When I was 13, I didn’t have the words for how I felt. I couldn’t explain the heaviness in my chest, the way I’d zone out in lessons, or why I started snapping at people I actually cared about.
What I did have was a shoebox full of plastic bricks, buried in the back of my wardrobe from when I was little.
One day, after a particularly rough afternoon where I’d barely spoken to anyone, I pulled them out. No instructions. No idea what I was making. I just started clicking pieces together.
I didn’t think it was therapy. I didn’t think it was anything, really. But for the first time in weeks, my brain felt… quieter.
I sat there for two hours. Building. Unbuilding. Stacking. Sorting. Not thinking. Just doing.
At school, people saw me as “clever but difficult”. I was either too quiet or too defensive. I got good marks, but never seemed “present”. I knew people were worried about me, but I hated talking about feelings. It always felt like pressure: “How are you?” “Are you okay?” “You can talk to me.” I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t sure I could talk.
But give me a pile of bricks or a box of parts, and something clicked.
There was no pressure to explain myself. I could create something—messy or neat, chaotic or calm—and no one would correct me or ask what it meant. It was mine.
I started bringing small builds into school. At break, I’d sit near the edge of the playground, not quite in the crowd, not quite outside it. Sometimes others would join me—not to talk, but to build. Slowly, things shifted.
A teacher noticed. She asked if I’d like to help set up a lunchtime group with some of the younger students who found social stuff hard. We sat at a table with a mix of kits and random pieces. We built cars, castles, bizarre hybrid creatures that had no name.
It wasn’t therapy. But somehow, it helped. No one forced eye contact. No one demanded conversation. But when someone did speak—usually about what they were making—it felt natural.
We learned how to wait for pieces. How to disagree gently. How to celebrate when someone finally worked out how to build the thing they’d been stuck on for three sessions. All without having to say too much.
At home, my parents didn’t know what to do with me. They loved me, I knew that, but we’d started living around each other rather than with each other. But when they saw me building, something softened.
One evening, my dad sat down and started sorting pieces into colours. He didn’t say anything big or deep. Just, “Makes it easier to find what you need.” We didn’t talk about school or how I felt. But we spent an hour building a ridiculous three-storey house with stairs that went nowhere. And it felt like connection. Not forced—just enough.
I’m older now. I still get low sometimes. I still have days where I don’t want to be around people or explain how I’m doing. But I’ve got more tools. Some are words. Some are people I trust. And some are still physical—click, stack, turn, click.
It’s not about the bricks. It’s about what they gave me: space, focus, permission to not have all the answers. A way to rebuild something, even when everything else felt like it was falling apart.
People talk a lot about “interventions” and “programmes”, and those can be brilliant. But sometimes, it starts with something simple. Something small. A pile of pieces. A tiny space where you’re allowed to just be.
That was enough to get me started. And sometimes, that’s all you need.