Finding HopeAutism Dogs – My Advanced Task List
Posted on May 22, 2025
NOTE: Somehow, between the last WordPress update and my brain fog, this post got lost. It falls between the two posts, ‘The Application‘ and ‘It’s A Match,’ and I’ll include links in both of those so that – hopefully – everyone is able to follow the chronology of posts despite my mistake. Sorry!
Here is the next part of my Autism Dogs journey! Having been accepted onto the programme, I went up to visit the Autism Dogs farm in April 2024 to work on my Advanced Task List and meet some of the dogs…
I’d set an alarm (multiple alarms) since it was such an early start but I was actually woken up by Izzy as she snuggled close to my face, wrapping herself around my neck. It was very cute and I enjoyed the extra time cuddling with her before I had to get up. As much as I would’ve liked to have stayed there all morning, I had trains to get and dogs to visit so I eventually (reluctantly) got up and had a shower. Izzy seemed to know that me and Mum were going out because she stuck close to me as I got ready, as I did my make up and packed my bag. She’s just beyond adorable, which just makes it so hard to leave; it was so early and I was already keen to curl up for a nap and her super-snuggly behaviour really wasn’t motivating me to get up and go. But I had one last snuggle and then my Mum and I were out the door.
The journey to the Autism Dogs farm wasn’t the most relaxing of my life: the train to London was fine but then our connection to Stoke-on-Trent was cancelled and our only option was to get the next train, which meant we were going to miss our final train and be late for our session. I’m relatively used to the chaos and generally, it doesn’t faze me, but I do find it draining to repeatedly reshuffle my plans to find the best outcome. It certainly wasn’t what I needed on an already long day. We made it to Stoke-on-Trent and then had to get a cab to the farm instead of catching the final train. It’s only a short ride but they don’t come very often. The cab was painfully expensive but we managed to get there just about on time for our session. I was amazed.
The biggest part of the session was to build my Advanced Task List. As far as I’m aware, when the dogs are trained, they all go through the same basic skills training, like recall and sit and heel etc. That’s the first part of their training. On my side of things, once I was accepted onto the programme, I filled out lots of forms and had multiple calls with different people and learned about the process before travelling to the Autism Dogs farm to meet with several staff members to discuss the Advanced Task List. This involved looking at my various difficulties and how my assistance dog will hopefully be able to help me, which tasks she will perform in response to which behaviours. Once this list is compiled, the team created a profile of my needs to compare against the dogs in training; obviously, the idea is that the two profiles match, that you and your dog are compatible. For example, my meltdowns are often very loud – I’ll shout and scream and cry – and so I’d need a dog that is confident around loud noise. Everyone is going to have different needs and therefore need a different dog; you want to end up with the dog that’s the best fit for you so that the relationship is as successful as possible because, hopefully, you’re going to be working with this dog every day for a very long time.
The Advanced Task List is made up of three to eight taught behaviours: less than three and the dog becomes illegible as an assistance dog (it’s not uncommon for a dog to ‘lose’ one of their skills if it’s no longer needed or used) but more than eight and the dog can get confused and struggle with the amount of commands and tasks. So we spent most of the session discussing the things I struggle with. As I’ve already mentioned, I have meltdowns and we discussed those; we also talked about shutdowns and I described them as best I could; we talked about sleep and anxiety and self-injurious behaviours; we talked about the dog being trained to perform deep pressure therapy and so on. We talked about all of this for over an hour, in as much detail as possible; they were really lovely and took things really gently, acutely aware that people can find it really difficult to talk about this stuff. But to be honest, I’ve talked about a lot of my difficulties and even some of my most distressing experiences quite a lot: online, on my blog, to friends and family, in therapy… even at conferences. So, on the whole, talking about it doesn’t really faze me (although there are, as I think there are for everyone, some areas that are really hard to dig into) and I could answer pretty much every question they had for me, with help from my Mum when I needed a prompt or an outside perspective was useful. The more information they had, the easier it would be to build a profile of me and the more accurate it would be. It was almost funny, how carefully they were handling the discussions (with me personally, I mean – I think it’s great that they’re so aware of the potential needs of the autistic person they’re working with), because I just wanted to talk about the dogs. I’m fascinated by the process and the training and so I was just sitting there, like, ‘Okay, can we stop talking about me now? Can we talk about the dogs?’ It’s just so interesting and I could listen to them talk about it for hours.
