Freya Dunlop

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Fig Jam •

When protection becomes neglect

It was midnight on a weekday, quiet and dark with only the passing foxes bearing witness. I was sitting in a parked car after an evening out, speaking our secrets into the dark sky and hoping it would keep them safe. It was midnight when I was asked the question. ‘Are you afraid of intimacy?’ I hadn’t considered it before. Or rather, I’d never given it a name. I prefer the more euphemistic manner of explaining my high standards. How guarded I am. A good judge of character. But I suppose it’s all...
Fig Jam •

Life & Death

As I write this post, the sky holds a weight greater than the weeks before. A promise of what is to come and a reminder of what has been. Its blank greyness holds an absence that feels hopeful and mournful in one breath. The wind whispers a well-known secret that the summer is closing. A new season waits at the edge of the sky, waiting to roll over and paint it darker and make it colder. I wait with bated breath for the change to come and cross my fingers behind my back so that it cannot take my...
Fig Jam •

Not your friend but not your enemy either

I’ve been watching Love Island lately and I’ve got some notes. I think they should try a re-branding. Perhaps Friendship Island. Or better yet, Enemy Island.Watching the formation of human bonds play out on the TV screen feels like an exercise in anthropological study, and it’s really got me thinking; what does it mean to be a good friend, or a good person? Is honesty the hallmark of a true friendship, even if the truth is an undesirable one? Or is kindness what makes a friendship, even if it’s...
Fig Jam •

Is it better to shrink or to sink?

Once in a while, I re-watch Fleabag and make myself uncomfortable with the relatability of it. More than just the art show crashout and the love-hate sibling relationship, there are pieces of me that I beg to stay hidden, that lie waiting and come alive whenever I choose to press play. It’s a weird combination of thank god I’m not that bad and oh my god, I am that bad. It brings so much to the surface that I would actually rather drown in, but the part that really makes my skin itch with discomf...
Fig Jam •

💌Building the perfect evening

Lately I’ve found myself at home a lot. Drifting from room to room trying to feel less like I’m rotting away and more like my days are full of meaning. It gets boring after a while. Lonely, even. I’ve been relying on my evening routine a lot. The part of the day where it’s normal to be in your bed, not lazy. No matter how the day goes, I can claw it back with a good drink and a conscious decision to relax. I like to think that I’m starting to perfect it. My years of experience as both an introve...
Fig Jam •

Which flavour cheesecake are you?

I’ve always been a fan of quizzes. Not the kind that test what you know, but the ones who tell you who you are. It started when I was a little girl and my granny would let me pick a magazine from the bottom shelf. I’d curl up on my bed with my pink gel pen and circle the As, Bs or Cs, counting them up to see who I was. Only the bright printed pages could tell me. I liked the feeling of being seen as a child who felt overlooked. Even if I did do the mental maths to get my desired outcome, the val...
Fig Jam •

A Renaissance

I’m nothing if not an entertainer so I’ll set the scene. I’m sitting in my bed in my satin pyjamas, tanning moisturiser slathered over my skin. My hair is curled and pinned so tightly that my eyebrows are permanently raised in preparation for my first concert of the summer. The next morning, I’ll go to London to drink too many cocktails with It’s been a while since we last spoke. I hear my phone ring and I answer. You’re on the other end of the line. It’s been so long! What have you been up to?...
Fig Jam •

You're not a realist you're a bitch

I’ll set the scene. You’re 14 years old sat in Spanish class. The air is warm and your blazer is uncomfortable. Your heels are blistered from your new school shoes and Your thighs are stuck to the blue. plastic chair. Conversation of verb conjugation and weekend plans buzzes around you like white noise. You tune in just in time to hear your Spanish teacher tell someone “I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist”, and just like that, something clicks. Brilliant. I’ll be using that one. By now, you’re we...
Fig Jam •

I don't need Mark Darcy

Back in February, my best friends and I went to see the new Bridget Jones movie. We walked to the local cinema, a tiny building that smelt vaguely of damp and stale popcorn and had the smallest doorways and uncomfortable seats. We waited for the film to start, already in fits of nervous giggles when one of us dropped her sweets on the floor. I’ve always loved Bridget Jones, and I was prepared to be wrecked. During my year abroad, if I ever felt sad or homesick, I would watch one of the movies, s...
The Tab •

Survival of the fittest: 10 ways to spot a final year student on campus

TB2 always brings an extra level of stress which didn’t exist as much in TB1. Final exams are looming and so many final year students are writing their dissertations and dreaming of their graduation.
Ever wondered how they stick out from the rest of the crowd? Here’s your guide to spotting a final year student on campus (a reliable representation, being a final year myself).

