Posted on January 2, 2021
I think it’s safe to say that we have no idea what this year is going to look like so making resolutions or goals could seem a bit pointless. But considering everything last year, I did make some recognisable progress with my 2020 goals, something I’m really proud of considering how much I was struggling. Yes, it’s a bit of a shot in the dark to make any sort of long term plans this year but I find that having goals like these give me some direction, some structure, which is especially helpful when I currently have so little external structure in my life. (As I said in my previous post, I prefer goals to resolutions: I find that resolutions create unnecessary pressure whereas goals help me to focus on particular areas. That works better for me but then I’m sure that that pressure is helpful for others.)
Since we don’t know what this year will hold, I’m still going to make goals. If I have to abandon them, then so be it but otherwise, they’ll hopefully be a helpful tool in moving through the year, creating some internal stability if nothing else. I’m hopeful that I can make progress in all of these areas: in my physical health, in my mental health, and in my work.
FIND A RHYTHM IN THERAPY AGAIN – The pandemic and lockdown have really thrown a wrench in my therapy sessions. Not only have they been physically disrupted, in the sense that they’ve moved from in person to online, but the pandemic has done such a number on my mental health that I couldn’t even cope with going to therapy for a while. And now that I’m going again, I feel like I don’t know how to do it anymore. I have a really good relationship with my therapist so I don’t know why I’m finding it so hard to talk about stuff; we just end up catching up about what’s happened between sessions. I really want to find a way back to the place where we really dug into things, the big things that affect me and my mental health. I’m not sure how to do it but my therapy sessions are so vital that it needs to be done so we’ll have to figure it out.
PROGRESS WITH MY INVISIBLE BRACES – Given how up and down last year was, I’m surprised I managed to wear it at all but this year I really want to build and embed the habit in what daily routine I have. The main problem is that, often, I’ll need to take a break and suddenly I haven’t worn it in months. So I also want to work out how to take a break without completely breaking the habit.
WORK ON MY CORE – For hypermobile people, the core muscles are particularly weak, which can cause referred fatigue and pain throughout the body. When I was diagnosed, the specialist asked what exercise I did and I talked about how much I loved swimming, how good it feels to exercise without having to bear the weight of my body. She said that swimming is the best possible exercise for a hypermobile person, especially someone actively dealing with pain and fatigue. I certainly didn’t need the encouragement to swim more. Where possible (in the context of the pandemic and lockdowns), I want to keep swimming as much as I can, as well as practicing the basic hydrotherapy exercises I’ve been given. I don’t know when my referral for hydrotherapy will actually go through, when I’ll actually get sessions, but hopefully it won’t be too long and hopefully that will help with the fatigue and pain.
COMPLETE MY MAJOR REPERTOIRE PROJECT – The final module of the Masters is dedicated to researching, writing songs, and creating a body of work around a particular subject. I’ve been really looking forward to this module, and hearing about the subject matter investigated by my course mates from last year (familial connections, identity, and gender transition, for example) and the work they created has only inspired me more. I have multiple ideas that I’d love to work on, although there are two that stand out more than the others. So I’ll have to choose at some point but we’re encouraged to remain open until just before the module starts. I’m so looking forward to really diving into a project and hopefully I can use my enthusiasm to help me get the best grade possible.
FINISH MY MASTERS DEGREE – By the end of September, I will have finished all of the modules and assessments of the Masters, all being well. With everything that’s happened since the start of the Masters, just finishing it will be an achievement in its own right but I really, really, really want to do well. It would be incredible to get a Distinction (that would be my ideal scenario) but, as I said, with everything that’s happened and how much I’ve had to deal with, that may not be on the cards. It might be initially disappointing to end up with a Merit but I know that, given some processing time, I could get my head around it and be proud of it.
MAKE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS IN CATCHING UP WITH MY DIARY – Due to my university work and the ups and downs of my mental health, I’m majorly behind with my diary (although I do keep rough notes) and while I’m not sure how I’m going to manage this, I want to get the situation more under control. Being behind just causes me so much anxiety. The university work isn’t going anywhere though and I want to do my best there so I obviously need to find a solution to this problem before I can start implementing it. I’m hoping therapy can be useful here.
