Posted on September 25, 2021
After two years of being utterly focussed on my Masters, it’s definitely weird not having something specific to work on, having no deadlines to meet, and so on. It’s strange but also a welcome relief: between working on the module of the moment and dealing with whatever the pandemic threw up, plus my health stuff, it’s been an exhausting time. While I’m excited to start working on the next project, whatever that may be, I do need a break first – to rest, recover, and recharge my body and brain – and there’ve been a handful of things I’ve been looking forward to doing for when I finally reached this point.
These are some of the things I’ve held on to when I really felt the exhaustion or my motivation dipped:
There are also things that I’m less excited to do but they are important and I’ve been putting them off, either because they took too much time and energy away from working or because I was worried about how engaging with them would break what felt like the very fragile hold I had on my concentration, like it would be impossible to concentrate on my project again if I stopped, even for a little bit.
So things like continuing my Pain Clinic appointments, getting the prescription for my glasses updated (my current pair are at least four years out of date or whatever the phrase is – it must be doing a number on my eyesight and it’s probably not unrelated to all of my headaches), figure out what’s going on with my therapy situation, make a definitive decision about my medication, and try again to tackle my Trichotillomania. None of these will be fun or easy but hopefully they’ll all improve my life in the long run so they are worth doing.
So there’s my list. I love a good list. I find that they help me organise my thoughts – my often very restless, whirlwind thoughts. It’s been a tough few months but I’m looking forward to diving into all of these things.
Category: book, covid-19 pandemic, event, family, medication, mental health, music, sleep, therapy, trichotillomania, university, writing Tagged: adhd, adhd inattentive type, adhd medication, album, antidepressants, anxiety, asd, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, autism spectrum disorder, autistic, autistic adult, blog, blog writing, books, break, depression, exercise, exhaustion, family, films, friends, glasses, inattentive type, masters, masters degree, masters degree in songwriting, masters degree year two, masters part time, medication, mental health, mental health break, mental illness, movies, music, new album, new music, new projects, pain clinic, part time masters student, recovery time, rest, singer, singersongwriter, singersongwriter life, sleep, sleeping, stim, stimming, swimming, therapy, trich, trichotillomania, tv shows, university, writing
Posted on April 24, 2021
So, on the 4th January, England went into another national lockdown and this list was once again revived. This one felt much more like the first lockdown than the second, where many schools, businesses, etc were still open. When schools and universities started to open, my course remained online (it was one of the courses that could function solely online and meant less people going back to the uni) so lockdown continued for me. My life has only just started to involve going out again – swimming, getting a haircut, (safely) seeing a few people – and that’s why I’ve kept this list going as long as I have…
As I said in the last part of this list, hopefully there won’t be reason to continue this post; hopefully there won’t be any more lockdowns. But I guess only time will tell. I’ve found it strangely comforting to keep this list; it’s kind of like a time capsule for these strange periods of time, if that makes sense.
I hope you’re all keeping safe and well and I’ll see you in the next post.
Category: adhd, autism, covid-19 pandemic, death, diagnosis, heds, medication, meltdowns, mental health, music, tips, trichotillomania, university, video, writing Tagged: a&e, about-face, absentia, acoustic ep, acoustic sessions, adhd, adhd diagnosis, adhd medication, ancestry, ancestrydna, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ava, betsy lane, birthday, blood & water, cat family, christmas present, chronic fatigue service, chyler leigh, collaboration, coronavirus, covid test, covid vaccination, covid vaccine, covid-19, cowriter, cowriting, cowriting session, creating the queen's gambit, criminal minds, dare me, dbt, dialectical behaviour therapy, ecg, escape from pretoria, evermore, family history, fawm, fawm 2021, fearless (taylor's version), february album writing month, film, films, folklore, friends, grammys 2021, grey's anatomy, grief, grief anniversary, haircut, halsey, heds, honest ep, honest ep (sunburst sessions), hospital, how it ends, how to train your dragon, hypermobile ehlers danlos syndrome, hypermobility, inattentive type, interview, kalie shorr, lexie grey, lockdown, lockdown 2021, lockdown 3.0, luce, masters, masters degree, masters degree in songwriting, masters degree year two, masters part time, medical trauma, medication, meltdown, migraine, movies, my cat, my cats, my dog, natalie hemby, new amsterdam, new music, new music release, new music uk, new single, nicola walker, occupational therapy, online concert, part time masters student, peppermint, politics, put it in a postcard, remote writing session, research conference, rheumatologist, rheumatology follow up, richard marc, social distancing, songwriter, songwriting, songwriting competition, sunburst sessions, taking lives, taylor swift, the bay, the dig, the one, the one netflix, the queen's gambit, the shires, the wilds, therapy, tim minchin, tiny pretty things, travis meadows, trich, trichotillomania, triggered, tv show, unforgotten, university, us politics, world autism awareness week, world autism awareness week 2021
Posted on February 6, 2021
I’ve been working on some longer, more in depth posts recently, as well as trying to manage my physical health, mental health, and university work. Life is just… a lot right now. But I hate breaking my posting schedule. This blog is one of my absolute favourite things so I wanted to have something to post today, even if it isn’t exactly what I usually post. So, following on from this post, here are a few more things about me.
So those are a few more of the little things about me. This blog bounces between such specific subjects that sometimes I wonder if you guys feel like you actually know me. So every now and then, I want to update you on stuff like this to make sure that you do know me. Because I want you to know me as a whole person, not me through the lens of depression or OCD, etc.
Category: about me, animals, body image, covid-19 pandemic, depression, emotions, favourites, food, holidays, identity, music, ocd, university Tagged: about me, about the blogger, alcohol, ancestry, ancestrydna, anxiety, art, australia, autumn, baking, body image, bullet journaling, candles, cooking, criminal minds, edge of tomorrow, emily blunt, emily prentiss, fanfiction, films, flowers, food, friends, hamster, holiday, hot fuzz, iceland, insecure, kalimba, make up, movies, musical, musicals, new zealand, origami, pets, plants, sci fi, scifi, seasons, songwriting, stationary, travel, travelling, typewriter
Hi! I’m Lauren Alex Hooper. Welcome to my little blog! I write about living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD (Inattentive Type), and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), as well as several mental health issues.
I’m a singer-songwriter (it’s my biggest special interest and I have both a BA and MA in songwriting) so I’ll probably write a bit about that too.
My first single, ‘Invisible,’ is on all platforms, with all proceeds going to Young Minds.
My debut EP, Honest, is available on all platforms, with a limited physical run at Resident Music in Brighton.
I’m currently working on an album about my experiences as an autistic woman.