Crying is already a valid reaction to being stuck in the ASS, but you know the situation is dire when they don’t actuall...
Fig Jam •

In defence of physical media

If recent events have told us anything, it’s the fragility of the online world. We exist only in the tangible, on the pen touching the paper, on the photo held between a thumb and a forefinger. The message is clear; record your life!! When I was at home over the holidays, my mum dragged down the suitcase she keeps of my brother and I’s baby clothes and books. I sat on the floor of my bedroom reading the words my mum wrote in my baby book about how nervous she was to meet me and how smiley my bro...
Fig Jam •

Hall of Mirrors

I wrote this post back in September when I was packing again to move house, again. When I was stuffing clothes I didn’t even recognise into my bag, it got me thinking. This draft was collecting dust for a long time, but I revisited it while writing a new piece, reflecting on how bitter I am at the homogenisation that the internet pushes. The difference between the two pieces is stark and I’d like to think that means I’m growing. Or maybe I’m just angry. This is nothing profound, but I think we k...
Fig Jam •

On Mediocrity

It’s 8am and you’re in your dark uni flat. It’s so cold outside that your view is blurred by condensation and it becomes harder and harder to find reasons to emerge from the coccoon of your bed. Cramps are wreaking havoc on your morning, making your stomach churn at the idea of your coffee, the thing that punctuates your morning routine. Without it, there’s no way to start your day, so you don’t. Your body sighs in relief when your flatmate texts you to say she’s also not ready for the early sta...
Fig Jam •

my petals wrinkle underfoot

It’s october, so it’s only right to think about our ghosts. Mine lives in my bedroom, casting a shadow over me when I sit at my desk and wonder what I’m doing it all for.This week, it lived in a bunch of flowers I bought myself, their petals soft and sturdy.The flowers have lived in my room for days now, blending into the background with the passing of time that fades their petals. They turn to grey as the october storms roll in.They were once pink and white, vibrant in the sun that shone throug...
Fig Jam •

My mirror has legs and a laugh

The concept of our ‘inner child’ is familiar to most of us. They exist as a concept, fuelled by tiktok trends centred at healing your inner child. They exist at a distance, locked away in our memory and haunting the halls of our memory until we swipe them away when it hurts too much. My inner child lives externally. She pushed apart my ribs and stepped out of my chest and now she resides in my little sister. She’s no longer a ghost. She has a laugh of her own and eyes that sparkle and skin that’...
Fig Jam •

haunt me, then!

I wouldn’t say I subscribe to the ‘depressed writer’ trope; I don’t think it’s entirely true, although you do have to be a certain kind of melancholy to be so full of thought that you can’t help but leak onto the page. I can see why this trope is tossed around though, when I look at the media I turn to for inspiration when I want to write or feel. I lean to the gothic, the dark and broody, the lyrics that make you cry if you listen too intently. They draw out the darker parts of me and that’s wh...
Fig Jam •

a romantic autumn

This summer was uncharacteristically grey and rainy even for England. Perhaps it’s the disappointment that the season brought, or maybe just the excitement of a new term and a new life. Either way, when I woke up this morning to a faint chill gnawing at my skin where I had slept under the window, my heart leapt a little. Autumn has long been my favourite season, for reasons unknown to me, because I’m definitely no stranger to SAD. There’s a warmth that belies the cold weather, though. Every time...
Fig Jam •

Girls Want God

I’m clawing at the edges of the universe for something to believe in because it can’t be meThe concept of belief has always fascinated me; the idea of something more than the self is transfixing, comforting even, and I find myself chasing it, a little girl clinging to the hand of God, even if I don’t believe. At school, I chose religious studies, learning about practices, community, and beliefs. I was enthused by the power they can hold and the peace they can bring, but I was never able to find...
That's What She Said Magazine •

Summertime Sadness: How To Make the Most of the Summer Months

Freya Dunlop addresses the potentially anticlimactic period that is the university summer holiday, suggesting approaches we can take which we might make this season easier.


We spend the entire academic year looking forward to the summer: the holidays with our friends, parties every night, all those plans we’ve been discussing since we first met our uni friends. Why, then, do so many of us feel deflated when summer finally arrives? Why does it never quite live up to our expectations? 


Part...