WORK ON NOT COMPARING MYSELF TO OTHERS, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO MUSIC – This was a goal last year but between the pandemic disrupting the entire music industry and my sporadic therapy attendance (in which I’d planned to work on this issue), I didn’t make nearly as much progress as I would’ve liked. This is what I wrote last year and I think it’s still fairly accurate:
“This is probably the hardest one and a lot of the time, it feels unbearable to even think about. While I need to work on not comparing myself to others in general – in all situations – I figure that’s too big a task for such a difficult feeling so I just picked one area. Music has always been my happy place and I want it to stay (or go back to being or something) my happy place and it’s not, when I look at other artists and feel lost and sad and lonely and angry and bitter. So I want to work out – probably with therapy – how to focus on me and not worry about other artists beyond a practical, objective sense. This feels really, really hard so I don’t know if I’ll manage it in a year or whether I’ll even manage to start but I want to so I’m trying to think about it and figure out a place to start because I don’t want to feel all of these things. I want my happy place back.“
Having released more music and received good feedback over the last twelve months, I think my self-esteem and confidence is a bit higher but it doesn’t take much to tip me into that black hole. I really, really want that to stop happening so whatever it takes to avoid those feelings (for the majority of the time, at least), I’m willing to do it and do it for as long as necessary. I want music to be a positive part of my life, not something that’s draining.
FIND MY NEXT PROJECT – As I’ve previously said, there is more content coming that’s part of the Honest project but now that all of the tracks and music videos have been released, I want to work out what my next project is going to be, what the next creative goal I want to work towards is. I may find it during my last two Masters module, I might find it after, or it might find me. I’ve got a lot of ideas I want to explore so I guess it’s just about figuring out which one is the best fit for me in this particular period of time. Whatever it turns out to be, I’m excited. The Honest EP has been such a gift, such a wide and wonderful experience, that I can’t wait to see what the next project has in store for me.
As I said, we have no idea how this year is going to unfold so I don’t know what I will or won’t be able to achieve (in terms of what’s possible with the pandemic and my personal health – physical and mental – in the mix) but these are the areas of my life that I want to work at. If nothing else, last year showed us how strong and adaptable we can be, so who knows: maybe I’ll make progress in all of them or maybe I’ll make progress in entirely different things. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
Category: about me, anxiety, chronic fatigue, covid-19 pandemic, depression, emotions, event, identity, mental health, music, ocd, therapy, treatment, university, writing Tagged: 2021, anxiety, comparing, comparing myself, comparison anxiety, compulsive writing, core muscles, coronavirus, covid-19, debut ep, diary, diary writing, distinction, emotions, exercise, final project, fresh start, goals, good habits, grades, habits, health, honest ep, hydrotherapy, hydrotherapy referral, hypermobile, hypermobility, invisible braces, masters, masters degree, masters degree in songwriting, masters degree year two, masters part time, mental health, mental illness, music industry, negativity, new project, new year, new years resolutions, obsessive compulsive disorder, ocd, pandemic, pandemic 2020, physical health, positivity, processing emotions, setting goals, singersongwriter, singersongwriter life, swimming, therapy, university
Posted on September 8, 2020
Last week was the two year anniversary of Claire Wineland’s death. She was a twenty one year old activist, raising awareness around Cystic Fibrosis and founding Claire’s Place Foundation to support children with Cystic Fibrosis and their families. She spoke at many conferences (including TEDx and the International Respiratory Convention and Exhibition) and posted multiple videos on YouTube, talking about her illness but also her life and her thoughts on various subjects.
In 2018, she went into hospital for a double lung transplant. I remember watching the Instagram Live where she announced that she’d received the call as she dashed around her home, gathering everything she needed. It was so exciting and I was so happy for her. She had the surgery and everything seemed to be going well. But then she had a stroke and a week later, according to her advanced directive, was taken off life support. She died on the 2nd September 2018 at the age of twenty one. I wrote several posts about her, including one in remembrance.
