Finding HopeIncreasing The Phenelzine (June – July 2023)
Posted on September 23, 2023
TW: Mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts.
NOTE: I wrote this a few months ago but waited to post it. There were a couple of things that I felt I wanted to comment on in the conclusion but I needed a little bit longer before I felt confident enough to do so. So I let things play out a bit but then some life stuff happened and this post got away from me for a bit. But here we are. Here it is.
Things had improved since I’d settled on the daily 30mg of Phenelzine but it still didn’t feel like enough. I wasn’t crushingly depressed but there were still problems, still areas of my life that weren’t back to what they used to be. So, for a while, I’d been thinking about increasing the Phenelzine, upping it to the high dose of 45mg (with my psychiatrist’s permission, of course). I had tried it before and it wasn’t the right thing for me – it was like the lights were too bright all of the time – but I hadn’t been coming from as low a place as I was this time; I hadn’t been trying to pull myself out of such a bad place. So, with that in mind, I wondered whether the higher dose would help, whether it would give me the additional rungs on the ladder that it seemed I still needed.
So I saw my psychiatrist and while he was quick to comment on how much of a change he could see since I’d started on the Phenelzine again, he listened to what I had to say and we discussed trying the higher dose. He asked me what the most important thing to me was and I said that I wanted my songwriting ability back. I’d written a couple of songs since I started taking the Phenelzine again and I loved them but they’d taken so much time and effort to write, much more than it would usually take. I used to write multiple songs a week with ease but, on the 30mg of Phenelzine, it was taking me months to drag one song out of my brain. So I wanted to write like I used to again. He listened and ultimately agreed: he said we’d use my creativity as a benchmark, using how many songs I was writing as a measure of whether the increase was helping or not (alongside whether I had any negative side effects, of course).
For a while, life was overwhelmingly busy and chaotic and there were things I needed to be able to do, that I needed to rely on my body and my behaviour (as much as I could normally, at least) to manage. So it was a while before I was able to increase from 30mg per day to 45mg per day. I started the increase on 17th June 2023 and took notes for the first six weeks (since the side effects and general effects can be quite subtle), finishing this record on 29th July.
And, as always when talking about medication, this is just my experience. Please don’t start, change, or stop taking any medications without the advice and support of a medical professional.
WEEK 1 (15mg in the morning and 30mg at night)
For most of the week, I didn’t feel any different. I have been more keen to engage with stuff, especially new stuff, but that’s not new exactly; it might’ve increased a bit but I couldn’t be sure. I was consistently tired and, on more than one occasion, I fell asleep before I could take my medication at night; I was also really drowsy during the day, needing naps to function, to make it to a decent bedtime. My back pain was relentless too, although my TENS machine did help.
Come the end of the week, my sleep was a mess and I was completely exhausted. I ended up needing multiple naps during the day and still barely making it to a respectable bedtime, forgetting my pills again. But I was managing to do a lot: I worked through my to-do list, went out to see some cool art, managed to avoid a meltdown when a creepy guy wouldn’t leave me alone, and spent my short evening snuggling with the neighbour’s puppies. But even though I hadn’t really had the time to sit down and do any writing, my brain was like a firework show, ideas appearing one after another at a dizzying speed. It was more than a bit overwhelming. I didn’t manage to find out, exhausted as I was, whether I could turn those ideas into anything but it was a definite start.
WEEK 2
The beginning of the week was so hot (the result of a hideous but thankfully short heatwave) that it felt almost impossible to do anything; moving around just made me even hotter, sickeningly so (heat like that makes my POTS symptoms go haywire, which just makes everything harder). For the most part, I dozed, cuddled up with one of the puppies. I was easily overstimulated and exhausted but I made it home to Brighton (with an impromptu nap on the train) and had a quiet evening before going to bed, falling asleep before I could take my pills or turn the light off.
The rest of the week was a really mix. I slept better, longer and deeper – and I actually remembered to turn off the lights and take all of my pills before falling asleep – but I was so tired; I kept falling asleep on the sofa or in the car or really anywhere I sat down. I was just so exhausted. I struggled during the day, unable to concentrate even though it felt like my brain was full of ideas and things I wanted to do. But I just felt like I was being sucked down by sleep and staying awake took so much effort. It made me feel like I might start crying at any moment.
