Finding Hope#ToHelpMyAnxiety
Posted on June 3, 2023
TW: Mentions of self harm and Trichotillomania.
So the theme set by the Mental Health Foundation for Mental Health Awareness Week this year was anxiety. They pushed the hashtag #ToHelpMyAnxiety to raise awareness but I didn’t see it once on social media so I decided to write a whole blog post on the topic, on what helps my anxiety as well as what I’ve heard from others about what helps them. I ranted recently about how people engage with Mental Health Awareness Week, and awareness days in general, but I do think that sharing coping mechanisms for anxiety is a useful thing to do and a good use of those days.
I live with very severe anxiety, so bad that nothing I do actually banishes it, but I have found certain things that help to manage or reduce it. And I’ve spent a lot of time talking with friends and acquaintances about anxiety, discussing how we all try to cope with it. So I have a lot of tried and tested methods that have all worked for at least one person and therefore will hopefully be useful to at least one of you. If any of these ideas help just one person, then it’s worth the work to compile them. (Some of these have been pulled from my experience as an autistic person but many of them are useful for anxiety so I figured it was worth including them.)
I do think it’s worth mentioning that not all of my coping mechanisms are good, healthy ones. I’m focussing on the healthy ones because those are the ones we should all be aspiring to practice but I felt it would be remiss to not even mention them.
General Tips:
- Maintaining a healthy lifestyle – Getting enough sleep, eating healthily, moving your body, and, in some cases, taking additional supplements (I am not knowledgeable about this, nor qualified, to give advice but I do personally take supplements on the advice of a nutritionist, one who has experience with my health problems) are all important in managing anxiety. Not getting enough sleep or not eating enough can drastically increase anxiety, as you’ll know if you’ve struggled with anxiety in the past (and present).
- Make sure I’m breathing properly – I know people who swear by deep breathing exercises but I don’t usually need to go that far; I often find myself breathing very shallowly and need to reset, take a deep breath and remind myself what normal breathing is. At home, singing is really useful for this, I think because it forces me to control my breathing, plus it’s something I love to do.
- Consciously relax my body – When I’m really anxious, I’ll suddenly find my body so tense that I’m like a coiled spring. I have to focus and physically relax my muscles – drop my shoulders, unclench my fists, uncurl my toes, etc – sometimes multiple times a day. I usually find the tension creeping in again but making the effort to relax over and over does seem to help.
- Avoid loud noises – Loud noises are a serious trigger for my anxiety so I try to avoid them as much as possible, although some environments seem to be exceptions, like concerts for example. Most of the time noise cancelling headphones do the trick so I’m very grateful to have such a great pair.
- Avoid certain fabrics – This is probably more Autism anxiety than general anxiety but I thought it might be useful to someone. The sensory irritation of some fabrics (I particularly struggle with acrylic and polyester) slowly overload my brain until my anxiety makes it impossible to concentrate. So sticking to safe textures, like cotton, is a good strategy, even if it does mean I miss out on cool clothes occasionally.
- Fidget toys or fidget jewellery – We all stim (shortened from self-stimulatory behaviour) to some degree, both neurodivergent and neurotypical people, and one of the most common reasons for stimming is anxiety. Many stimming behaviours aren’t harmful (and many autistic individuals enjoy their stims) but sometimes they are and sometimes they can draw unwanted attention. This is where fidget toys and fidget jewellery can be really helpful because it fulfils the same need as stimming but allows that behaviour to stay under the radar, if that’s what you want. I’m not ashamed of being autistic or of my stimming behaviours but some of them are harmful and need redirecting and some of them are such that I don’t always want them to be people’s first impression of me; I prefer to choose when I reveal that sort of information but still need to stim in the meantime.
- Creating something with your hands – I’m not very artistic, not in the making of physical art anyway, but I do find it soothing to make things with my hands, whether that’s doing origami or making friendship bracelets. This is apparently a very common thing, as it allows our brains to essentially switch off and take a break from the relentless noise pouring in.
- Bullet journalling – Organising and updating my bullet journal (or my version of it that’s accidentally evolved over the years) and to-do list help me to keep track of what’s happening so I don’t have to worry that I’m forgetting something.
- Learning a language – This is something I’ve learned over the last year. I started using Duolingo and found it to be a really good way to distract myself when I was anxious, plus I was learning something new at the same time. I would like to use the language and, in theory, I will but even if I don’t, I did manage to reduce my anxiety, learn a new language, and feel better about myself.
- Socialising (to the best of my ability) – Depending on what’s best for you, a certain level of socialising can be really good for managing anxiety (especially if you have someone to talk to who understands what you’re going through). It’s a bit of a balancing act because it can help up to a point and then become overwhelming, but if you can walk that line, you can find relief from anxiety in both socialising and alone time (as many of us know from experience, too much of either can just make the anxiety worse).