Then came the part that was I was really excited about. I got to meet four different dogs (none of which would ultimately be mine), in order to get a sense of what breed and characteristics might be right for me, what size and texture of fur would be most manageable and comfortable. Having had and spent time with multiple breeds of dog throughout might life, I already had a sense of some of these things.
The first dog I met was a Cockapoo called Buddy. He was very sweet and very excitable (they were all ver excitable actually, given that it was dinner time for them) but I knew that I would struggle on a sensory level with the curly fur. He was lovely but his breed wasn’t one I’d be able to handle longterm on a sensory standpoint. The other three were different Labradors. I grew up with a Labrador so I’m very comfortable around them and just adore them. All three were gorgeous, two black – like the one I grew up with – and one yellow with more wiry fur. The first of the two black Labradors was a girl called Shadow who was so excitable and enthusiastic, sliding all over the tiled floor and slamming into me. She licked my face and then ran in circles around me before bounding over to meet Mum and the whole experience was just really adorable. The second black Labrador was a male called Denzel. He was also deeply enthusiastic but not quite as chaotic as Shadow had been; he definitely had more control over his limbs. But he still came charging over to meet me and licked my face over and over before trying to curl up in my lap even though he was much too big. And finally, I met the fourth dog, a wiry, yellow Labrador called Hero. He was a lot more chilled out because he’d already had his dinner – unlike the other three – so, while he trotted in and came straight over to me to check me out, he wasn’t like one of those super balls ricocheting off the walls. Instead, he snuffled my face and then leaned against me, heavier and heavier until I slid over onto the floor; when I pushed myself up, he just stood beside me in prime position so that I could stroke him (and keep stroking him). He was more chill than the previous three but he had had his dinner and I think he was a bit older; their dogs are usually between one and two years old and I think he was on the older side.
Buddy (top left), Shadow (top right), Denzel (bottom left), and Hero (bottom right).
I was definitely a fan of all three Labradors so, as a breed, they seemed like a clear choice. After Hero left, my Mum and I stayed for a bit longer and talked with the staff about various preferences, like size, and coat, etc. All of these things obviously need to be considered when, all being well, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with this dog, relying them; you need to feel comfortable with them and you definitely need to feel comfortable with them when you’re feeling under stress or overwhelmed or triggered.
So it felt like a very productive session. We wrapped things up and then my Mum and I headed for the station. I was absolutely exhausted by the day and fell asleep on two of the three trains, so deeply that my hands – which I’d apparently been using as a pillow – had gone numb. When we finally got home, Izzy was momentarily unimpressed by all of the different dog smells on our clothes but quickly dismissed them in her absolute delight that we’d returned to her. Even with my train naps, I was so tired that I went to bed early, snuggled up with Izzy.
It was exciting to move to the next step in this process. I was near the top of the list because I had been waiting for quite a long time by that point. But while it is a list of priority, they also weren’t going to just match me with the first dog available because we wouldn’t necessarily be a good match. That’s fine with me. As I said, I would rather wait a bit longer and find the best possible match. It also gives me a bit more time to mentally prepare: it’s a really big change and I really struggle with change. I have some really great support and I know that, once we all adjust and I have this new form of support in my life, things will hopefully get better – less erratic and unstable, emotionally – but anticipating this big change is stressful. So my feelings are very big and messy but I just have to keep reminding myself that lots of people have benefited from this process so far and that helps me to feel less anxious and more excited.
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 Third Semester of My Masters
Posted on January 9, 2021
So that’s it. The third semester of my Masters is officially completed. As I write this, I have just submitted my assessment work and have a week before the next semester starts (online, due to the current number of COVID cases). I have some reading to do for the next module but before I dive into that, I just want to reflect on the last semester, the ups and downs, and all that I’ve learned.
It began with a great deal of stress, and long before the semester was due to start. At the beginning of the pandemic, I’d said I absolutely didn’t want to do my course online and would defer if that was going to be the case. But as the new semester drew closer, I got more and more anxious. I didn’t want to defer but I also didn’t feel safe commuting to and then through London for two hours of classes a week so, after many hours of talking with my family (and many tears), I decided that the best option was to attend as an online student. It was a sad decision to make because I’ve always loved the group dynamic of my university classes but it just didn’t feel safe or responsible to attend in the way I’d have to.