I had some really bad days, where I felt overwhelmed and overstimulated and miserable and just so tired that I couldn’t do anything, which, on top of it all, left me feeling so frustrated. I had a horrible time in therapy and was just feeling really fragile. Plus, I was really stressed about the puppy situation: I want her so badly and I have no idea what’s going on; the idea of losing her from my life makes my heart ache.
But despite all of the difficulties, I was surprisingly productive, and was busier than I’ve been in years. At least that’s what it felt like. I started to work on some of the song ideas that I’ve been turning over in my head; I hung out with friends; I managed to swim; I went to see the fantastic Candi Carpenter play a show in London (I’d missed their last UK shows because I was self-isolating) and then we all went to the pub afterwards and had a great time (highlights include all of us singing Taylor Swift karaoke and running into uni friends I haven’t seen in years); I even did a drawing class. It was all really good but it was just A LOT. It was hard to process it all.
WEEK 3
For the first half of the week, things were okay. My sleep was pretty good: I was sleeping long and deep, although I did have the weird, busy dreams that I’ve come to associate with a medication change. I was still incredibly tired during the day (I fell asleep upright on the sofa several times) but I did manage to get some stuff done. And even though my back was hurting, I did manage some hydrotherapy.
Mentally, I wasn’t doing super well. I just felt really overwhelmed, drained and fragile. It felt like my depression was just hanging around, deep down, all the time. I was still functional and I even managed to do quite a bit of songwriting, more than I’d done in a while, but it was hard. I went to an amazing Maren Morris concert with my friend, Richard, and although I had an amazing time at the show, everything leading up to it and then the aftermath was a really struggle: getting there was exhausting and painful; the disability accommodations were as stressful as always; I was exhausted and freezing by the end of the gig; and it took forever to get home. I had a slow start the next morning, exhausted and aching after the concert, and despite the decent night’s sleep, I was a mess: I was completely overwhelmed and ended up in tears multiple times.
The second half of the week was really difficult. My sleep was a mess, making me a zombie during the day, and my emotions were all right at the surface, raw and ragged. I was beyond stressed and overwhelmed by everything that was coming up over the coming weeks; it felt like it was all barrelling towards me at an unstoppable speed. Both my body and my emotions felt so heavy and I was constantly bursting into tears.
WEEK 4
This week was pretty much dominated by my overwhelming, paralysing anxiety and stress over trying to get Taylor Swift tickets and the hurt and devastation of being treated so badly as a disabled person. I wrote about that here so I won’t rehash it all but I wanted to include what a devastating effect the experience had on my emotional and mental states. While the experience is, of course, separate from whatever the Phenelzine was doing, both are tied up with my emotional regulation and the effect my feelings have on me. As I said in my post, I was basically in various states of meltdown for all three days of the tickets presale. And it wasn’t just the suffocating anxiety of not getting a ticket: the way that Wembley Stadium treated disabled fans was appalling and it was just such a gut-punch to realise that they either didn’t care about us or they didn’t even remember that we exist. It was really distressing. I was so stressed and so depressed, even after I managed to get tickets. Just the thought of not getting to see this show, having looked forward to it for five years, had my emotions so big and loud and devastating that I felt this overwhelming compulsion to scream until my throat tore, to rip my skin off. With so little bringing me joy these days (and my chronic suicidality ever present and oppressive as a dark cloud), the thought occurred to me that, rather than endure the excruciating pain I know I would feel if the shows happened and I couldn’t be there, I should just kill myself to avoid it all. That thought just made me feel even more fucked up than I usually do. My emotions are so big and so precarious that even the smallest thing can tip me into serious and scary lows and this isn’t the smallest thing, given how much Taylor means to me. As I said in my post about the experience, these feelings are due to my mental health, to my depression and my chronic suicidal thoughts, not specifically to seeing Taylor; it’s about the fear of losing one of the few sources of joy when you’re in a really dark place. Those things will be different for everyone but the fear of losing them is so overwhelming that words don’t really do it justice.