- Therapy – If your anxiety is ongoing or seriously impacting your life, therapy might be something to consider. I talk about my anxiety in therapy a lot: what I’m anxious about, what I can do to mitigate it, short term and long term strategies, what else it might be connected to. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my anxiety and although some anxieties are impossible to avoid, I have learned how to manage some of them.
At Home:
- Blanket – Unless it’s absolutely sweltering, I usually have a blanket draped over my legs and lap. It’s not a weighted blanket because those are just too much for me but a light blanket provides just enough weight to be calming, to be grounding.
- Controlling the temperature – I’m more able to handle my anxiety when I’m comfortable, regulating my temperature included. So that I don’t have to adjust the whole house, I have a little electric blanket that I can sit on if I’m cold (also great for my chronic pain) and an amazing fan (noiseless because the noisy ones can trigger my anxiety) and that way I can adjust the temperature really easily as I need to.
- Burning my favourite candle – When I’m feeling anxious, burning my favourite candle (my personal choice is the pink pepper grapefruit candle from The Candle Bar, but really any pink grapefruit candle will do) helps to relax me; I feel safer and calmer and like I can breathe more easily.
- Stroking my cats – It’s been scientifically proven that spending time with animals lowers our stress levels and I absolutely know it to be true from my personal experience. Being around my cats relaxes me and it’s only when I’m away from them – even for only a few days – that I realise just how much they reduce my anxiety. So being with animals, if possible, is definitely a good tactic and fortunately, these days, there are many ways to do that if it’s not possible to own a pet yourself.
- Favourite movies and TV shows – When I’m having a bad day, returning to my favourite movies and TV shows (even if I have to work on stuff while I watch them) is very calming. The familiarity and nostalgia of those stories and characters makes me feel safe, pushing the outside world and all its stresses away for a while. As psychologist Pamela Rutledge says, “It can become really therapeutic, especially if you are feeling anxious. Watching the same piece multiple times reaffirms that there’s order in the world and that it can create a sense of safety and comfort on a primal level.”
- Diary writing – I feel like, with every day that passes, I’m carrying around more and more memories and the longer I go without writing them down and putting them somewhere safe, the more anxious I get. This is where my OCD chimes in. Complying with that need to write everything down may feed my OCD but it also brings me huge relief, both in that it relieves the weight that I feel like I’m carrying – and the anxiety that I could forget those memories and that they’d therefore be lost forever – but also in that it helps me process what I’ve been going through; the act of writing out my thoughts and feelings helps me untangle and make sense of them. I couldn’t cope without it.
Out and About:
- Have a well packed bag – It often ends up being a little over excessive (and heavy) but by making sure I have everything I know I’ll need (or might need), I can avoid a lot of anxiety and uncertainty; it’s my safety net. The contents depend a little on where I’m going but I usually have my phone (and portable charger so that I’m always able to reach someone if I need to), my noise cancelling headphones, my ID, my wallet (and travelcard), my keys, my sunflower lanyard, a bottle of water, a face mask (and a spare), hand sanitiser, medication (for anxiety and pain), my bullet journal, a fidget toy, and something to distract myself with if necessary, like a book. I think that’s everything. But if I’m prepared for everything, I’m less likely to end up in a situation that triggers my anxiety because I already have a solution.
- Exercise – I think there’s a bit more nuance to this one than is often made clear. Because of my mobility and chronic pain problems, exercise is hard for me and swimming is the only thing I can reasonably do at this point, which isn’t something I can just get up and do. But I do love it and I do find that it makes me feel better. I do agree that moving your body is helpful but I think that you get more out of it when it’s a form of exercise you enjoy, rather than exercise for the sake of exercise. Some of my friends love running and find that really centering and yoga is often recommended as a good choice of exercises, particularly because of the relationship you develop with your breathing, another well known coping mechanism for anxiety.
Other People’s Tips:
- A change of scenery – Sometimes we can just get stuck in the spiral of anxious thoughts and one way to break that spiral is to literally move to a different place. Our brains are super sensitive to changes in our surroundings and new experiences are closely linked to reward and positive feelings.
- Gardening – While gardening is not something that helps me, it’s something that many people find really helpful, whether that’s tending a full garden or looking after plants and window boxes. My Mum loves to garden and when I asked her why she finds it relaxing, she said that part of it is that she’s outside and away from work, but also that it requires all of her attention and that there’s always progress to be made. I can definitely understand that even if plants specifically aren’t my thing.
- Reduce caffeine – I don’t understand the science, but it has been scientifically proven that reducing caffeine reduces stress. As far as I can tell, caffeine has no effect on me at all – energy-wise, at least – so I have no idea if it affects my stress levels. But if you’re ingesting a lot of caffeine, it might be worth cutting down your intake and seeing how you feel.
- Listening to music – Some people find listening to music deeply relaxing and it’s true that, as an activity, it lowers your heart rate and cortisol levels. Personally, it might physically relax me but since music is my job, it’s not very relaxing for my brain. I think they call it ‘a busman’s holiday.’
