Finding HopeThe 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.
A (Fairly) New Development: Chronic Pain
Posted on March 27, 2021
This post feels like it has been a long time coming but I didn’t want to post anything before I had more to say than ‘I’m in pain’ and, at long last, I do. But first, context: I started struggling with chronic pain about halfway through the first UK lockdown, early last year, and it’s been really, really tough. But recently I finally got some answers and started to get some support. And while it’s not a journey that’s over – if that’s even a possibility – I’ve come far enough that I feel like I can talk about it with a certain level of knowledge and emotional distance. So, here we go…
It started out as sporadic pain in my left hand and arm. I’ve experienced this on and off before, due to my extensive writing and my compulsive hair pulling, so I wasn’t overly concerned. Waking up to my hand being numb and tingly was unusual and a bit unnerving but given how much I was writing and how much hair I was pulling out – both of them being outlets for stress – during that first lockdown, I figured that I was just straining that arm a bit more than usual and that it would probably go back to normal as my anxiety decreased.
But then I started developing an ache in my left leg. I don’t really know how to explain it but it felt like it was coming from somewhere deeper than the centre of my leg, deeper than was physically possible. And then what started out as a painful but sporadic ache turned into attacks of debilitating pain, like electric shocks shooting through my leg at random. They were (and are when they still happen) excruciating and had me collapsing on the floor every time, sobbing or even screaming. There were a few so bad that I ended up hyperventilating so hard and long that I nearly passed out. And if that wasn’t bad enough, both the ache and random electric shock attacks spread up to my lower back. None of the common painkillers did anything and I was living in constant fear of the pain hitting me with no warning.
Eventually I was prescribed painkillers but I could only take them for a few days at a time to avoid their addictive nature. They actually – FINALLY – helped; it was such a relief. But the days in between were miserable and the painkillers I was taking in between was barely making a dent. I was also referred to Rheumatology at the hospital.
That was in May (of 2020) and I had to wait until December for an appointment. While, objectively, I can completely understand that, given how overworked hospitals are due to the pandemic, the waiting was also horrendous: I was in constant pain and desperate for help. It was hard to be patient, especially when it was affecting my education because the pain was so bad that I could barely play any of my instruments. It was a really hard time, and that was without all of the COVID-19 and other life stuff.
Eventually the appointment arrived. We didn’t learn much but it got things moving. The hypermobility diagnosis was confirmed and the possible diagnosis of Fibromyalgia was dismissed. I was referred to various departments, including Occupational Therapy, Hydrotherapy (although the consultant wasn’t sure when it would be available due to the pandemic), and, after discussing multiple different medications (many of which I’ve already taken and had negative reactions to), Pain Management. The consultant recommended I have an ECG every five years or so as heart problems can occur with connective tissue disorders and booked my first one for me, as well as an MRI, just to double check my back. She said we’d have another appointment in three months, after the ECG and MRI (it’s been more than three months at this point but I’m hopeful it will be soon since I’m still in a lot of pain).
After the wait for that appointment, I was expecting to wait for ages but we received a call about the MRI less than a week later. The woman who arranged it for us was really thorough and really aware of what might be helpful for me as an autistic individual, suggesting and putting in place so many things to reduce any of my anxiety; for example, I could have Mum in the room with me, I could play music, I could hear the sounds the MRI made before getting in it, she suggested taking Diazepam first, and so on. So that was really helpful. Surprising (I don’t think that’s ever happened before an appointment or procedure before) but very helpful.
The MRI itself was actually a really interesting experience. It was completely manageable and I actually found it quite soothing in a weird way. And, of course, my musician brain couldn’t help but wish I could sample the different sounds the MRI made to use in various tracks. It was over pretty quickly and the whole process was super efficient. I really want to see the images; I don’t know if she’ll bring it up but I’m gonna ask the consultant if I can see them at the next appointment. I’m weirdly intrigued. I mean, I’ve always been kind of fascinated by how my body works specifically (seeing my brainwaves was super cool, for example, and one day I’d love to see images of my brain) so I’m just really curious about what my spine looks like. Like every other spine, I’m sure, but I’m still curious.
(Throughout this time I had been swimming where possible – according to what felt safe and as lockdown allowed – and I’d started incorporating the basic hydrotherapy exercises that the hypermobility specialist had recommended.)