The exhaustion and residual stress from that whole… experience had completely drained me of energy and, for several days, I was so tired that I could barely function (although I’d get sudden jolts of adrenaline, thinking I should still be on the phone, that I’d fucked up and forgotten, and was losing my chance). My sleep had been screwed up by my anxiety and I had pain from the physical tension I’d been holding in my body for three long days; both of those took most of the week to settle back to normal, normal being exhausted and sleepy and not able to do much. That was causing me a lot of anxiety too: I had so many things that needed doing but I was just too tired to do them and the anxiety over how they were piling up was starting to get overwhelming. I did manage to spend some time with friends, which was really nice, but I struggled to feel connected while still feeling so emotionally drained.
WEEK 5
The last week had exhausted me and it showed over the following weeks in various different ways. I was going to bed early, sleeping long and deep, and often struggling to wake up. And even with a long night under my belt, I was tired and drowsy during the day, often falling asleep on the sofa (and sometimes at my laptop); I struggled to concentrate, my eyes were tired and straining by the end of a day, and sentences stopped making sense. I was just completely done in. I hadn’t emotionally recovered either. I felt utterly overwhelmed, fragile and miserable; I was suicidal in the face of what just felt like too much. It wasn’t particularly surprising when I had an awful meltdown.
I did manage to be vaguely productive though, despite it all. I worked hard at my hydro and physio; I went to therapy; I managed some writing; I saw a couple of friends and had a good time with them, even if I didn’t feel as present as I usually would; I went to a show a friend runs (and the whole thing made me very emotional); I attended an interesting webinar about ADHD. But, even with how much I was struggling to be present in my mind, nothing felt quite enough, like I hadn’t done enough or gotten as far as I’d wanted to. I’ve been trying not to beat myself up but I’ve never been very good at that, being kind to myself that is.
WEEK 6
Another week and my sleep still wasn’t great. I was still falling asleep early (sometimes forgetting to turn the light off or put in my retainer) and sleeping long hours, although I was starting to wake up at a more reasonable time. I was still really tired during the day, taking some accidental naps, and struggling to focus. It was getting better but, as I said, it wasn’t great.
I was working hard to build in better habits too, alongside the medication and therapy. I worked hard at hydrotherapy and started physiotherapy too. The physio was a bit of a shock to my system and I was sore for the first few days (which disrupted my sleep but then pain always does). But, midweek, I ran for a train and actually caught it, despite thinking that there was no way I was fast enough or strong enough to make it (I would’ve had to wait an hour on a cold platform for the next one so I was certainly motivated). There’s no way that, a year ago, I could’ve managed that; I was so ridiculously proud of myself. So the hydrotherapy has definitely made a difference and I feel confident that the physiotherapy will only complement that.
I was also trying to drink more water. I definitely don’t drink enough and, given that the Autonomic Dysfunction I struggle with as part of my Ehlers Danlos leaves me prone to chronic dehydration, I should be drinking a lot more than the average person. I’m nowhere near that yet but I’m already drinking more than I was when I first measured my liquid intake.
It’s hard to know for sure but I felt like I was more productive and motivated than I had been previously. I was actually getting things done and getting them done at a faster pace: blog writing, songwriting, researching. I even went to an online writing workshop that I really, really enjoyed: the session was fun, the people were really nice, and I was really excited about what I wrote. My brain was just desperate for new things and new information; it was excited to learn. I don’t really know how to explain it any other way. I also went out and spent time with friends, went to a songwriters’ circle, and saw family friends. I was more social than I’d been in ages but I was kind of feeding on that, which is really unusual for me. But it was nice. And exciting. Oh, and I also started mentoring sessions for my creative projects, which I felt really optimistic about.
Unfortunately, the week didn’t end as well as it had begun, my depression hitting me like a tidal wave at full strength. It was so overwhelming that I felt like I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything. I was also really stressing about food and eating, feeling guilty as soon as I ate anything. I was miserable and exhausted and couldn’t focus on anything; I slept on and off during the day, dizzy and ears ringing. One side of my body was tingling too and we were this close to calling the doctor. It was horrible. I also found that I physically couldn’t relax: my body felt tensed up even though I wasn’t tensing my muscles (so I obviously couldn’t relax them if I wasn’t actually causing the problem). After several hours, my muscles started to hurt but I still couldn’t unclench them. My legs were twitching too and when I thought about it, I realised that that wasn’t new, that it had been happening on and off for weeks, as had the tensing in certain muscles. The more I thought about that, the more stressed out I got. I know that certain doses and/or extended use of certain medications, including Phenelzine can cause Tardive Dyskinesia, a movement disorder with symptoms including sudden and irregular movements in your face and body. It’s something that gets worse over time and the idea of developing it was really distressing to me.