I was deeply upset at the news of Claire’s death. When I discovered her YouTube videos in mid-2017, I instantly fell in love with her personality, her eloquence, her thoughtfulness. I really felt a lot of the ideas she expressed and despite the fact that we’d had very different life experiences, it felt like we had something in common, something in the way we thought and felt. And despite only having a few interactions on Twitter, I felt a connection to her – obviously not the same connection as the ones I have with my friends, for example, but a connection nonetheless. She had a big impact on my life and when she died, I felt like I could feel the edges of the space in which she’d previously existed, like there was a hole where she’d been. It was a very distressing feeling.
Two years later and I still feel her loss. She was so full of life. You know how some people just seem bigger than others, have minds somehow more infinite, have something extra special about them? That was always the way Claire felt to me. I’d felt so sure that I’d watch her go on to do even more great things. Her death felt so unfair and it still does. It still hurts. The documentary about her, CLAIRE, came out on the first anniversary of her death and as much as I want to watch it, I haven’t been able to. It’s just felt too hard. One day, I will but I just haven’t felt ready.
Over the last few years, I’ve had several similar experiences. The first, I believe, was Cory Monteith in 2013. I was still watching Glee at the time and he was so young; his death was so sudden. Then there was David Bowie, who has always been incredibly important to my brother, and Alan Rickman, who had been a consistent presence in my life through his role in the Harry Potter films. If you’ve read previous posts of mine, you’ll know how important Harry Potter has been throughout my life. And more recently, there have been the deaths of Cady Groves, a singer I’ve been a fan of for a decade, and Naya Rivera, another Glee alumni.
I struggled with each of these deaths, all of these people having had an impact on my life. But I think the only death that has had as dramatic an effect on me as Claire Wineland’s was that of Christina Grimmie. I’d been following Christina on YouTube for years; I just fell in love with her voice and her piano playing, how unapologetically herself she was. She was about my age and pursuing music so it’s not surprising that I related to her. But with managing both my mental health and university, I’d fallen behind on a lot of people in my social media bubble, Christina included. Then I woke up one day and she was gone; I still remember the moment I found out. I was stuck in a state of paralysed shock for days and I had nightmares that went on for months. Much like with Claire, I felt like there was a hole in the fabric of the universe where Christina had been, should still be. Even now, I still think of her often.
Grieving for a celebrity or public figure can feel like a bit of a minefield, I think. There’s the internal conflict: you didn’t know them personally but the feelings are still very powerful. Plus there are always people ready to tell you that you don’t have the right to mourn someone you never actually knew and because you didn’t know them, whatever you’re feeling can’t be grief. But personally, I don’t agree.
Grief is an incredibly complex emotion. I don’t think anyone truly understands it. Personally, I wouldn’t classify it as a single emotion; I see it more as an umbrella term, a checklist of things you may experience although you won’t necessarily experience all of them. I don’t think there’s a big enough word to describe what we go through when we’re grieving. It’s a natural disaster, an emotional natural disaster. It’s so complicated and having lived through both the losses of people in my life and public figures I cared (and still care) about, it’s my experience that the two are definitely different (having said that, we could have a whole other conversation about how the grief for each person is completely different) but that they’re both real and they’re both profound.
I definitely want to write more posts about grief but I want to keep this one to the grieving of a public figure. As I said, it is, of course, different to losing a person who is physically in your life but if you feel a connection to someone, it is inevitable that their death will be painful. As far as I’m concerned, that connection is the key. Whether they’re an actor, singer, writer, activist… they’re all reaching out, with their stories, their songs, their words. They’re reaching out with the intention of creating a connection with another person, a person who finds meaning in what they have to say. And I think it’s fair to say that – often – the deepest connections are the ones that are built from the most personal places (for example, their presence or their work has gotten you through a difficult time, you relate strongly to something they’ve said or created, etc). So of course we would feel the loss that connection. Of course it would be painful and distressing and maybe even traumatic.
And then there’s the moving forward to consider. There will always be things that remind you of them, such as events they would go to or public appearances they’d make. And in the case of creatives, yes, we will always have their past work but that may be difficult to consume again: the emotions and memories associated with them may be overwhelming; it may be painful because it reminds you that they’re no longer here; if they helped you through difficult times, it may be difficult knowing that they won’t be there to help you through any future hard times; knowing that they’ll never create or release anything new may be distressing, especially when the release of new work was a big occasion in your life.