- Reading – Reading is also proven to lower your heart rate and ease tension in your muscles so it’s a technique worth trying but, of course, reading isn’t everybody’s cup of tea.
- Puzzles – My friend loves doing puzzles and, as it turns out, puzzles actually help release dopamine in your brain, which is why we feel good when we do puzzles. I prefer doing puzzles with people rather than doing them alone and I’m sure that that has its own benefits too.
- Self care – The idea of doing something that helps you feel good, mentally and physically, seems obvious but it’s so easy for all of us to get caught up in everything we need to do and everything we’re worried about, that we often forget. For some people, this is taking a long bath, for others it’s painting their nails, or catching up with a friend, sleeping in, or keeping a gratitude journal. The list of potential options is probably longer than The Lord of the Rings books so I’m sure there’s something useful there for all of us; it just might take a while to find the right thing.
- Meditation – I don’t know a whole lot about meditation (and all of the different types) but I know that some people swear by it. Not only does it reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD, it can also improve your sleep, blood pressure, and heart rate. Regular meditation can also physically change the structure of your brain, improving your senses, your concentration, and ability to process emotions. Knowing it can do all of that, it definitely seems worth researching.
- The 333 rule – I’ve seen many variations of this technique so you don’t have to stick to these rules, just the ones you set for yourself, the ones that work best for you. In this example, when you’re anxious, you try to redirect your focus to three things you can see, three things you can hear, and three things you can touch. I’ve heard some people say that this is too easy and doesn’t distract them enough, leading to all sorts of imaginative versions of this idea: my favourites, I think, are three things you can fit in your pocket, three things you can balance on top of each other, etc. Whatever works for you, if it works for you.
Other notes:
- I’ve been taking medication for my anxiety for a long time now, Diazepam as and when I need it (although it does have to be monitored, which it is). It has been incredibly helpful although I’m careful about never getting dependent. There are ebbs and flows in my anxiety where I take it more and I’ll take it if I know I’m about to do something stressful, like have a stressful meeting or take a flight, but it’s very much a balance of taking them and using other strategies like the ones I’ve listed.
- As I said, I do think it’s also worth noting that I have some harmful, self-destructive methods of coping with my anxiety. I’ve been self harming on and off since I was twelve because I just needed to give all of the intense feelings an escape route out of my body, like a pressure valve (it’s always been sporadic though – I’ve never been a really serious self-harmer, not in comparison to how much some people struggle with it). My hair pulling is worse though. I’m not sure if it’s Trichotillomania or if I’m stimming but either way, it’s not good: I’ve always been able to avoid it being visible but I have so many patches of hair at different lengths and my scalp gets so sore. I’ve also developed problems in my hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder from the repetition of pulling. But it’s so hard to stop and trying to resist the urge to pull causes me incredible stress and anxiety so I just end up pulling to escape it. I’m talking about it in therapy though so maybe we’ll make some progress with that.
So I hope this has been helpful. Hopefully there are enough ideas here that there’s something for everyone, to try at least. If you’re reading this and struggle with anxiety, I feel for you and I’m in this with you and I hope that you find something to help you manage it. Severe anxiety is not something that we just have to accept, just have to live with. There are ways to make it easier – maybe there are even ways to shed it – and I hope you find them because you deserve to enjoy your life. You deserve to feel everything, not just anxiety.
Operation Bupropion: SNAFU
Posted on February 12, 2022
TW: Mentions of self harm and suicidal thoughts.
So, I’ve been gone for a while. After having a bad reaction to the first ADHD medication, I had another bad reaction to the second, Bupropion, as well. Everything fell apart and I was really unwell for months; I couldn’t get out of bed, let alone write. I’m still not feeling great but things are better than they were and I am starting to feel able to write again, hence this new post.
After the mess that was Xaggitin, I was hopeful (kind of – in the only way you can be when you’re feeling hopeless and suicidal) that Bupropion would be better, given that it was an antidepressant but one that’s supposed to help with ADHD. I honestly don’t know whether it was better, which is somewhat mindblowing considering how awful the Xaggitin was.
As always, this is just my experience. Please don’t start, change, or stop taking any medications without the advice and support of a medical professional.
BUPROPION – 150mg
WEEK 1
The most pressing of the side effects was the nausea: it was overwhelming. And it went on all day, every day. It was horrendous. I was barely eating and while I can’t see it, I’ve had multiple people comment that I’ve visibly lost weight. (I also had a weird reaction to the Christmas tree in that it made the nausea even worse – it also irritated my eyes, nose, and throat, making my cough even worse, which wasn’t pleasant.)