In the following weeks, my sleep evened out, helped by CBD gummies and the occasional Diazepam or Zolpidem. I spoke to my psychiatrist about the twitching and whether it could be Tardive Dyskinesia. He felt that it was unlikely, that a much more likely cause was the physiotherapy, which I’d started around the same time the twitching started; he thought it was more likely that it was just my muscles waking up with the exertion I was putting them through for the first time in so long. So my anxiety was abated.
But now, several months later, the twitching is still happening and my anxiety is growing again. I’m going to go and see my psychiatrist and have a proper conversation about it because if it is something – something that needs to be dealt with rather than something that’ll just resolve in time – I need to know so that, at the very least, I can think about the options, whatever they are. It’s hard to believe they’ll be anything but bad though; past experience doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
Mental Health Update (May 2021)
Posted on May 9, 2021
Trigger Warning: This post contains mentions of self harm, but it’s simply a statement that it happened and there are no descriptions, graphic or otherwise. If this could upset or trigger you, please don’t read any further. Please always put your mental health and emotional state first.
So we’ve reached the last semester of the Master’s, with the big, final project that we’ve ultimately been working towards throughout this whole course. It’s a big deal, exciting and scary because – obviously – I want to do well and create a project that I’m proud of. But I am worried about my health, mental and physical, getting in the way and making it a difficult to both work hard and enjoy the process. So I thought, with all of this in mind, I’d write down where my head’s at and how I’m doing – I guess, so that I have a record of how I’m feeling right now, at the very beginning of the project.
At the moment, my biggest difficulties seem to be chronic fatigue and pain that are a result of my recently diagnosed Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I’m tired and sleepy all the time; some days, I can barely keep my eyes open during the day. While the physical tiredness is likely due to the hEDS, at least in part, we suspect the sleepiness is due to my antidepressant, Phenelzine. I want to switch to something else as soon as I can but mid-Master’s is not exactly a great time, given how long it generally takes for antidepressants to take effect and my track record of reacting badly to all but Phenelzine (so far, at least). So I’m having to just put up with that, with the dwindling help of Red Bull.
The pain has been really bad, particularly in my legs, arms, and back. For months, I’ve been taking painkillers daily but I feel like, over the last few weeks or so, it’s started to get slightly better. I’ve been doing the Occupational Therapy exercises for my wrists and hands and I’ve been able to start swimming again (yay!), both of which do cause pain of their own but it’s a very different pain and actually wears off pretty quickly while the hEDS pain tends to just get worse and worse unless I take painkillers. I’m getting better at figuring out where my limits are and stopping before I overdo it – most of the time. It’s hard but I do feel like I’m seeing progress.
My depression has been okay recently, much less of a problem than it has been in the past (she says while still on the ‘end’ of one, but I’ll get to that in a minute). I had one awful episode at the beginning of April, which did result in self harming. And then I had another episode last week, which I’m still feeling even if I’m not drowning in it anymore (it was kind of forced to the back burner by the worst migraine I’ve ever had). Both episodes were triggered by really upsetting news; they didn’t come out of nowhere like they sometimes do.
My anxiety has been a lot to deal with, but then there have been a lot of things to be anxious about: keeping up during the semester, the assessment and doing well in the module, all things COVID related (I’ve developed this weird house-separation-anxiety-like-thing whenever I’m out of the house too long, which is horrible), all of my health stuff, preparing for the new module and final project, trying to balance everything in my life, and so on. It’s exhausting and has a knock on effect; the rest of my mental health issues are all affected by my anxiety.
The two areas that are most tightly linked with my anxiety, I think, are my Trichotillomania and my OCD. My Trich hasn’t been too bad of late – not great but not unmanageable. But my OCD has been much more of a struggle lately than it sometimes is. I wrote about it in general here (so if you need a refresher on what my OCD is like, this is probably a useful read) but with everything going on recently, it seems to have kicked up a gear. I just can’t seem to do everything and then write all of it down; there aren’t enough hours in the day, which just leads me to getting more and more behind with everything, which just makes it worse and worse. Again, it’s just exhausting. I feel suffocated by it but I don’t know what to do about it; it feels like the walls are closing in around me and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.