I was prescribed a new daily pain medication but I didn’t really feel like it helped (and I’m still not convinced that it’s actually doing anything helpful). The only thing that helped – and still the only thing that helps is the painkiller that I can only take for a few days at a time; it’s the only thing that has consistently given me pain free periods of time. But, as I said, I can only take it for a few days at a time and the other days are pretty awful.
Around New Year (2020-21), I noticed that the pain was spreading and by the end of January 2021, I was struggling with pain from my toes all the way up to my neck. I rarely experienced pain in my whole body all at once but it had reached a point where there was practically no area of my body that didn’t experience this specific type of pain and often for extended periods of time. My hands, arms, lower back, and lower legs were the worst.
I began Occupational Therapy in February for the pain in my hands. The therapist gave me compression gloves (I have tiny, skinny hands and so they turned out to be too big and I had to buy a smaller pair) and a series of ‘gentle’ exercises that would supposedly allow me to control the hyperextension in my fingers. Right from the start they were painful and I had to drop one of them straight away; it just hurt too much. But I worked hard at the others, whilst simultaneously trying not to work too hard and accidentally regress.
The therapist also discovered that the Pain Management referral hadn’t gone through and put a rush on it – apparently, because the pain is directly affecting my education, I should move me up the waiting list more quickly than if I wasn’t currently doing my Masters. So I guess that’s good news. Hopefully it makes up for the time lost with the referral not going through. She also had some suggestions around swimming during lockdowns, which unfortunately didn’t come to anything but it gave me hope and it was something to work on. That was better than just waiting.
In the following OT session, we talked about the pain caused by the exercises and she reduced them to every other day, which has been better, but I’m still in pretty much constant pain to some degree. But she was pleased with the progress I’d made. Unfortunately though, she thinks I’m probably in the group of people that take the longest to see real change. That’s not massively surprising to me – I’ve been in similar positions before – but it’s still frustrating. Like, out of all of this stuff, couldn’t one thing not be super hard? Couldn’t one thing have the best possible outcome? Anyway. It’s pointless to speculate about that stuff; it’s not like I can change it.
I’d been doing some research on hypermobility but as far as I can tell, it’s a symptom rather than a condition or disorder, like Joint Hypermobility Syndrome or Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. And since only ‘hypermobility’ had been mentioned up to that point, I asked what my actual diagnosis was and after some conferring between the various people involved, they agrred on a Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which explains both the chronic pain and the chronic fatigue (I don’t know what this means for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis – at some point, we’re all going to have to sit down and work out which diagnoses are still relevant and which are now out of date), as well as multiple other problems. So there was this huge rush of relief and that lasted several days before I just felt overwhelmed. It’s an experience I’ve had before: finally knowing is amazing but then the reality of it all sinks in and it’s just a lot to process. Life is suddenly different. It’s not what you thought it was. So, yeah, it’s a lot. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about if you’ve been through a similar experience. But I’m getting there. The dust is starting to settle.
We’re still waiting on some of the other things, like the Pain Management referral and the second appointment with the Rheumatologist. And I’m continuing with the OT; I’ll be graduating to a new set of exercises soon. I’m also super excited to swim again when it becomes possible. We’ve already got several slots booked at our favourite pool. Plus, I’m due to get my first COVID vaccine soon, which will make me feel safer about swimming, even at this pool that takes the safety precautions so seriously.
So this is where we are. As I said, I didn’t want to write this post until there was a natural stopping point in the writing of it. And this seemed to be that moment: we have the beginning, the diagnosis (or diagnoses), and now we have the treatment. Obviously that’s ongoing and there are still different areas to pursue for support. So, I guess, all we can do now is see how things go and hope the pain improves.
A Week In My Life (February 2021)
Posted on February 20, 2021
It’s a whole new year, a whole new semester… and a whole new lockdown. So I guess it seemed as good a time as any to do another of these week-in-my-life posts. A lot has been going on recently so I thought it might be a good week to document, as much for myself as for anyone else; it’s all been a lot to process and I thought this might help with that.
The week in this post began on Monday 1st February and ended on Sunday 7th February 2021.