I had consistent difficulty sleeping. I was always wide awake until very late at night (or early in the morning) and then I struggled to get up at anything approaching a reasonable time the next day – I also had a lot of very vivid, stressful dreams, which is something I’ve noticed pops up when I change medication. I was physically exhausted all the time (both therapy and hydrotherapy, for example, had me falling asleep on the sofa, which I haven’t done in months) and I was feeling very burned out and overwhelmed with nothing left emotionally as well as physically. I had a couple of almost meltdowns as a result (I think the only reason they didn’t turn into full on meltdowns was because I was so physically exhausted so I just shut down instead).
I was very depressed, feeling hopeless and having suicidal thoughts. I was also restless and had this ongoing sense of unease. It was awful but my psychiatrist strongly encouraged me to stick with it for a month to really get a feel for it, for whether it would help or not. The depression and suicidal thoughts could’ve been a hangover from the Xaggitin and the only way to know was to give it more time.
I was also having headaches, not quite at migraine level but not far off.
WEEK 2
The nausea continued, unfortunately. It was still bad but it was a little better on some days, I think. All of the food around Christmas was pretty stressful though: I still didn’t really have any appetite but I did manage to eat a bit, although what I used to consider a normal potion made me feel very unwell.
My sleep schedule remained messed up too. I was getting to sleep at around three in the morning (regardless of any help, that being medication or the methods I’ve used in the past that have helped) and then struggling to get up the next day. There was one night where I never got to sleep and then, the night after, I slept for fourteen hours and felt well rested for the first time in longer than I can remember. I’d hoped that that would right my schedule – at least a bit – but it didn’t. I was back to struggling to sleep the night after that. And I was still having the terrifyingly vivid nightmares. I was also physically exhausted: Christmas Day and a small family thing the day after Boxing Day, in particular, absolutely wiped me out.
The anxiety and depression persisted, plus I felt very, very emotional; I was restless and uneasy and I felt very raw and lost. It was pretty overwhelming.
The headaches continued too, plus the weird response to the Christmas tree: it made me feel very nauseous and made my eyes burn horribly. I love having the Christmas tree up so that didn’t help my mood.
BUPROPION – 150mg (+ PROPRANOLOL (20mg))
WEEK 3
I hadn’t wanted to start Bupropion and Propranolol at the same time since it would be impossible to tell if one of the two wasn’t working. So, two weeks in, I added the Propranolol. But while I’d remembered that, I’d lost track of time and forgotten that, after two weeks, I could up the Bupropion. So I was taking the half dose three days longer than I’d intended to (in which I also got my COVID booster).
The trouble sleeping continued. I was finally getting to sleep between two and five in the morning and then, of course, struggling to wake up in the morning. I was completely exhausted and finding it a real struggle to get out of bed at all, something that certainly wasn’t helped by my depression. Feeling depressed, hopeless, overwhelmed, and anxious… getting up and facing the world felt like more than I was capable of.
The nausea was still very present too and there were moments when I had to stop and sit down on the floor and just focus on not throwing up. It was very unpleasant. I couldn’t really handle food, not that I really had any appetite anyway.
I also had a headache that grew into a vicious migraine (with intensely painful light sensitivity). The COVID booster was positively pleasant in comparison. My arm was sore and heavy for a few days but that was it, symptom wise, as far as I could tell.
BUPROPION – 300mg (+ PROPRANOLOL (20mg))
WEEK 1
I only managed five days on the full dose of Bupropion. It was clear straight away that it wasn’t agreeing with me.
If I was sleeping, I was sleeping terribly: I was getting to sleep around three at the earliest and then desperately struggling to wake up in the mornings. But between the depression and the anxiety, I found getting out of bed felt overwhelming. The depression had gotten even worse – the worst it’s ever been – and everything just felt hopeless. The self harm urges and suicidal thoughts were relentless. I felt checked out of my life and I just couldn’t engage with anything, even things that I love and things that have previously helped when my depression’s been bad. The anxiety amped up too. I was just overwhelmed, terrified that something bad was going to happen; I felt like I was constantly trying to stop myself from panicking. The nausea and lack of appetite also persisted; I was barely eating anything. But I have to confess that I didn’t really care. Food is so stressful for me that not eating was a relief.
BUPROPION – 150mg (+ PROPRANOLOL (20mg) + LORAZEPAM (2-4mg))
WEEK 1
With things getting so bad, my Mum was calling anyone who could help us and my GP told us to go back to the half dose, adding Lorazepam to help with the overwhelming anxiety (which apparently not uncommon when taking Bupropion).
At this point, I’d basically stopped getting out of bed, only getting up to have a shower and try to eat something before going back to bed. My anxiety (including racing thoughts, which I’ve only had a handful of times) was so bad and so overwhelming that I just couldn’t engage with anything: everything made my anxiety worse. It messed with my sleep even more and I barely ate at all; just the thought of food made me incredibly nauseous. I had meltdowns and I self harmed (which didn’t actually make me feel any better) and just being up in the daylight made everything so much heavier so I stayed hidden in my darkened room. I was beyond miserable.