And then, in the week or so before classes started, there was a great deal of stress around getting the right timetable as an online student: conflicting information, the classes not showing up on my online timetable, and so on. When things were already so stressful (the anxiety about the pandemic aside, I was really nervous about whether or not I was mentally up to doing the module with my mental health so fragile), this just triggered a series of really terrible meltdowns. It was a horrible and exhausting way to start the semester, especially the one I’d always been most anxious about: Musical Language in Songwriting. Music theory has never been a strong area of mine so the idea of experimenting with these concepts was very daunting.
While this was very distressing, I don’t want to point fingers or place blame. These are hugely difficult times and no university – no institution – is perfect, even when the world is running according to what we consider to be normal. So it’s not fair to expect everything to run smoothly. And now that I’m on the other side of the semester, I can only sing the praises of my tutors: over and over, I’ve seen just how dedicated, hardworking, passionate, and supportive they are. There have been bumps in the road, of course, but even with the sheer amount of stress they’re under – and that’s just the stress I’m aware of as a student – I’ve been consistently met with warmth, thoughtfulness, and understanding. And I’m just so beyond grateful for that. I couldn’t have completed this semester without their support.
I wrote about my first week back (here) but to summarise, it was a challenge. My uni were using a blended model of teaching so the lecture was online and the workshop was onsite (but as an online student, I was looped in through the online learning platform). The lectures were straightforward since we were all online, and productive once we got into a rhythm and stopped accidentally interrupting each other. The workshop, however, was more complicated: between not physically being there and only being able to communicate through the tutor’s laptop, plus not being able to see or really hear my course mates, it was very difficult. But I spoke to my tutor after the class and the next workshop was better.
I’d thought we were making progress but then suddenly, between week two and week three, I was moved to a new workshop group, an online group made up of just the online students. That really threw me; the constant uncertainty was doing a real number on my mental health. I was really struggling during this time: my anxiety over the pandemic, the expectations of the course, and being able to do well in the module was incredibly high; I was hugely frustrated with the whole situation; I was feeling overwhelmed by my depression, my low energy levels and side effects of medication… I was constantly in tears, constantly having meltdowns.
But slowly, as things started to settle, my mental state started to settle too. I had a really positive meeting with one of my tutors where he went through the learning outcomes and grading criteria and generally what makes a good assessment portfolio. I’ve found that having a meeting like this early on in the semester both helps me to work on the assignments more effectively and avoids unnecessary anxiety. As I said, I felt really supported throughout this module and I’m so grateful for that, both in terms of the module itself and in terms of the broader picture.
The assignments were challenging and definitely interesting, including a reimagination of a cover, a reimagination of an original song, and a brief that still makes me shudder: a song in an uncommon mode, using both 5/4 and 7/4 time signatures, with extended chords and an example of chromaticism (I struggled particularly with this one). We also had to consider the arrangement of each songs and to an extent, the production. The briefs definitely stretched me and prompted some very interesting songs, many of which I absolutely wouldn’t have written if I’d not done the module. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with them but I definitely learned a lot from writing them. Having said that, I did spend a lot of time feeling very unsure of myself and the quality of my work, both in terms of whether they were actually good songs and whether they were fulfilling the grading criteria.
About halfway through the semester, my course mates from the year before (those who’d done the Masters full time and completed it in one year rather than two) graduated and I joined them for the online ceremony to celebrate them and their achievements. We were all disappointed not to be able to get together to celebrate properly but hopefully that plan is simply postponed rather than cancelled. They all deserve it and it would be so lovely to see them again.
Six (out of twelve) weeks in, I was exhausted all the time. I was also still struggling with the nerve pain in my hand – the pain that I’ve been experiencing since the middle of the first lockdown – which was only getting worse, making it even more difficult to play instruments. I was still waiting for my rheumatology referral – that didn’t come through until the last week of the semester and even now, they still don’t know what the problem is.
The latter half of the semester was much more focussed on the assessment, at least it was for me. I worked on the songs I’d already written during the module before taking them into class again for more feedback so that I could get them as good as possible for submission (although I did impulsively write a rap that ended up being part of my portfolio). I also worked on the other part of the assessment: a short essay, analysing one of the songs I’d written and how I’d employed different aspects of musical language. I worked as hard as I could, determined to have at least most of the work done by Christmas so that I could have a break of some kind before the next semester started, unlike last year when I had to work straight through the Christmas break.