MONDAY
I usually like to keep Mondays gentle, given that Tuesday is a long day with my uni classes but this Monday was different. I struggled up (I’m naturally a morning person but between my medication and the pandemic, I’m just tired all the time, which makes getting up in the morning a real battle), had a shower, and managed a bit of breakfast before my first official Occupational Therapy session – I’ve had a consultation but this was the first ‘practical’ session, I guess you could call it.
There were still a lot of questions – all the hows and whens and so ons around the pain in my hands – but the therapist also taught me a series of exercises that I should do daily and how they would help with my pain. She also explained how it all linked in with my hypermobility. So it was really helpful and an encouraging step forward after feeling stuck for so long but despite how little I had to do each day, the exercises caused more pain. I’ve been trying to continue with them as the therapist did say that that could happen but it’s hard to motivate yourself to put yourself through pain. I will have had another appointment by the time this goes up so hopefully I’ll have had some advice on this.
She also had some recommendations on private pools that we could book since swimming is the only real exercise I can do, for the lockdown specifically but also to use until the Hydrotherapy referral comes through. She’d also double checked the Pain Management referral to find that it hadn’t reached the department and so pushed it through personally – apparently, because the pain is impeding my education that puts me further up the list than I might’ve been otherwise. So that was all good but the appointment was pretty exhausting. I actually fell asleep for a couple of hours afterwards.
I woke up suddenly and realised I was ten minutes late for my cowriting session with Richard. That startled me awake, I can tell you that. I scrambled up and logged into Zoom. We had a really good session, finishing a song we’d started the previous week, ‘One More Time.’ I really like it and I’ve been singing it, the chorus especially, ever since we wrote it. It’s one of my favourite songs I/we’ve written recently.
With the demo finished, we talked about the upcoming projects we’re working on, alone and together, for our Masters and for our own projects. That was productive as well, although the creating is always my favourite part of any session.
Several of the cats had been hanging out with me the whole time (I think we were on the call for about four hours in total) and they were being ridiculously adorable. Mouse in particular looked very content with the situation. Having them around all of the time is one of the things that has made this last year bearable; I’m beyond grateful for them.
I was exhausted after that and curled up on the sofa with Criminal Minds. I’ve been rewatching it over the last few weeks and I’d forgotten how much I love it, how much I love the characters; I think Emily Prentiss was one of my first Favourites with a capital F TV show characters.
My mind was wandering and I was thinking about one of my current song ideas, one that hasn’t fully revealed itself to me yet, when the perfect hook popped into my head. Unfortunately, before I could even reach for something in order to record it, it was gone. It was infuriating. I must’ve sat there for an hour, retracing every train of thought I could remember having before the hook occurred to me but alas, I couldn’t get it back. And now, of course, I’m convinced it was the perfect idea: just what I needed to make the song work. So that was very frustrating, which didn’t help with how overwhelmed and stressed I’d been feeling over the previous few days. Part of that was due to the results of the last module being released a few days before. I’m often slow to open results – I like to wait for a moment when I’m feeling stable enough to handle a good or a bad result – but I also had three cowrites and a day of classes in the following days so I didn’t want my emotions about the grade to affect those. That said, I couldn’t forget about them completely and the not knowing was stressful.
Eventually I gave up on trying to conjure back up that perfect hook (*sigh*) and did some writing for the blog. I even managed to finish the post I’d been writing about Lucky. That was a hard one to write so I was glad to have it done.
Mum and I had dinner together and then we had a family video chat, one that specifically included my Granny in Australia because it was her birthday. Since it was a milestone birthday, at the very least some of us would’ve been out there to celebrate with her if not for the pandemic, something that’s been hard for all of us but especially the one of my four parents who’s her daughter. So it was hard, but having a video chat was better than nothing and I think we made the most of it.
After we hung up, Mum and I had a gentle evening, continuing with our Criminal Minds rewatch. I also tried to do some catching up with my diary. I’m so far behind now that it’s more like keeping up: I’m just barely managing to keep bullet points as prompts for some imaginary moment in the future when I have the time to go back and write it all out. I’m finding that incredibly stressful because the need to write everything down is only being partially fulfilled, leaving me with so much anxiety that sometimes I’m left feeling suffocated. But that anxiety is constantly battling with the anxieties of other things that HAVE to get done, like my Masters work. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Plus, a lot of the time, I feel like my brain is wading through treacle, making it even harder to function. My brain feels a bit like it’s been hit by a hurricane; it’s just a chaotic mess and nothing’s where it’s supposed to be or doing what it’s supposed to do.
