Ella Seavers is a senior at Mountlake Terrace High School. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Ella Seavers is a senior at Mountlake Terrace High School. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

Bullied for autism, Terrace teen finds her voice in music

Mountlake Terrace High School senior Ella Seavers is a multi-instrumentalist with her eyes on the future.

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Ella Seavers, 17, is a largely self-taught musician who sings and plays the guitar, piano, drums, clarinet, trombone and more.

The Mountlake Terrace High School senior is in the early stages of piecing together her own musical, based on real-life stories of struggles people have lived through in various minority groups.

Q: How’s your senior year been so far?

A: It’s been really good, in terms of figuring out what I want to do, and starting a bunch of personal projects that have been meaningful to me. Things always have their ups and downs, but I’ve been able to push through and stay happy doing what I love.

Q: What personal projects?

A: For a school project, in our STEM English class I’m looking at whether it might be possible for same-sex couples to have biological children. For personal projects, I’m working on writing a musical. I do a lot of composing and arranging and writing in general.

Q: What kind of music?

A: The stuff that I’m into? I was in jazz band a few years here. So I’ve gotten a taste for jazz music. My uncle does a lot of rock music so he’s been teaching me some stuff for rock. I know a lot of pop songs on guitar, and I write more pop-like music when I’m doing singer-songwriter stuff. I’m into chamber winds and a lot of classical music.

Q: What do you go home and listen to? Like, do you have a favorite band or artist? Or a few?

A: For my songwriting style, I really like Ed Sheeran. The way he weaves words into these beautiful songs. His lyrics are really something that I look up to. For musical theater, my favorite musical is ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’

Q: What’s that one about?

A: It’s about a boy who has really bad anxiety. He’s a high school student. Every morning he’s supposed to write himself a letter that says, ‘Dear Evan Hansen, today’s going to be a good day, and here’s why.’ It’s about his journey and struggles to be himself. It’s something that resonates with me personally. I am autistic, so my whole life I’ve been bullied for being different. So I’ve worked really hard to understand a lot of societal norms, and how I can fit in and have good friends, because I’m very much a people person. I went through a really hard time my sophomore year, setting expectations too high for myself. And I went through a lot of depression and anxiety that year.

Q: What helped you to get through that?

A: My friends and family were super helpful. My music, for sure. I started writing a lot of music at that time about how I was feeling and some of the thoughts that were going through my head. Not only is it an outlet for me, but it’s also important that people understand and can hear that these really are issues, and people go through them. It’s also a way to reach out and say, ‘Hey, you’re not alone, I’ve gone through these sorts of things, I go through these sorts of things. You’re not alone.’

Q: Music can be powerful in that way. What instruments do you play and when did you start to play them?

A: Oh goodness. I play the clarinet. I’ve been playing that since fifth grade. I play the guitar, and I want to say seventh grade I started playing around with it, but just in the last few years I’ve been getting pretty serious with it, and using it to write my own material. I’ve played drums since eighth grade. There’s other instruments I know how to play, but I don’t play them all the time. Trombone. Flute. Ukulele. Oh, and I’m learning the piano and mess around with that, and how it works with other instruments. My brain takes in patterns really, really well. I just wonder if it has anything to do with my autism, finding patterns and how they connect with each other, and how chords kind of progress.

Q: Do you want to talk about theater?

A: Theater has helped me to become who I am. Because of all of this bullying that I’d gone through, I was very closed off. I came into high school with the mindset, ‘OK, it’s a new fresh start, don’t give anybody anything to have against you.’ I went into this state of mental health issues, anxiety issues. I didn’t want to come school. I was just giving up because I pushed myself way too hard. I joined a bunch of AP classes, I was on two soccer teams, I was on jazz band before school, honors classes, STEM classes — and it was too much. And in my brain I kept saying, ‘Why can’t you do it?’ I shut down. I’m not taking AP anymore. It’s not the material of the classes, it’s just the pressure. I went into junior year, stepped way back, and said, ‘We’re going to try this again.’ I started gaining confidence little by little, when I was at no confidence. I joined the school singing competition and performed some original music I’d written the year before, from some of the stuff I was going through, and ended up winning, and that was a huge, huge confidence boost for me. I can put myself out there. I can act, and I can be weird, and nobody cares because we’re all weird and we’re all wacky people. And I can be in the hallways with theater people and just be weird, because I’m not so scared that people are going to judge me, or tease me about it, or find something they don’t like about me, because it’s not that important anymore.

Q: Do you know what you’d like to do after high school?