Halfway through that week, the Crisis Team (or Assessment and Treatment Team as I believe they’re formally called although everyone we spoke to called them the Crisis Team) came out to see me. As nice as they were, I’m not really sure what the point of it was. The guy wanted to make sure I was eating at least a bit; he wanted to know about my anxiety and depression; he wanted to know whether I was having thoughts of self harming and suicide, although he didn’t ask if I was planning on acting on those thoughts. And then he rambled a bit about me being monitored over the medication change. I’m not sure what good that would do. I’ve changed medications so many times now; I’d just be doing what I do every single time but with someone coming to see me everyday. How was that supposed to help? What was that going to achieve? They offered to refer us to one of their psychiatrists, which my Mum asked them to so so that we could find out whether, at this point, there was any point in continuing with the Bupropion or whether I should start coming off it officially. As I said, they were nice but it was a pretty frustrating and upsetting experience and I just wanted to cry. I wrote in my diary afterwards: “Oh my fucking god, I can’t keep feeling like this every day, over and over again. It just makes me want to tear my hair out and rip my skin off and scream until my throat tears.”
Over the rest of the week, I continued to sleep badly and struggle to wake up. I lay in bed all day, my brain just spinning out of control: my thoughts felt very chaotic and it was all just big, overwhelming feelings that I couldn’t make sense of. I felt like I was losing control of my mind – like I was just a spectator – and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t stop crying. I was depressed, anxious (by the end of the week, I was up to 4mg of Lorazepam daily – prompted by calls to 111 and then my psychiatrist – although I was still paralysingly anxious), terrified, miserable, and exhausted: those seem to be the words I wrote down the most. Eating was an ongoing struggle, although the nausea had finally dissipated (for the most part).
After speaking to my Mum, my psychiatrist recommended I come off the Bupropion and, with my depression so bad, go back to an MAOI antidepressant since we’ve had the most success with them. I wasn’t thrilled by that plan (I’m still not wild about it) because the Phenelzine isn’t great, plus it massively limits the options for ADHD medication. But there don’t seem to be any other available options so I just went with it. With the two week wash out period, I didn’t have to make the decision straight away.
WASH OUT
WEEK 1 (20mg Propranolol + 4mg Lorazepam)
My sleeping schedule got worse: it was taking longer and longer to get to sleep until I was eventually drifting off at around five in the morning. That, of course, meant I was waking up later. I didn’t really mind that: I didn’t really want to be awake anyway and being awake in the dark didn’t feel quite as difficult as it did in the daylight hours. I did get up each day – to shower, to try to eat – but it was a miserable experience that usually resulted in tears. I felt completely overwhelmed and just didn’t know what to do with myself but I was still restless and felt like I was constantly on the verge of a meltdown. Even though I wasn’t doing anything, I was completely exhausted, which just made the inability to get to sleep that much more frustrating.
I had periods of intense anxiety but for the most part, the depression was overwhelming and suffocating. I felt separate and disconnected from my life, and like I couldn’t get back to it. I felt completely hopeless and the suicidal thoughts continued. I was completely miserable.
WEEK 2 (20mg Propranolol + 4mg Lorazepam)
I was constantly exhausted, barely eating and my sleeping just kept getting worse, getting more screwed up and out of sync. I took sleeping pills, I tried every strategy that’s ever worked, every possible combination… but I just couldn’t get to sleep; it just got later and later until I was going to sleep at eight in the morning. It was miserable. I was miserable: I was in tears multiple times every day; I was incredibly anxious (I’m not convinced the Lorazepam was doing anything); I was deeply depressed and consistently having suicidal thoughts and thoughts about self harming (which I did act on although it didn’t make me feel any better). It was the worst I’d ever felt. Everything just felt impossible, overwhelming and hopeless and I just didn’t know how to act like that wasn’t how I felt. It was all too much and I just didn’t know what to do with myself: I couldn’t engage or connect with anything. Everything felt wrong and uncomfortable and sad.
It’s a really hard state of mind to describe so I thought I’d include some of the things I wrote in my diary during the week:
- “I hate being in my own brain.”
- “I feel like screaming and tearing my face off and breaking things.”
- “I feel like I’m constantly on the edge of a meltdown.”
- “Everything about all of this medication stuff feels hopeless. It just feels like this is forever because I either have to choose between my depression and my ADHD, which one to treat, which one is worse. I don’t want to be me. Why couldn’t I have had a brain like everyone else I know? I feel so desperately jealous of people who’ve never struggled this way; I’m even jealous of those who have struggled but can take medication to manage whatever they need to manage, lead the lives they want to live, be functional, be happy… Apparently, I can’t. There’s always going to be something wrong, something pressing down on me and making life harder. It feels like everything could shatter any second and I’ll end up in a meltdown that I’ll never be able to get out of.”
- “I miss me. I miss who I was before all of this. But after everything, I don’t know if it’s possible to get back to that person. That person doesn’t feel like me anymore. I feel trapped. I hate being me.”