I went to bed early-ish, early for me anyway, but then I accidentally stayed up for several hours, watching videos on YouTube. One of the upcoming writing briefs for this module is to write a song based on a fictional story and I’ve wanted to write a song about Daisy Johnson from Agents of SHIELD forever so this seems like a good opportunity; maybe a deadline is what I need to make it happen. So watching all of these Daisy Johnson videos on YouTube and listening to the songs that people associate with her is research of sorts. I’m still trying to work out the perspective I want to write the song from, whether it’s about a particular moment in time, or about her emotional journey, but I found several songs that definitely have potential as inspiration. It didn’t exactly help my brain wind down though.
TUESDAY
I managed to sleep through all of my alarms, which meant that I was almost an hour behind in getting ready for the day – my uni classes day. So I had one of the fastest showers of my life, put on minimum make up, and inhaled some breakfast, logging on just in time for my first class. Definitely not the most fun or graceful start to a day.
My first class of the day was our workshop, where we present the songs we’ve written based on the techniques we learned in the seminar the previous week. Due to a meltdown, I’d actually missed the seminar, which had been on the techniques of song maps and pyramiding, but after reading the resources and a long discussion with one of my friends who’d been at the seminar, I felt I understood the theory enough to at least attempt to apply it. I’d written one song with Richard and another with one of my coursemates, both of which I really loved. There was only time for one of them, given how many people had brought songs (some days, everyone brings a song and we have to be really efficient whereas on others days, some people haven’t brought a song and there’s more time and people can present both cowrites and songs for their own projects), and the cowrite with my coursemate got chosen. It was well received with a healthy amount of suggestions for improvement, some of which we agreed with and some we didn’t. We’re planning to work on it again soon, since one of the upcoming briefs is to redraft a song.
There were some other really cool songs played during the session but I don’t want to say too much about them since they’re part of other people’s projects. Having said that, my group is packed full of amazing writers so whenever they release music, I’ll be sure to share it on my social media. So check those out if you want to hear about these awesome up and coming artists and writers…
It was a good class but then we had a four hour break before the seminar in the afternoon, starting at 4pm. Tuesdays are hard for me: they’re long and they require a lot of energy and focus, especially the three hour seminar. So I’ve taken to using the break to have a nap to recharge for that class. I slept for almost three hours, had some food, and quickly recapped the notes from the last seminar before we got started again.
We began by discussing what we’d worked on over the previous week – song mapping and pyramiding – and talked about how we’d implemented songs maps into our work, what impact it had had on our writing process, and what we’d struggled with. Having missed the seminar where song maps had been introduced, I’d struggled initially but having incorporated it in the writing of several songs, I do feel like I’m getting more of a feel for it. We had some interesting (and, at points, entertaining) debates over various elements before moving into the new topic: different approaches to cowriting. In groups, we were encouraged to just talk until one of us said something that might make an interesting song and then start writing that song together.
I’d initially been worried about being dropped into a group of people I didn’t know and asked to create something so I’d spoken to my tutor and we’d worked out a solution that I’d be in a group with at least one person I knew. I’m always keen to write with new people but, being autistic, it’s a lot easier and a much more positive and productive experience if I have, at the very least, spoken to them beforehand. So having one person I already knew just created a safety net in case I got overwhelmed or something. I actually knew two people in my group and then there was another guy I hadn’t previously met; we got on really well with lots of laughing and goofing around but we also came up with a really strong concept and started working on the song. So we did pretty well, I think.
When the class ended, at 7pm, I was exhausted but the nap had helped. I wasn’t completely floored like I often am. I even managed to work on a song I’m currently writing, one called, ‘Astronaut.’ I’m usually barely capable of eating dinner and catching up with my diary so that was quite an achievement. The nap had clearly worked wonders.
There wasn’t much left of the evening but my Mum and I had dinner and continued our Criminal Minds rewatch. I also worked on a couple of blog posts before going to bed far too late, as is my norm at the moment. I just get this weird anxiety when I start getting ready for bed. Maybe it’s to do with anxiety about being unable to sleep, maybe it’s anxiety about a period of unproductive time (that’s something I’m struggling with at the moment)… I don’t know. And it just makes it even harder to get to sleep.
