Kristie De Garis on the 10 things that changed her life

The National

3 days ago

1. The first drink I ever had
I WENT to The Central Hotel Bar in Thurso for the first time when I was 15. My friends assured me that the staff wouldn't care if I was underage, as long as I was pretty. So, ignoring the churn in my stomach, I handed the doorman my obviously fake ID. Shivering in a short skirt and pink cami, feet already sore in a pair of borrowed heels, I waited for a middle-aged man named Johnno (who wasn't allowed to see his kids) to decide whether I was pretty enough to break the law.
Inside, I was handed a double vodka and coke. Twenty minutes later, my vision was blurry, but I remember clearly how I felt. For the first time in my life, I was free from myself. Less of a shedding, more of an abandonment. I loved it. And I kept loving it for many, many years.
2. Helena
THE first woman I met who felt like she could consume the whole world and be hungry for more. I was 19, on my third attempt at a first year of uni, still existing solely within the boundaries that other people had drawn for me.
Helena introduced me to the righteous, lyrical anger of Fiona Apple, the emotional intensity and vulnerability of Spanish cinema, and the idea that sex could belong to women too. She didn't flinch: not in life, not in love, not in anger. Everything I'd been told was 'too much', she leaned into.
Years later, with dysfunction as my baseline, she wrote me an email. It was full of love, telling me
I had to get it together, not just for myself, but for my daughter. It wasn't cruel, it was clear, and exactly what I needed. To understand that she could see me in all my weakness and struggle, and still care.
3. A really bad mushroom trip
I'D wanted transcendence. To see bearded, benevolent gods in the trees, like I did that time I took mushrooms in Kensington Gardens with a pal. Instead, I sweated and shook through six hours of pure terror and came out absolutely wrecked but strangely clear.
I've heard it said that mushrooms don't give you what you want, they give you what you need. And that night what I needed (they know best) was a white-knuckle existential rollercoaster ride through my issues with control and perfection.
Their lesson was simple: you don't really control anything. Watch as we, the mushrooms, ragdoll your ego, and shred your sense of psychological safety, across the twilight of the Scottish countryside. RELINQUISH.
And when I did, finally, give in to them, lie down, and sink into the never-ending fractals behind my eyelids, they released me. No big deal.
It was the worst night of my life and one of the most useful. I wouldn't recommend it, and I also wouldn't take it back.
4. Stoner by John Williams
I'D read quiet prose before, prose that wasn't clever or showy, but I'd never read anything this precise.
Stoner is about a quiet, ordinary life. It's devastating not because of any single tragedy, but because of how precisely it shows the inevitability of being human; how rarely we step beyond the boundaries of what we know, and how much of life passes quietly, unseen, unknown, untouched.
Every word is structural, nothing goes to waste. It showed me that restraint doesn't restrict, it creates possibility. This book changed what I look for in others' writing, and what I ask of my own.
5. James Crawford's DM
'EVER thought about writing a book?'
Jamie had read some blogs I'd been tentatively posting, part of a promise to myself that I'd put myself out there, show more of my authentic self online.
I thought it was a scam. I looked him up online (seemed legit). We had a Zoom call (also seemed legit). But even after I'd written the proposal, the first chapter, the whole book, I still half-suspected he might just be really committed to the bit.
My book came out August 2025, and if Jamie hadn't messaged me, hadn't offered that piece of much-needed validation, I don't think I ever would have written it.
6. Living with my two ex-husbands
I SPLIT with my first husband when I was 21, my second when I was 34, and at age 36 I moved in with both of them.
Our setup is simply an antidote to the relentlessness of adult life, and to answer the first question that popped into your head: platonic.
It's not always easy, but with all of us bought in and making consistent effort, it works. We share chores, share bills, and show up. The kids have everyone under one roof, the adults have a failsafe when things get hard.
It's also teaching our daughters what a fair split of domestic labour actually looks like, and that feels revolutionary.
Many things had to come together for me to finally begin my career at age 40, but this is one of the essentials. It really does take a village.
7. Methylphenidate
I'VE taken a lot of anti-anxiety meds and anti depressants over the years: Most did very little. And when one worked, even slightly, I felt two things: immense relief, and immense guilt.
Methylphenidate, though, is as close to a magic pill as I'll ever get. It worked so well, so quickly, that any guilt or 'why should I have it easier?' shame was blasted out of the murky waters of my psyche.
I couldn't have written my book without it. I couldn't have parented the way I wanted to. I couldn't have built this quiet, steady confidence that I now carry. And if a daily dose of something gives me all that (and more!), then yes, I'll take it.
These days, I don't just allow ease into my life, I welcome it. I throw the door open and call it in. Fight me!
You'll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.
8. Rural Scotland
SURE, Edinburgh is beautiful: a jostling, joyful congregation of 500 years of architectural one-upmanship. And Glasgow, with all its grit and generosity, has a kind of cultural electricity. But rural Scotland will always have my heart.
The wee bakeries with weird cakes (straight-up burger rolls with icing; monstrous, sickly-sweet frog cakes).
The honesty boxes. The fairs, the shows, the galas. The village shops. The terrible, overpriced public transport. The infuriating 'it's aye been' attitudes. The chokehold the Co-op has on local economies. The way nothing happens fast. The way it slows you down, whether you want it to or not.
Every part has shaped how I see the world, how I write, how I work.
It's why I stay, and why I sometimes think about leaving. But I don't think I'm going anywhere. For all of rural life's flaws, there's a kind of freedom inside it.
9. My first drystone wall
IT'S still there, in a field near Logiealmond in Perthshire, bearing the scars of weather, time and sheep trying to use it as an escape route.
I was there to repair a gap caused by a fallen tree. First I stripped out the stone, then organised it, then rebuilt the wall. It took all day.
In bed that night, holding my phone, lower back aching, hands and arms weakened from the tough manual labour, I swiped through photos. Where there once was a gap, now stood a wall. I slid my thumb back and forth. Gap, then wall. Gap, wall. Built by me.
Feeling proud, and some kind of powerful, I was aware of something shifting within me. In drystone, the finished product is directly related to physicality. There's no separating the two. Looking at what I'd built, I knew without any doubt that my body had brought it into existence. This wall wasn't just my first contribution to the long tradition of drystone in Scotland. It was something indisputable, a demonstration of the undeniable value of my physical form.
Put simply, when I realised I could build a wall that would last hundreds of years, men wanting to fuck me felt a little irrelevant.
10. The last drink I ever had
IT was my fourth organic Viognier at the, now closed, L'escargot Blanc on Queensferry Street in Edinburgh. One arm in my coat, I downed the whole glass to make sure I was as pissed as possible before running for the train.
The next day, hungover (again), completely sick of myself (again), I had a realisation: I was an alcoholic.
For more than 10 years, alcohol had been my principal method of dealing with boredom, socialising, stress, sadness. It gave me relief, which I mistook for catharsis, and then for closure.
Suffice to say, getting sober was brutal, but this year marks seven years. And each one has been better than the last.
Drystone: A Life Rebuilt by Kristie De Garis is published by Polygon (£14.99, hardback).