- “I feel like I’m being forced to choose between my depression and my ADHD and I’m just so angry that it’s almost ten years later and I’m still dealing with this; I’ve tried almost twenty different medications to manage it all and yet, I’m still in the same place. It’s still so difficult.”
So it was a rough week after a rough few months. The wash out period is up but I still don’t know what to do. There are so many reasons why I don’t want to go back to MAOIs – messy, convoluted reasons that I don’t even know how to put into words – but there doesn’t seem to be another option. I still don’t want to take them though. I feel completely stuck.
This was several weeks ago now and as much as I didn’t want to go back to an MAOI, I had a bit of a breakdown and started taking a new antidepressant, Moclobemide. I was desperate. And, as I said, things aren’t great but they are better than they were. I still feel very conflicted about what to do around the medication and the clash between the medications for each condition but at least I am feeling clearer and not so completely overwhelmed.
The Fifth Semester of My Masters
Posted on September 19, 2021
The time has come to sum up the final semester of my Masters. I am done. That’s sort of unbelievable. Given everything that’s happened since I started the course in September 2019, the end of the Masters always felt so far away and although I have lots of plans, I do feel a bit lost now that all of the work is done. Maybe it’s because I haven’t received my final grade or because I haven’t actually graduated yet; maybe once those things happen, the experience will feel a bit more… finished. It was always going to be weird – I’ve been going to this uni on and off for the last seven years – but knowing something and actually feeling it are so different.
So, here is my final semester review.
The final semester of my Masters course involves a largely independent project called the Major Repertoire Project and as long as you’re developing your songwriting skills and knowledge in some way, you can pretty much do whatever you want. People have done projects exploring identity, exploring their heritage, writing song cycles or musicals, digging deeper into their own songwriting and pursuing an artist project like an album, experimenting with newer applications of songwriting (such as in various therapies), and so on. It’s a fascinating module because everyone ends up doing something so different and so interesting. And after a spending a year or two focussing on their craft, the songwriting is so incredible; the final works that I’ve heard are amazing. It would probably take a month but I would happily listen through everyone’s projects.
For my project, I chose to explore my experiences as an autistic woman through songwriting, attempting to translate those experiences both through the lyrics and storytelling and the execution of the song, from the structure to the arrangement to the production and so on. I wanted to write songs that autistic individuals would hopefully relate to and that neurotypical individuals would hopefully gain some insight from. But while the overall goal was to create a body of work, a large part of the project involved researching our chosen area – Autism, in my case – responding to the research (sometimes that was through practice and sometimes it inspired specific songs), and reflecting on my songwriting process and how it was evolving during the project.
The module officially began in the second week of May but I’d already started working on it: I’ve been thinking about this project ever since I applied for the Masters so I was super excited to finally start doing it. But I’d barely begun when I started getting debilitating migraines that lasted for days at a time and resulted in several ambulance visits because the pain was so bad. We eventually traced the source back to one of my teeth: the emergency dentist thought the nerve was dying and diagnosed an abscess. I was top priority for an extraction and given antibiotics (which I had to have a second round of when it flared up again midway through the semester). Fortunately my university granted me an extension – giving me back the time that I’d lost – but it was a flexible extension in case I suddenly got pulled in to have the tooth taken out and needed some recovery time. Due to the long waiting list (and bear in mind that this was the waiting list for emergencies), I still haven’t had the tooth taken out and while the antibiotics and some good painkillers have prevented any more similar episodes, I’ve still been dealing with some tooth pain and migraines. So that hasn’t been ideal.
We only had four classes over the semester but since everyone was researching something different, they weren’t exactly classes. They were more group discussions where we’d talk about how our research and writing was going, whether we were struggling in a particular area, what we could do if we felt like we weren’t fulfilling one or more of the overall objectives, and so on. We had individual supervisors for the more specific guidance and problems whereas this was more general and we were able to share with each other what we’d found helpful, etc. These classes were online but we were finally able to come into the building. With most of the other courses finished for the summer, it was pretty empty and I felt safe there; you had to test negative just to get in the building and with no one around (pre-COVID, it could be a bit of a crush at times), my pandemic anxiety was a lot lower than it usually is when I’m out in the world. Being there after so much time and getting to see some of my friends again made me positively giddy! And there were some friends that I was actually meeting in person for the first time, which was just wonderful! I’m really going to miss it; I mean, I’ll pop in now and then for events and stuff but I’m really going to miss it being part of my day-to-day, week-to-week life.
Anyway. My supervisor was truly awesome. We had fortnightly and then weekly sessions and she was fantastic, not only with the academic stuff but with helping me to manage my anxiety, the things that tripped up my neurodivergent brain, and so on. And while we worked together well, we also had a lot of fun: we went on some epic tangents and there were multiple conversations that we had to mentally bookmark for later in order to actually get our work done. We got on really well and our sessions were always fun and thought-provoking, as well as helpful. I hope that this isn’t the last time we get to work together.