WEDNESDAY
It took me a long time to wake up on Wednesday morning; I just couldn’t open my eyes. I feel like I’m having more and more trouble with mornings; my antidepressants are very sedating, which is one of the reasons I’ve been thinking a lot about trying a new medication. It’s just such a tough process and there never seems to be a good time.
When I eventually managed to keep my eyes open for longer than a minute, I forced myself up and had a shower before settling at my desk in the living room. With Criminal Minds as a backdrop, I spent several hours working on blog posts. I struggled to concentrate though because, in the back of my mind, I was aware of the fact that last module’s grades were still waiting to be opened. They’d come out the week before but I’d had three cowrites and a day of classes ahead of me and if the grades were bad, I didn’t know how I’d manage to be present and productive in those sessions. So they were still sitting there, unopened, and I was very aware that I really should open them and look. But it was really hard to make myself do it.
Eventually I did, when Mum went out to do the food shop. It’s not that I didn’t want her to know or anything; I just find it easier to see results, have my initial emotional reaction in private, and process it a bit before sharing the news with people. I was happy with the grade – for the most part (but then I’m a perfectionist and always somewhat disappointed if I don’t do exceptionally, something I think is an unfortunate consequence of being a really high achiever at a young age) – but I did have some issues with the feedback. Reading through the feedback sections, I felt like we hadn’t been assessed on what we’d been told we’d be assessed on. The more I thought about it, the more upset I got. I’d worked so hard and talked to the tutors so many times in order to get a clear pictures of the module and how it was assessed and then to see feedback that felt fairly unrelated to what I’d been told was actually really distressing. I guess I felt (and feel) like I would’ve done things differently if I’d known the type of feedback the work would receive. I’d worked so hard on my assessment submissions so that was just quite deflating.
I talked about it a lot with my Mum and after that, I was just exhausted. So I put on some Criminal Minds and spent most of the day working on blog posts. Or trying to, at least. Wednesdays are always my least productive days, like my brain and body borrow from Wednesday to get through Tuesday, leaving Wednesdays significantly depleted of… just everything. So I always try to avoid putting anything important on a Wednesday.
So a gentle afternoon turned into a gentle evening, watching Criminal Minds and writing for the blog in front of the fire. The cats love it when we have a fire. They all congregate in the living room and spread out in front of it, occasionally rolling over – ever so casually – to warm a different side of their bodies. It’s adorable.
I managed to go to bed at a reasonable time, watched some more Daisy Johnson videos, and was actually asleep before midnight.
THURSDAY
I had to get up painfully early to go to the dentist (my dentist is a safety hub, which apparently means they can be open during lockdowns because they look after people with disabilities, although I didn’t know this until fairly recently), which wasn’t a pleasant experience. They have really strict safety procedures (the only reason that I feel safe going there), like an hour between each patient to sterilise the room and so on, so it takes a long time to get an appointment. Unaware of the fact that I could go to my dentist until a few months ago, it’d been a long time since I’d had a check up and so there was quite a lot to do. I’m not gonna go into detail because I don’t think anyone enjoys descriptions of dental work but it was a difficult experience, moreso than usual. I find the noises of the machines particularly difficult and in excess, they get dangerously close to triggering a meltdown, so by the time the appointment was finished, I was completely exhausted.
Back home, I finally managed to get through the Occupational Therapy paperwork and start doing the exercises for the pain in my hands and wrists. Despite the simplicity of the movements, it was hard work and every joint from my fingertips to my elbows hurt afterwards. I made a note of it to report back to the therapist – I had another appointment in a week – and took some painkillers that eventually took the edge off.
It wasn’t long before my next appointment, by phone this time with the Chronic Fatigue Service, so I lay on the sofa and watched Criminal Minds for a little bit while I recharged and gathered my thoughts for the call. I was already apprehensive about the call as it was a doctor I’d previously had a really bad experience with – one I’m tempted to go as far as saying was traumatic. It was a long time ago now but I was still anxious about the whole thing.