I think that the only way to truly move through an event like this is to talk about it or, at the very least, express your emotions:
I’m sure there’s more to say. When it comes to grief, there always is. But I think I’ll leave it there. I hope you leave this post knowing that whoever or whatever you grieve for, your grief is valid and I hope that, if you’re going through any kind of grief, that you’ve found some way to manage it and/or that you have people to support you. I’m not sure if it ever goes away but it does change. Life goes on, even if it feels unbearably unfair. So carry with you the gifts they gave you and try to do some of the good that they would be doing were they still here.
Category: about me, death, emotions, event, life lessons, music, tips, video Tagged: alan rickman, blogging, cady groves, celebrity, christina grimmie, claire, claire wineland, claire's place foundation, cory monteith, cystic fibrosis, david bowie, death, documentary, emotion, emotions, feelings, future, glee, goodbye letter, grief, grieving, grieving for a public figure, grieving process, human connection, journaling, letter, letter writing, loss, mourning, mourning a public figure, moving forward, naya rivera, pain, processing emotions, public figure, rest in peace, rip, sadness, sharing, shock, social media, stages of grief, support, support system, talking, tips, video, writing, youtube, youtuber
Posted on August 8, 2020
Trigger warning: This post contains details of an emotional breakdown and mentions of self harm.
So results day is coming up. The timeframe is much as it ever was: school grades will be released as planned: A Level results will be released on the 13th August and GCSE results will be released on the 20th August. Degree results tend to depend on the specific university. Despite all of the upheaval over the last several months and the changes made to the expected academic year, many people still took exams of some kind, worked hard on projects or coursework, and pushed themselves to attain the highest marks they could so, regardless of the unusual circumstances, the anxiety around these days is no doubt mounting.
As I’m in the middle of my course, I’m not currently awaiting any grades. I completed my second module back in April and received my marks not long after. But every August (and to an extent, January, when some modules are assessed), I think of all those anxiously anticipating those numbers or letters that they’ve been working towards for months, that their lives have revolved around for so long (not a healthy mindset, mind you, but one that society has entrenched in us and one that I’d like to talk about further at a later date). I think of those young people and hope that, whatever grades they have received, they are coping in a positive and healthy way.
What with my GCSEs, some in Year 9 and some in Year 11, my AS Levels, my A Levels, all the results during my degree, and now my Masters, I’ve had many, many a results day. And the majority of them have been absolutely fine, if not better than fine. Some of them have been downright amazing. But I do have one very negative experience that I think is important to share because chance are, at some point or another, we will all have a bad results day that comes as a shock. So I want to tell this story and then share some advice for dealing with a similar situation…
It was a chilly morning in March 2013 and I was anxiously awaiting the release of the Autumn module results with my friends. The only course I’d had an exam in was Physics and although I’d found it difficult, I finished it feeling like I’d done okay. Having been absent for a lot of secondary school due to ongoing illness, I’d missed out on a lot of foundation material so I’d found the course difficult but during the most recent parent-teacher evening, my teacher told us (me and my Mum) that she had absolute confidence in my abilities and that I was on track for a high grade. So when I opened my results and saw the little printed ‘u,’ I was initially confused. Surely it was a mistake. I’d always gotten good grades and my teacher had said such positive things. I waited restlessly for the mark to be confirmed and when it was, it felt simultaneously like everything went still and like everything was crashing down around me. I made my escape and headed for the more secluded of the two toilet blocks – I felt like every emotion I was feeling was visible on my face and I had no idea how to talk about it or how to pretend that I was fine. I needed to be alone.
I was crying before I even made it into the toilet stall and I sat on the lid, sobbing so hard that my chest hurt. I was gasping for air but it was like my lungs had pinprick holes in them, the air rushing straight out again. Even to this day, I’m not sure I can explain exactly what I was feeling. It’s not especially subtle and sounds very dramatic but it felt like the world was ending. I felt like a failure and I felt like the only thing people would see when they looked at me was a failure. All I was was this ‘u.’ All I was was ‘unsatisfactory.’ I couldn’t move past that thought. Everything else disappeared.
