by Sydney Shea
There’s a war between who you could become and who you should become. And there’s a fine line between abuse and love.
I’ve learned that no one can make you—not even the most experienced, the most brilliant, the most resilient. No one can walk your path for you. Only you get to choose which direction to take, and who you want to hold hands with on your journey.
A lot of people that witnessed my efforts wanted to help. But wanting to help and being able to help aren’t the same thing. Intentions can be good, but their time is always your money. Just because someone’s working with you “for free” doesn’t mean it’s actually free. The cost of their time will come due eventually. That’s why it’s so important to know who you’re letting into your creative world.
I dissociated for three years. I wasn’t allowed to write the songs because, according to them, I could never be as good as they were. I was there, but I wasn’t. Half the time I was floating outside my body, unable to form my real opinion.
At first, meeting them felt like fate. Like hitting the jackpot. I had been making music with someone who was pretending to be music for so long, I didn’t even know what was good anymore. So when I showed these new people—well-established, successful people—my songs, they said: “This is shit. You’re never going to get anywhere with this. But come to the house—we should meet.”
They invited me to their house in the hills. I sat down at their beautiful Yamaha piano, tucked in a golden-toned music room with a vintage organ, guitars mounted like trophies on the walls, and sheet music scattered across every table. The room overlooked the valley I was raised in. I attempted “Someone Like You” by Adele. My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely press the keys.Was this really happening? Was I finally being seen by someone amazing and fucking up? And yet… I didn’t even know who they really were. I was so naive to believe that just because someone looked like a tough, sparkly rockstar—surrounded by fabulous things—they must have known better than me.
I started singing Adele.
“STOP. Sing it a cappella. Louder. Louder. Now softer. Louder. STOP.”
Then they said:
“You take direction well.”
“Why do you want to do this?”
I answered honestly: “I want to make people feel -”
“Wrong,” they snapped. “You don’t give a shit what people are feeling. And that’s not up to you anyway.”
I didn’t say anything, but in my mind, I thought—maybe they’re right. Maybe I am a bullshitter.
Maybe I’m just pretending I know what I’m doing, hoping no one notices I don’t.
Then they said, “You’re doing this for YOU. There’s no one else.” And somehow, their harshness made me love them. It made them seem more real than anyone I’d encountered so far. I thought maybe this is what I need. Maybe I need someone to push me to become what I dream of being—undeniable.
Until I started wanting to die after every meeting.
Each phase of my life, there’s been someone I’ve made too significant. I gave them my schedule. My availability was theirs to determine. My time didn't belong to me anymore.
It started becoming toxic when I realized how much of what they believed about me was starting to shape what I believed about myself.
One day, they sat me down and said, “You’re not competent.”
And the truth was—they weren't wrong.
I wasn’t sure of myself. I didn’t trust my choices yet because so far I had made so many bad ones. I didn’t know how to defend my vision.
I’m thankful for how much they pushed me now. It gave me thicker skin.
Being reminded I was an amateur almost every day carved something deeper into me.
They said my instincts were great but that I had no technical skill—and that was true at the time.
But my mistake wasn’t being inexperienced.
My mistake was believing my instincts alone would never be enough.
That unless I had the right vocabulary, the right training, the right co-sign… I couldn’t possibly write something great.
That voice screeched in my ears for two years—sometimes four hours straight on the phone. I would be on mute the whole time, letting them talk and talk and talk about how horrible the industry is, how everyone is fake, and how everyone who is successful is a Disney child and/or a nepo-baby, and that the chances of me getting in were slimmer than winning the lottery.
I felt sympathy for them because I knew inside they were a broken character—a character who thought they would win the grand prize, but ended up winning in a different way. And that’s okay too.
I used to walk into every room assuming people were good—hoping they’d see something in me.
But after enough disappointment, manipulation, and broken promises, I woke up.
Now, I assume people are bad until they prove they’re good.
That they’re safe.
That they mean what they say—by showing up, not just saying it.
And that’s what confused me most about them.
They were showing up. They were doing the work.
So I clung to the knowledge they gave me, and tried—desperately—to separate the wisdom from the wounds.
To hold onto the parts that made me better and block out the parts that made me hate myself.
I’ve given my heart to plenty who didn’t earn it. I worked with someone aimlessly for two years, only for them to hand me a $10,000 contract that said anything I do with them would be owned by them. I would be owned—and if anyone wanted me, they’d have to go through them. They would be my keeper. They would chew me up, make me their muse, then claim the genius was theirs all along. I knew that's what would happen.
Lesson one: If you want to know who someone really is, let them talk. If they don’t ask you any questions, they’re not curious about your soul. They’re not listening—they’re shaping. Seeing how much of yourself you’ll bend until you fit inside their vision.
When I dissociated, I disconnected from my world. What I wanted didn’t exist. I was far away. But I held onto one truth:
I will push myself to become a better artist. That means observing. That means not making decisions in the moment. That means letting go—especially if someone says, “This is your only shot, and it’s because of me.”
To that I say:
You’re not God.
You’re just a lesson He gave me.