It turned out to be exhausting, upsetting, and a complete waste of time. He had very little of my history so most of the hour was spent taking a very extensive history, involving questions ranging from my parents health to my diet to my mental health diagnoses to my medication. And after all of that, he basically said that my case was too complicated for them, that with the more recent diagnoses – including the hypermobility diagnosis – I was better off with my current specialist. What may have previously been perceived to be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome might actually be Persistent Fatigue associated with hypermobility but it’s hard to be sure. But not only did we hang up with less clarity than when we started the call, the whole thing was just… unpleasant and awful; he claimed that I’d been diagnosed with CFS in 2007 by a doctor I don’t even remember seeing according to a letter that neither my Mum nor I remember getting; he was critical of how much Red Bull I drink (due to the sedating effect of my medication as far as I can tell) and acted like I was doing it for fun, not because it’s the only thing that keeps me awake and functioning; he talked about a set of blood tests that were never discussed with us, which was particularly alarming as one of the results could’ve indicated cancer… And on and on. It was a complete fiasco. Every time I think things can’t get worse with doctors, they do. I could’ve had cancer and no one ever even bothered to mention it. I mean… I don’t have any words.
So that was basically the day written off. I was just too distressed and too exhausted. There was an extracurricular uni session in the evening but I was just too tired. I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus and it would be recorded so I could always catch up later. Instead I spent the evening watching Criminal Minds and very, very slowly adding to some blog posts. I did get some exciting music news but unfortunately I can’t share that yet. So the day did end on a better note.
There’s no particular reason to include this picture other than the fact that I thought it was adorable: cat yoga on a piano.
I went to bed early, watched a few more Daisy Johnson videos (at the moment it feels like the only time I feel able to take the time to watch YouTube videos is right before bed or before I get up in the morning), and eventually went to sleep.
FRIDAY
I got to sleep in a little bit and then it was up and out to the hospital for an ECG (echocardiogram). Since a small amount of people with hypermobility develop heart problems, I’ll have to have ECGs every five years or so to make sure everything’s okay. I wasn’t too worried about it but again, it was another distressing medical experience.
I’ve had an electrocardiogram before and just like that, you’re asked to undress so that the ultrasound wand can get a good image of every necessary angle of your heart. But I just couldn’t do that: the idea of being so exposed in front of people I didn’t know was and is nightmarish to me. I don’t know if that’s an ASD thing or or me thing or what. They looked at me for what felt like ages before reluctantly allowing me to keep my bra on, telling me that they likely wouldn’t get as good images. I was trying not to lose it completely so, as you can imagine, that was a super helpful comment. And then, to make matters worse, the doctor pressed the wand against my chest so hard that it physically hurt; part of me wondered whether it was a punishment for being ‘difficult.’ I couldn’t breathe properly and it hurt so much that I was almost crying, especially when she pressed it against my sternum.
When it was finally over, my Mum asked if they’d gotten what they needed and they said that they had. So much for my bra being an issue. When I was fully dressed, Mum asked me to wait outside; she was five minutes maybe and then we were out of there. She told me that she’d just done what she normally ends up needing to do with medical professionals and explain how important the language they use with autistic patients is (because, as usual, they didn’t know how to work with an autistic individual). So, for example, instead of saying they probably wouldn’t get the pictures and therefore making me feel guilty for my anxieties, they could’ve said that they could try and then, if they couldn’t get the pictures, we could all re-evaluate together, which would’ve made me feel like they were at least trying to work with me rather than dismissing my difficulties. Apparently they thanked her for sharing her experience and said that they would take it on board; whether they will, I can’t say.
The whole experience had been distressing and exhausting and I was barely holding it together. I just wanted to get home and curl up under a blanket in the safe little bubble that is my living room, curtains closed and fairy lights on. So that’s what I did. I attempted some blog writing but it was very half hearted; I was just really drained by the experience at the hospital.
Early afternoon, I had a therapy session. It was probably too much on top of the ECG experience but then I hadn’t expected that to be so dramatic and emotional. Again, I’m drawn towards the word traumatic but I guess I’m reluctant to call it that as just a person and not a mental health professional. Had it just been the one time, I wouldn’t think to call it a trauma – I’d call it distressing or deeply upsetting – but as the latest in a long line of deeply distressing experiences at the hands of medical professionals or in medical settings, it feels like it’s bigger than that, that those experiences have built up to create a big ball of trauma.