A: I would like to go to college. I’ve been working on applications. The obvious choice around here would be UDub. If I could go anywhere and money wasn’t a problem, it would be NYU. For a while, I’ve thought about double-majoring in engineering and performing arts, but I think I would like to go more into performing arts. Since I’m interested in such a wide variety, not just performing, I’m also into the writing and composing and scriptwriting. And being a STEM person, I’m interested in the stage design and all those sorts of things. My brain is very analysis-based, so I’ve always been really good at math and science and the grammatical structures of things. I’ve taken French this year and last year. It’s a lot of memorization and also patterns.

Q: Pourquoi français?

A: My dad. I have a lot of French descent in my family, and my dad studied abroad in France for a while. He loves the French language as well. When I was really little he was trying to teach me English and French, and he’d ask me in French, ‘What does the cow say?’ and I’d moo at him.

Q: If you could talk to yourself in seventh grade, what would you want to say?

A: I’d probably tell myself, ‘I know things are hard. I know things suck right now. You’ll have a really hard time dealing with all of this, but at the end of the day, it’ll help frame you, and help you to become a much better person, and you’ll get through it. Things will still be hard all the time, but you’ll get to a point where it has helped you to become who you are, and it’ll help you to become the person that you want to be.’

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Vehicles travel along Mukilteo Speedway on Sunday, April 21, 2024, in Mukilteo, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Mukilteo cameras go live to curb speeding on Speedway

Starting Friday, an automated traffic camera system will cover four blocks of Mukilteo Speedway. A 30-day warning period is in place.

Carli Brockman lets her daughter Carli, 2, help push her ballot into the ballot drop box on the Snohomish County Campus on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Here’s who filed for the primary election in Snohomish County

Positions with three or more candidates will go to voters Aug. 5 to determine final contenders for the Nov. 4 general election.

Students from Explorer Middle School gather Wednesday around a makeshift memorial for Emiliano “Emi” Munoz, who died Monday, May 5, after an electric bicycle accident in south Everett. (Aspen Anderson / The Herald)
Community and classmates mourn death of 13-year-old in bicycle accident

Emiliano “Emi” Munoz died from his injuries three days after colliding with a braided cable.

Danny Burgess, left, and Sandy Weakland, right, carefully pull out benthic organisms from sediment samples on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
‘Got Mud?’ Researchers monitor the health of the Puget Sound

For the next few weeks, the state’s marine monitoring team will collect sediment and organism samples across Puget Sound

Everett postal workers gather for a portrait to advertise the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Wednesday, May 7, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Snohomish County letter carriers prepare for food drive this Saturday

The largest single-day food drive in the country comes at an uncertain time for federal food bank funding.

Everett
Everett considers ordinance to require more apprentice labor

It would require apprentices to work 15% of the total labor hours for construction or renovation on most city projects over $1 million.

A person walks past Laura Haddad’s “Cloud” sculpture before boarding a Link car on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024 in SeaTac, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Sound Transit seeks input on Everett bike, pedestrian improvements

The transit agency is looking for feedback about infrastructure improvements around new light rail stations.

A standard jet fuel, left, burns with extensive smoke output while a 50 percent SAF drop-in jet fuel, right, puts off less smoke during a demonstration of the difference in fuel emissions on Tuesday, March 28, 2023 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Sustainable aviation fuel center gets funding boost

A planned research and development center focused on sustainable aviation… Continue reading

Dani Mundell, the athletic director at Everett Public Schools, at Everett Memorial Stadium on Wednesday, May 14, 2025 in Everett, Washington. (Will Geschke / The Herald)
Everett Public Schools to launch girls flag football as varsity sport

The first season will take place in the 2025-26 school year during the winter.

Clothing Optional performs at the Fisherman's Village Music Festival on Thursday, May 15 in Everett, Washington. (Will Geschke / The Herald)
Everett gets its fill of music at Fisherman’s Village

The annual downtown music festival began Thursday and will continue until the early hours of Sunday.

Seen here are the blue pens Gov. Bob Ferguson uses to sign bills. Companies and other interest groups are hoping he’ll opt for red veto ink on a range of tax bills. (Photo by Jacquelyn Jimenez Romero/Washington State Standard)
Tesla, Netflix, Philip Morris among those pushing WA governor for tax vetoes

Gov. Bob Ferguson is getting lots of requests to reject new taxes ahead of a Tuesday deadline for him to act on bills.

Jerry Cornfield / Washington State Standard
A new law in Washington will assure students are offered special education services until they are 22. State Sen. Adrian Cortes, D-Battle Ground, a special education teacher, was the sponsor. He spoke of the need for increased funding and support for public schools at a February rally of educators, parents and students at the Washington state Capitol.
Washington will offer special education to students longer under new law

A new law triggered by a lawsuit will ensure public school students… Continue reading

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.