I obviously know a lot about Autism already so, after finding sources for that information, I started writing songs about my experiences and researching Autism further. Having the foundation of knowledge that I did, I think allowed me to research both more deeply and down different avenues since I didn’t have to spend so much time on the basic knowledge. And some of that research, from academic papers to anecdotal stories to art made by autistic individuals, sparked some really interesting song ideas (for example, I ended up writing a love song after watching Love on the Spectrum, which I found both upsetting and deeply depressing as an autistic person).
I don’t want to give too much away about the songs because I hope to release them but, over the semester, I wrote eighteen songs with a handful more that still need finishing. For the most part, I wrote alone – first because it was more convenient and then because I felt like my experiences were conveyed with more clarity that way – but I did work with a few different people, when I was struggling with a concept for example. I wrote with a couple of my friends – Richard and Luce (known as LUCE) – but I also wrote with new people that I’ve met during my time on the Masters – Luke (known as leadmetoland), Phill Vidler, and Katherine Moynihan – which was fun and exciting. It was nice to do both: I love cowriting and the back and forth of ideas but doing so much writing by myself really restored my confidence; I’ve spent so much time cowriting over the last two years and really not that much solo writing so I was nervous when I started to write alone again but after a while, it started to feel really good and that was really exciting.
But while I didn’t manage to write with Richard as much as I’d originally hoped to, we had many production sessions, mostly over Zoom. While I’d never considered the production unimportant, the project evolved to a place where the production was just as key to the representation of my autistic experiences and the emotions attached to them as the lyrics conveying the story or message. So the two of us spent a lot of time working on every little detail. While I’ve always been involved in the production choices of my songs, I’ve also always been aware that Richard knows a hell of alot more than me so I was happy to defer to his judgement. But with this project, for the first time really, I was taking the lead on production decisions – on occasion, I had the whole arrangement and production planned out before the session. But I felt more like a producer than I ever have: I was coming up with ideas that actually worked from idea to execution; I was able to pick out specific instrument, arrangement, and effect details in a way I haven’t been able to do up to now; and so on. Along with the songs themselves, that’s something I’d really proud of. I really feel like I grew as a musician and as a producer.
I absolutely loved working on my project. To be researching and writing songs about something I’m so passionate about was just so creatively invigorating. That’s not to say it wasn’t hard though. There were, of course, periods of doubt, insecurity, and anxiety over the academic elements and whether I’d be able to do as good a job as I desperately wanted to. Plus, some of the experiences I was digging into were pretty raw and writing those songs did get difficult, especially since I was suddenly doing the project without the support of my therapist, something I’d put in place to help me manage that. But apart from one bad bout of depression, my mental health was – somehow – reasonably stable (apart from my day-to-day, ongoing anxiety). As I said in my previous post, I think it was the constant creating (and creating things that I’m really proud of) that did it, that kept everything on a reasonably even keel.
Having said that, my chronic pain was almost constant, worse than it’s ever been. There were periods where my knee, for example, was so painful that I could barely walk and my back so painful that I could barely move. My Mum (once a massage therapist) said that it felt like I was storing rocks in my muscles. It certainly felt like they were made of concrete. Maybe it was my anxiety around the project, I don’t know, but the pain was keeping me up at night. I also struggled on and off with my hands and wrists, presumably from all of the typing, piano, and guitar playing I was doing. God, my various health issues are like freaking buses sometimes. I’m still waiting for physiotherapy and hydrotherapy, have been for months. I’ve just started with the Pain Clinic but one appointment was never going to change anything before the Masters ended. So all I had were various painkillers that were only sporadically helpful.
But my biggest ongoing obstacle was my difficulty concentrating, which I’m assuming is due to my (still untreated) ADHD. Staying focussed on my work was very difficult; I exhausted all of my energy trying. It felt like my concentration was so delicate that the smallest distraction would shatter it and then there was no way to know when it would come back; I felt like I was clinging onto it by my fingertips. So I couldn’t stop (really not healthy, I know). I couldn’t waste a second of it. That was super stressful and I often ended up sitting at my computer for hours and hours; there were multiple fourteen hour days, some successful, some not. People kept telling me to at least take a day off now and then but I just couldn’t. I was too scared of losing my concentration when my hold on it felt so tenuous.
During the semester, I also had a few other commitments; it was awkward timing but they were all great opportunities:
- As I mentioned in my post about the previous semester, I was part of the judging panel for a songwriting competition. That ended up being a lot of work but fortunately I managed to get it all done in time for this module to start. The end was pretty stressful because our deadline was suddenly brought forward but it was a great experience and I learned a lot from it; there were so many amazing songs and so many talented songwriters and they’re all still pretty young. I hope they keep writing; some of them I’d love to see pursue songwriting as a career. The final winners weren’t the ones I personally would’ve have chosen but I guess that’s what happens when you’re judging by committee and there are so many good songs to chose from.