It wasn’t easy but somehow I managed to pull myself together enough for my therapy session. A lot had happened since my last session so there was a lot of catching up and processing, most especially about the medical stuff that’s been going on. It was really hard, both in the sense that it took a lot of energy to talk about it all and in that it kicked up a lot of emotions. It’s weird: it’s like I’ve been boxing it all up and hiding it under the bed for years and suddenly, the recent appointments have just kicked the lid off and I can’t get it all back in, like when you have to sit on a suitcase in order to zip it closed. So now all those emotions are just everywhere and I can’t move without tripping over one or another of them.
We finished up the session but I knew that if I stopped, I was really going to crash so I did some prep work for a cowrite I had the next day; I really don’t like going into cowrites without anything prepared, even if it’s just a list of relevant words or phrases. Since we ended up writing about something completely different, I think it’s probably fine to talk about the song we were planning to write: we’d been talking about our personal concepts of time and how time feels different since the pandemic began. So that was our concept but we needed to refine it so that it would work in song form. So I spent some time looking up interesting words in the thesaurus, searching for inspiration on quote websites, and free writing about how I’ve been feeling over the last year in relation to time. There were a few quotes that I loved and could’ve drawn inspiration from if we hadn’t jumped ship and worked on a different idea:
- “Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.” – Kurt Vonnegut
- “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” – Ray Cummings
I thought those three quotes in particular were beautiful. I could write a song based on each one.
Late afternoon, I logged into Microsoft Teams for our group cowrite – a session to finish the song we’d started during Tuesday’s seminar. We’d already written most of the song but we kept writing and refining. We had a really good time together but we did talk about whether four people were necessarily needed for the first draft of a song. Having said that, I think everyone contributed in their own ways and the song wouldn’t be what it is without all four of us. We ended up being on the call for over two hours before deciding to call it a day. I was a bit frustrated to leave it unfinished again but I think that’s just coming from my issues with productivity; I hate leaving things incomplete. I was still staring at the Google Doc when I had a spark of inspiration and jotted down a full bridge to look at next time. I thought it worked well so I was hopeful that the others would like it too.
Less than ten minutes later, one of my parents (who doesn’t live with us but is in our support bubble) arrived. We try to have an evening a week where we just hang out together and have some real human interaction. We treated ourselves to an Indian takeaway and caught up while we waited for it and then watched a couple of episodes of Lucifer, the show we’re currently watching together. It was very chilled out and I was practically asleep on the sofa when she got up to leave.
Mum and I watched a couple of episodes of Criminal Minds before going to bed and I watched a few more Daisy Johnson YouTube videos. This is one of my favourites so far:
It’s one of several that are sort of building a sonic picture in my mind as I put this song together. Yeah, I’m trying to work out how to write my own Daisy Johnson song but I’m also realising that it’s a form of procrastination too. When I lie down at night, my thoughts start to spiral and the spiral gets tighter and tighter until I can’t think or breathe. I definitely can’t relax enough to sleep. I’ve tried all of my strategies but they don’t seem to be working so I’ve been seeing the early hours of the morning a lot more often recently.
SATURDAY
After going to sleep so late, I slept in, hours and hours later than usual. I missed almost half of the day, which was very disconcerting. And even awake, I couldn’t summon the energy to get up for a while so I scrolled through Twitter on my phone. I’ve recently gotten into #ActuallyAutistic Twitter (I knew it existed but hadn’t spent much time looking at it) but I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it: some of the people on there are really lovely and share valuable tips and information but I’ve also seen some pretty intense debates that make me feel quite anxious, like it wouldn’t be safe to express my opinions or experiences without someone judging me or telling me how [insert word here] I am. So it’s a mixed bag and I’m not sure whether or not engaging with it is good for my mental health, right now at least.
Eventually, at about half twelve, I dragged myself up and into the shower. The points where they’d pressed the ultrasound wand were really tender and painful. There wasn’t any bruising but they hurt to touch.
Shower done, I settled in the living room. Sooty immediately hopped up for cuddles and ended up spending most of the day tucked up against me in one position or another. It was very cute and very soothing.
With so many big posts coming up, I decided to post a short, less intense post, editing and posting another Little Things post. It’s true what I write in those posts: I do want those of you who read my blog to know who I am as a full person, not just a Picasso painting made up of the specific parts I talk about in any given blog post. That’s part of why I write these posts too.