Despite the meeting early in the semester, I found it very difficult to judge whether I was doing ‘well enough.’ The learning outcomes and grading criteria felt incredibly vague and therefore not at all Autism-friendly, causing me a lot of anxiety. I mean, it’s Masters level and they have to cover all of the different styles of songwriting on the course so I do understand it but as an autistic person, it’s been one of the hardest parts of the course (uncertainty being a common area of difficulty for autistic individuals). I had multiple conversations with my tutors about it and although they noted it, it’s not like they could change them in the middle of the semester. I guess we’ll see if anything changes over time. I did get useful feedback on my songs and essay during those conversations but I still have no idea what to expect grade-wise.
By the end of the semester, I was almost done: I was making final edits to the songs and trying to cut down the word count of my essay. But the last week was hectic to say the least. I had a really lovely last day of classes – both groups I was a part of were so positive and fun to be a part of – and then a final one-on-one session with my tutor for any last feedback before the deadline (the first day after the Christmas break). That was really useful, especially as I was so close to finishing everything. I also had a meeting with my tutor for the next semester, so that I could prepare for it or, at the very least, get my head around what the expectations of the module were. Again, another attempt at reducing unnecessary anxiety, plus it was really nice to see him again; he’s taught me on and off since my first day on the BA (he actually auditioned me for the BA!) and he’s such a great teacher. I feel like he gets me and my approach to songwriting and I’m really excited to have him as a tutor again. And the semester itself ended for me with a meeting on behalf of ICMP where a group of us (students from different courses) spoke about our experience with the university. That felt good; I only ever want to leave things better than I found them and that meeting felt like an opportunity to do that. It’s re-inspired me to keep trying, even if I didn’t really need to be re-inspired.
I had one last session with Richard, sorted out a couple of technical issues with the tracks, and then I spent every day working non-stop. On Christmas Eve, I managed to finish everything. I was done – or had done as much as I could do without endlessly obsessing over every tiny detail – and could have an actual break between semesters. I really needed that and I had a good Christmas, despite everything going on. I wish I could’ve been with more of my family but we all recognised how risky that was. So we had a truly bizarre and hilarious Christmas Quiz and Zoom call and then dinner within our bubbles; it wasn’t perfect but I think we truly made the most of it and I really enjoyed it, even if there were difficult moments.
After a pretty restful break, I logged onto the student gateway to upload all of my work on New Year’s Day, several days before the deadline. But, for some unknown reason, the pages weren’t set up in a way that allowed us to upload the work required for the assessment. I had multiple meltdowns over it and after a handful of emails to various tutors, I was given an alternate way to submit. I shouldn’t really be surprised: this has happened multiple times and with the deadlines always on the first day back, there’s usually no one to contact for help. I was lucky to have had a tutor respond. Fortunately, it did get fixed on the morning of the deadline and we were all able (and asked) to submit. They usually fix it in time but it’s very stressful every time.
As I’ve already said, I’d been dreading this module but I ended up enjoying it a lot than I’d expected. It was still stressful but the tutors were incredibly supportive and my course mates were engaged and encouraging. It felt safe to bring in whatever I’d written, even if I really wasn’t sure about it (the rap, for example). It is hard being part time though, just as much this year as it was last year: for me at least, I’ve always felt ‘other’ to a certain degree, excluded (unintentionally) from the main group, the full-timers. Rather than being part of two years worth of Masters students, I’ve just felt not quite a part of either. It’s hard to explain but I’ve just never felt truly part of the course, like I’m always missing out on something because I’m only there (or ‘there’) half of the time. Does that make sense? I’m not even sure. Being part time has definitely been better for my mental health but it has made things more complex socially.
But ultimately, the module has been a good experience (although I’m sure my perspective on it will be affected to a certain degree by the grade I get). I think the biggest thing I’ve learned, or the skill that has developed the most, is how my decisions serve the song I’m writing; it’s made me much more conscious of my choices and it made me realise how much I already knew about the techniques we were using but just using them instinctively rather than deliberately. So that was surprising but it has opened up doors in my songwriting.
It was also exciting to start looking ahead to the next two modules: we had extracurricular sessions where students from last year presented their final projects to give us an idea of what that last module would be like. It was reassuring because it made the whole thing feel much more clear and less like a huge, intangible, overwhelming pile of work. Now it feels like an exciting challenge and I can’t wait to get started, regardless of the stress and anxiety involved.
Finding Hope 