patch in her life.

“If I didn’t have that support system, I would have leaned on the likes of Pieta to help me through it or at least point me in the right direction,” she explains.

Cody’s mental health struggles occurred in the midst of the pandemic. When the entertainment industry shut down, like many, the Baldoyle native found herself feeling uncertain about the future of her career.

“I think lockdown was tricky for a lot of people. My industry had completely shut down, so no one knew how to go about things, and you were left feeling really like, ‘do I have to do something else?’… and then when you come out the other side of it, [you realise] everything is temporary,” she says.

Tough times can be as bad as you let them but there is always light at the end of the tunnel and things do get better.”

The annual fundraising event organised by Pieta and supported by Electric Ireland will see more than 100,000 people across 230 locations come together for the most important sunrise of the year. Picture: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

It was during this time that the Dubliner also experienced “trolling” on social media.

“That’s when I was at my rock bottom,” she says of that period in her life.

Cody has been performing since she was 16 and says she has always been aware that negative feedback is often part of a career in the spotlight. However, after the “bout of trolling” she shifted her perspective.

“It comes with the territory too I suppose,” she says of the negative commentary online. “Not only when you’re a singer but when you start to become a public figure and you’re a lot more known to people than you would have been in the past — it comes with an extra added pressure and that was something I definitely had to learn to adjust to.

“I think the way that I did it, I was like, ‘OK, well other people’s opinions are none of my business’ because at the start, I’d tend to be a people pleaser and I’d always want to just do the right thing…I think you have to take it with a pinch of salt and also know that you cannot please everybody,” she says.

“As soon as I stopped trying to please other people and started to please myself, that’s when I started to be totally unapologetically myself.”

The former Dancing with the Stars contestant has since discovered tools to help her improve her mental health and general wellbeing. She went back to the drawing board — so to speak — and rediscovered her love for journaling, which is something she practiced religiously as a child. It is now part of her daily routine.

“I always kept a journal when I was really small, and they evolved into poems and the poems evolved into songs as I started to pick up instruments. I feel like I went back to where I was. It was like fueling the inner child in me which is really nice. Journalling is something I do every single day.”

Protecting her personal relationships has also been important for the singer. In the past, she has kept her romantic relationships completely private and out of the public eye.

“I think it’s really important to keep some of those things for yourself too,” she says. “That’s one thing I’m really proud of myself for not oversharing because I’m a real oversharer.”

Mediation and movement have also been the cornerstones in Cody’s routine.

“Meditation has been key to for me, especially when I suffered with my mental health,” she explains “Also, I’m really active. I need to be in the gym. I go out walking my dog.

"I try and get up as early as I can and start my day early so that way, I’ve more time during the day — especially now that the evenings are a little bit longer.”