When that was finished and posted, I did some admin stuff, mostly emails: some music stuff, plus some messages around my long term project of tracing my family history (that’s a story for another post). I also continued my attempts at redrafting the lyrics of ‘One More Time’ but I was still struggling to get it right. It was going to be super satisfying when I finally hit the right combination of words but until then, it was somewhere between a really complicated Rubik’s Cube and banging my head against a wall.
Eventually it was just getting too disheartening so I took a break. I went to Tumblr as I often do for inspiration and while I didn’t find anything to help with this song, I did find some cool art, some interesting lyric analysis, and some beautiful gifsets from several of my favourite TV shows. At the very least, it released some of the tension in my brain.
It was an evening of Criminal Minds, dinner, and my physio exercises. Oh, and a further attempt at redrafting ‘One More Time,’ but still no dice. It’ll get there at some point; I just don’t know when. My brain just feels really overloaded and overwhelmed at the moment and that makes it really hard to think when I get stressed or anxious. And it just snowballs, everything getting worse and worse until I feel like I’m so twisted up in this net of my own thoughts that I can’t move, can’t think clearly. It’s exhausting and yet, sleep is such a struggle.
SUNDAY
I really struggled to wake up but eventually I managed to drag myself into the shower and then the living room. One of the cats, Tiger, immediately sought me out for attention and paced relentlessly until I gave in and devoted all of my attention to her. The cats are all getting far too used to us being around all of the time…
Late morning, I had a FaceTime call with a friend that went on for over an hour. That was really nice and we had a good laugh, which I really needed after the week it had been. It gave me a much appreciated boost, which was only heightened by the flurries of snow outside. That was very exciting and when I went downstairs after the call ended, I got to enjoy watching the cats in the garden, watch their befuddlement at the snow: the little shakes when it landed on them, the pouncing on the settling snowflakes… It was incredibly adorable.
Back upstairs, I did a bit more thinking and searching for inspiration – in my various songwriting notes, in my diaries, on Tumblr – for my upcoming cowrite and I worked on that until it was time for the video call, about an hour later.
I think it was a good session, especially for a first time cowrite. It was with another of my coursemates and while she and I have known each other a while now, we hadn’t managed to write together up to this point. We had a good time and laughed a lot while still managing to write most of a really promising song in about ninety minutes. So I feel like we did well. I like the song and I like the message behind it; hopefully we can finish it sometime in the near future.
So I finished the session in a really good mood, that is until I saw that Sia’s dangerous, offensive, and incredibly ableist and problematic film, Music has been nominated for two Golden Globes. I was – I am – disgusted and appalled by how little so many people – in this case, the film industry – care about the wellbeing, the opinions, and the happiness of the autistic community. It’s horrifying. It makes me want to scream at someone but there’s no one to scream at. Put me in front of the Golden Globes people and I’d rip them a new one but that’s not gonna happen, not in this reality anyway.
I did my best to have a quiet evening since I had another busy day ahead of me but I couldn’t shake off all the unpleasant feelings around Sia’s film. I tried to distract myself and work on ‘One More Time’ but I just couldn’t focus. I was too emotional, too overwhelmed. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d spiralled into a meltdown, if not for the fact that I was too tired to even cry.
In the end, my Mum and I watched some more Criminal Minds while she gave me a neck and shoulder massage (one of her many lives was as a massage therapist). The pain is creeping higher and higher, up my neck and into the base of my skull so although it wasn’t the most comfortable experience, I felt better for having it. Less tension, less pain. Some of the time, at least.
Again, getting to sleep wasn’t easy but it was a better night than others so I’m grateful for that. I’ll take whatever I can get right now. I’m waiting on various things that will potentially help but everything’s moving very slowly. My logical brain is very understanding, given everything with the pandemic, but my emotional brain is less rational, struggling to cope with the pain and the anxiety and the lack of sleep. As human beings, we are more than capable of holding two such opposing emotional responses but it being possible and it being easy aren’t the same thing, are they?
Somehow that ended up being a lot longer than I’d planned, than I’d expected it to be. But apparently there was a lot of stuff in my head that was intent on getting out. Life feels pretty complicated at the moment.