As for autistic meltdowns, I haven’t had many of late. I think that’s because, despite my anxiety, I’ve had a really good few months. As I said in my previous post, this last university module and all the writing that came part and parcel with it was really good for me and I felt really good in myself so, in general, things didn’t build up to the point of meltdown. There were a number of occasions where something took me by surprise (for example, an unexpectedly triggering advert – I hadn’t even known that it was something that would trigger me so that was unfortunate for everyone) and I had a meltdown but as things go, it’s been better than it has been.
I’m not entirely sure how my ADHD manifests yet, having only received the diagnosis recently. If only it were as simple as getting the diagnosis and everything making sense… So I still have work to do in that regard. But I’m fairly certain – as certain as I can be at this point – that my issues concentrating and the feeling of my brain working against me are part of this picture. For the moment though, I’m in the dark about all of this. I’m in an impossible position medication-wise (I’m going to write about this in more detail at some point – it’s just that I’m still processing it all) so I’m stuck and unsure how to manage these problems. It’s frustrating and tiring and I wish there was an easy answer. Or even an easier one than I’m currently faced with. But there doesn’t seem to be. So I’m not sure where to go from here.
And the newest problem – because I really needed more problems… – are these migraines that I’ve been having over the last month. In the past, I’d have a migraine every few months or so but recently they’ve been different. They’ve been completely debilitating, painful to the point that I’ve ended up in A&E and had to have an ambulance called to the house because they’ve been so bad. They’ve also gone on for days when previously I could sleep them off and they’d be gone in twenty four hours. I’ve yet to find pain relief that does a decent job and I find that very scary. Calling 111 and them sending an ambulance because I was in so much pain but so light sensitive that even a darkened room felt too bright is a big deal and I’m scared of what’s next, of how it could get worse. I don’t know what’s causing them and no one else seems to either.
And finally… I’ve been the most consistent with therapy I’ve been since the pandemic began, even if I still find it hard and less productive when doing it over Zoom. But it’s looking like we’ll be back to face-to-face soon, which is exciting if scary – as I said, I’m finding it quite stressful to be out of my house. But hopefully, therapy will go back to being as helpful as it was pre-COVID, when it was face-to-face all the time. I don’t know exactly why it doesn’t feel the same over Zoom – maybe I find it harder to connect and talk about the hard stuff when I’m not in the same room as my therapist – but it just doesn’t, so I’m looking forward to getting back to the room.
So that’s it, I guess. This is my mental health (and I suppose, physical health update) before I start the final module of my Master’s, The Major Repertoire Project. Everything feels very messy and complicated right now, which isn’t exactly reassuring. I want to do well in the module, of course, but I also want to really enjoy it and really get the best out of it. The module doesn’t officially start until tomorrow but I’ve already started working on my project. I’m so excited. I just hope I can manage it with all of this other stuff going on.
The Third Semester of My Masters
Posted on January 9, 2021
So that’s it. The third semester of my Masters is officially completed. As I write this, I have just submitted my assessment work and have a week before the next semester starts (online, due to the current number of COVID cases). I have some reading to do for the next module but before I dive into that, I just want to reflect on the last semester, the ups and downs, and all that I’ve learned.
It began with a great deal of stress, and long before the semester was due to start. At the beginning of the pandemic, I’d said I absolutely didn’t want to do my course online and would defer if that was going to be the case. But as the new semester drew closer, I got more and more anxious. I didn’t want to defer but I also didn’t feel safe commuting to and then through London for two hours of classes a week so, after many hours of talking with my family (and many tears), I decided that the best option was to attend as an online student. It was a sad decision to make because I’ve always loved the group dynamic of my university classes but it just didn’t feel safe or responsible to attend in the way I’d have to.
And then, in the week or so before classes started, there was a great deal of stress around getting the right timetable as an online student: conflicting information, the classes not showing up on my online timetable, and so on. When things were already so stressful (the anxiety about the pandemic aside, I was really nervous about whether or not I was mentally up to doing the module with my mental health so fragile), this just triggered a series of really terrible meltdowns. It was a horrible and exhausting way to start the semester, especially the one I’d always been most anxious about: Musical Language in Songwriting. Music theory has never been a strong area of mine so the idea of experimenting with these concepts was very daunting.