- I also submitted work to a competition: three songs, two already written and one that I wrote as part of this project. I was supposed to find out whether I’d made it through the first round in August, I think, but, because they’re also an organisation and not just a competition, COVID has thrown a wrench in the plan and so the whole thing has been delayed until February. So I guess I won’t know anything for a while.
- One of my tutors is doing a research project on the many reasons why we write songs and I volunteered to share my thoughts. In mid July, a handful of students came together for a Q&A panel about our personal songwriting intentions, processes, and experiences. It was really interesting with a pretty wide range of reviews and even a couple of debates. Hopefully some of what we said was useful for the research.
- Also in July was the Taylor Swift focussed musicology conference I mentioned in my post about the previous semester and I presented my paper on some of Swift’s lyric writing techniques: her repeated use of certain imagery and the ongoing themes throughout her discography. I loved researching it (and hope to research it further in the future) and writing the paper – so much so that it ended up being over ten thousand words long and I had to do some major editing work. Presenting the paper – I ended up recording it and presenting it in video form because I was so nervous – was very nerve-wracking: everyone was lovely and very welcoming but I was just so aware of how inexperienced I was. But it went really well and I really enjoyed the whole conference; there were so many interesting papers. I hope it’s a conference that can happen again (not just because I have so many ideas that I’d love to research but because Taylor Swift is so fascinating on so many levels; there’s a lot that can be learned from her, not just around music but in business, in the development of pop culture, and so on).
In the last month, my approach reached a new level of intensity. I was working constantly, quickly when my concentration was good and agonisingly slowly when it was bad. But I didn’t stop. I even worked while I ate. I know that’s not a healthy way of doing things but I was just so terrified of getting a grade I wasn’t happy with, that made me feel like I was letting everyone down, myself included. If I wasn’t working, I felt guilty so I just kept working.
Finally it came time to try and distill all my work down to the most important points for the final presentation. My god, that was hard. Months of research, almost twenty songs, and a lot of reflection on my creative process all into an hour… Or, as I said, the most important points. But figuring what those important points were was a real struggle. Throughout the whole Masters, I felt like the module objectives were designed to trip me up – not me specifically, of course, but anyone reading them. Reading them felt like trying to interpret another language that you barely understand so I felt like I was just waiting to discover that I had it all wrong. Maybe it was my autistic brain, I don’t know. My supervisor was great regarding this anxiety but two years of feeling that way made it a hard feeling to exorcise. So I just did what I know how to do and worked through it, hoping it would be enough. And on the 6th September, I had my final assessment. Two tutors watched my presentation and then, after a brief discussion, they asked me a couple of questions, both of which were pretty straightforward to answer. And that was it. The project and the semester was over.
According to the usual rules, the results will be released in twenty working days, although I don’t know if that will apply given that my assessment was so much later than everyone else’s and they all received their results the day after I presented. So I’m just waiting to hear. I’m trying not to stress about my grade but, as I said in my previous post, I’m finding it hard. I’ve been working relentlessly – with so many obstacles to navigate – and the idea that that still wasn’t enough to get the Distinction I want so badly does upset me. I mean, I’d get over it in time but, yeah, it would be distressing. I just really hate the idea of thinking, “I could’ve gotten a distinction if I wasn’t autistic or had ADHD, etc.” I know that that’s not a healthy way to think but the standards and expectations I have for myself are somewhat warped, something that I think is due to the late ASD diagnosis and the clash between twenty-ish years with neurotypical standards and then having to adjust those expectations in accordance with what I now know is a neurodivergent brain. It’s a mess basically. But I’m waiting for the results – they should be out on the 6th October – and hoping desperately that it went as well as I hope it did.
While the ‘project-for-assessment’ is over, I definitely want to keep working on the songs, write some more on various elements of my autistic experience that I just didn’t manage in the timeframe, and then, hopefully, release it in some form. That’s the dream. I’m so proud of so many of these songs and I really, really want people to hear them and hopefully find strength or comfort in them. We’ll have to see because these projects are just so expensive to put together, from the production work to making music videos to all of the marketing.
And while this is a topic for another post, it should be acknowledged that the semester ended on a very sad note. I found out the morning after my presentation that my Granny had died. Between that news and an intense semester’s worth of work and my brain is just at overload. I can’t tell if I’m not feeling anything or feeling everything. I don’t really want to get too deeply into all of this, partly because I’m not ready and partly because, if only on my blog, I want to keep this semester and this project separate. I really just wanted to mention it in the context of all the emotions I’m dealing (or maybe not dealing) with right now.
So that was the final semester. But there’s still a couple more chapters in this story, so to speak. Graduation will hopefully go ahead as planned – in person – in November and then who knows? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
My apologies if this post is a bit all over the place: everything’s really hitting me and I’m just exhausted but I wanted to get this out while it’s still fresh.
Finding Hope 