I don’t know how long I sat in that cubicle, crying and self harming, before my friends tracked me down. I wanted to stay there and hide forever but somehow, I dragged myself up and walked out to face them. I still remember the shock on their faces; I still remember looking at myself in the mirror, my face a mess of thick, mascara stained tear tracks and my arms covered in scratches. I looked as bad as I felt.
One of my best friends – someone I still consider a good friend despite the fact that we don’t see each other as often as we used to – took control of the situation, taking me off campus to a coffee shop where she gently coaxed the story out of me over hot chocolate. We both had to go back for classes but she arranged for us to talk to a mutually beloved and admired teacher at the end of the day. I wasn’t convinced but I was operating on autopilot, drained of the will to protest. So after my lesson (a lesson in which I didn’t say a word), we went to see this teacher and in her typical fashion, kind but direct, she told me about some of her experiences and talked me through my options. Then I went home and didn’t return for over a week.
It’s worth noting that my mental health had been deteriorating exponentially over the previous year, so this happened at a time when I was completely unequipped to handle it and it was a catalyst for a lot of big decisions. I dropped out of the physics course, partly because I wasn’t mentally healthy enough to manage the number of courses I was taking and partly because I was so distressed by the experience that I felt completely incapable of going back into that classroom and continuing with the course. Just thinking about sitting in that room triggered anxiety too extreme to function. And I can admit now that there was some shame involved too: I couldn’t bear the thought of my teacher and my class looking at me and seeing a failure. So I dropped Physics, completed the rest of my courses, and started seeking professional help for what were now obvious mental health problems.
To this day, I still struggle to open exam results. I work extremely hard and then, when the results are released, I’m very careful to open them at a time when I feel emotionally equipped to handle whatever they’ll say and when I have the time to process the emotions that I’ll potentially experience. I’ve talked about this a lot with my therapist, in general terms, but then we talk about it every time new results loom. Not long ago, she referred to the experience as ‘a trauma’ and the relief of having it validated for the distress it caused and continues to cause was so overwhelming that I swear my heart stuttered in my chest. After having so many of my experiences (and the ongoing problems they caused) invalidated, it was a really emotional moment. That day had a massive effect on my mental health and my relationship with education and still triggers debilitating anxiety.
Not all results days are like this. In fact, most of them aren’t and I hope that you – you, reading this – never have to go through an experience like this one, but just in case you do, here are some of the things that I’ve learned about coping with difficult results…
IN THE MOMENT
ONCE YOUR EMOTIONS HAVE SETTLED
Despite the trauma of that day and the vivid images that come to mind whenever I recall it, there are three things that I actively choose to focus on:
This post turned out to be a lot longer than I’d intended but I hope it has been somewhat helpful. I hope you remember that whether your results are good or bad, whatever you feel is valid. You have spent years working towards this moment and it’s natural and totally okay to have strong feelings about them. It would be odd if you didn’t. You’ve worked hard for this. So feel what you feel and do what you need to do to make sense of this big, messy experience that you’ve gone through. It will be okay – maybe not in the way you expect but it will be okay. I can promise you that.
Category: covid-19 pandemic, emotions, event, meltdowns, mental health, self harm, therapy, tips, treatment, university Tagged: a levels, advice, anxiety, as levels, asd, autism, autism spectrum disorder, autistic meltdown, coping skills, coronavirus, covid-19, exams, fail, failing, failure, feedback, friend, friends, future, gcses, grades, kindness, meltdown, mental illness, pandemic, panic attack, processing emotions, resit, resits, results, results day, safe place, school, secondary school, self injury, sixth form, sixth form college, talking, teacher, trauma, traumatised, trigger, trigger warning, tutor, tutoring, tw, undiagnosed autism, validation
Hi! I’m Lauren Alex Hooper. Welcome to my little blog! I write about living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD (Inattentive Type), and Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), as well as several mental health issues.
I’m a singer-songwriter (it’s my biggest special interest and I have both a BA and MA in songwriting) so I’ll probably write a bit about that too.
My first single, ‘Invisible,’ is on all platforms, with all proceeds going to Young Minds.
My debut EP, Honest, is available on all platforms, with a limited physical run at Resident Music in Brighton.
I’m currently working on an album about my experiences as an autistic woman.