While this was very distressing, I don’t want to point fingers or place blame. These are hugely difficult times and no university – no institution – is perfect, even when the world is running according to what we consider to be normal. So it’s not fair to expect everything to run smoothly. And now that I’m on the other side of the semester, I can only sing the praises of my tutors: over and over, I’ve seen just how dedicated, hardworking, passionate, and supportive they are. There have been bumps in the road, of course, but even with the sheer amount of stress they’re under – and that’s just the stress I’m aware of as a student – I’ve been consistently met with warmth, thoughtfulness, and understanding. And I’m just so beyond grateful for that. I couldn’t have completed this semester without their support.
I wrote about my first week back (here) but to summarise, it was a challenge. My uni were using a blended model of teaching so the lecture was online and the workshop was onsite (but as an online student, I was looped in through the online learning platform). The lectures were straightforward since we were all online, and productive once we got into a rhythm and stopped accidentally interrupting each other. The workshop, however, was more complicated: between not physically being there and only being able to communicate through the tutor’s laptop, plus not being able to see or really hear my course mates, it was very difficult. But I spoke to my tutor after the class and the next workshop was better.
I’d thought we were making progress but then suddenly, between week two and week three, I was moved to a new workshop group, an online group made up of just the online students. That really threw me; the constant uncertainty was doing a real number on my mental health. I was really struggling during this time: my anxiety over the pandemic, the expectations of the course, and being able to do well in the module was incredibly high; I was hugely frustrated with the whole situation; I was feeling overwhelmed by my depression, my low energy levels and side effects of medication… I was constantly in tears, constantly having meltdowns.
But slowly, as things started to settle, my mental state started to settle too. I had a really positive meeting with one of my tutors where he went through the learning outcomes and grading criteria and generally what makes a good assessment portfolio. I’ve found that having a meeting like this early on in the semester both helps me to work on the assignments more effectively and avoids unnecessary anxiety. As I said, I felt really supported throughout this module and I’m so grateful for that, both in terms of the module itself and in terms of the broader picture.
The assignments were challenging and definitely interesting, including a reimagination of a cover, a reimagination of an original song, and a brief that still makes me shudder: a song in an uncommon mode, using both 5/4 and 7/4 time signatures, with extended chords and an example of chromaticism (I struggled particularly with this one). We also had to consider the arrangement of each songs and to an extent, the production. The briefs definitely stretched me and prompted some very interesting songs, many of which I absolutely wouldn’t have written if I’d not done the module. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with them but I definitely learned a lot from writing them. Having said that, I did spend a lot of time feeling very unsure of myself and the quality of my work, both in terms of whether they were actually good songs and whether they were fulfilling the grading criteria.
About halfway through the semester, my course mates from the year before (those who’d done the Masters full time and completed it in one year rather than two) graduated and I joined them for the online ceremony to celebrate them and their achievements. We were all disappointed not to be able to get together to celebrate properly but hopefully that plan is simply postponed rather than cancelled. They all deserve it and it would be so lovely to see them again.
Six (out of twelve) weeks in, I was exhausted all the time. I was also still struggling with the nerve pain in my hand – the pain that I’ve been experiencing since the middle of the first lockdown – which was only getting worse, making it even more difficult to play instruments. I was still waiting for my rheumatology referral – that didn’t come through until the last week of the semester and even now, they still don’t know what the problem is.
The latter half of the semester was much more focussed on the assessment, at least it was for me. I worked on the songs I’d already written during the module before taking them into class again for more feedback so that I could get them as good as possible for submission (although I did impulsively write a rap that ended up being part of my portfolio). I also worked on the other part of the assessment: a short essay, analysing one of the songs I’d written and how I’d employed different aspects of musical language. I worked as hard as I could, determined to have at least most of the work done by Christmas so that I could have a break of some kind before the next semester started, unlike last year when I had to work straight through the Christmas break.
Despite the meeting early in the semester, I found it very difficult to judge whether I was doing ‘well enough.’ The learning outcomes and grading criteria felt incredibly vague and therefore not at all Autism-friendly, causing me a lot of anxiety. I mean, it’s Masters level and they have to cover all of the different styles of songwriting on the course so I do understand it but as an autistic person, it’s been one of the hardest parts of the course (uncertainty being a common area of difficulty for autistic individuals). I had multiple conversations with my tutors about it and although they noted it, it’s not like they could change them in the middle of the semester. I guess we’ll see if anything changes over time. I did get useful feedback on my songs and essay during those conversations but I still have no idea what to expect grade-wise.
By the end of the semester, I was almost done: I was making final edits to the songs and trying to cut down the word count of my essay. But the last week was hectic to say the least. I had a really lovely last day of classes – both groups I was a part of were so positive and fun to be a part of – and then a final one-on-one session with my tutor for any last feedback before the deadline (the first day after the Christmas break). That was really useful, especially as I was so close to finishing everything. I also had a meeting with my tutor for the next semester, so that I could prepare for it or, at the very least, get my head around what the expectations of the module were. Again, another attempt at reducing unnecessary anxiety, plus it was really nice to see him again; he’s taught me on and off since my first day on the BA (he actually auditioned me for the BA!) and he’s such a great teacher. I feel like he gets me and my approach to songwriting and I’m really excited to have him as a tutor again. And the semester itself ended for me with a meeting on behalf of ICMP where a group of us (students from different courses) spoke about our experience with the university. That felt good; I only ever want to leave things better than I found them and that meeting felt like an opportunity to do that. It’s re-inspired me to keep trying, even if I didn’t really need to be re-inspired.
I had one last session with Richard, sorted out a couple of technical issues with the tracks, and then I spent every day working non-stop. On Christmas Eve, I managed to finish everything. I was done – or had done as much as I could do without endlessly obsessing over every tiny detail – and could have an actual break between semesters. I really needed that and I had a good Christmas, despite everything going on. I wish I could’ve been with more of my family but we all recognised how risky that was. So we had a truly bizarre and hilarious Christmas Quiz and Zoom call and then dinner within our bubbles; it wasn’t perfect but I think we truly made the most of it and I really enjoyed it, even if there were difficult moments.
After a pretty restful break, I logged onto the student gateway to upload all of my work on New Year’s Day, several days before the deadline. But, for some unknown reason, the pages weren’t set up in a way that allowed us to upload the work required for the assessment. I had multiple meltdowns over it and after a handful of emails to various tutors, I was given an alternate way to submit. I shouldn’t really be surprised: this has happened multiple times and with the deadlines always on the first day back, there’s usually no one to contact for help. I was lucky to have had a tutor respond. Fortunately, it did get fixed on the morning of the deadline and we were all able (and asked) to submit. They usually fix it in time but it’s very stressful every time.
As I’ve already said, I’d been dreading this module but I ended up enjoying it a lot than I’d expected. It was still stressful but the tutors were incredibly supportive and my course mates were engaged and encouraging. It felt safe to bring in whatever I’d written, even if I really wasn’t sure about it (the rap, for example). It is hard being part time though, just as much this year as it was last year: for me at least, I’ve always felt ‘other’ to a certain degree, excluded (unintentionally) from the main group, the full-timers. Rather than being part of two years worth of Masters students, I’ve just felt not quite a part of either. It’s hard to explain but I’ve just never felt truly part of the course, like I’m always missing out on something because I’m only there (or ‘there’) half of the time. Does that make sense? I’m not even sure. Being part time has definitely been better for my mental health but it has made things more complex socially.
But ultimately, the module has been a good experience (although I’m sure my perspective on it will be affected to a certain degree by the grade I get). I think the biggest thing I’ve learned, or the skill that has developed the most, is how my decisions serve the song I’m writing; it’s made me much more conscious of my choices and it made me realise how much I already knew about the techniques we were using but just using them instinctively rather than deliberately. So that was surprising but it has opened up doors in my songwriting.
It was also exciting to start looking ahead to the next two modules: we had extracurricular sessions where students from last year presented their final projects to give us an idea of what that last module would be like. It was reassuring because it made the whole thing feel much more clear and less like a huge, intangible, overwhelming pile of work. Now it feels like an exciting challenge and I can’t wait to get started, regardless of the stress and anxiety involved.
Finding Hope 