Month: June 2021

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What have I been trying to prove to myself all these years?……..

louiseissy

For as long as I can remember I have always sought achievement over everything else. In my early years at school I judged myself by comparing which colour books of the reading scheme I was on compared to my peers. When I was a Brownie I constantly planned on which badges I was going to work on next. I set myself impossible goals and then berated myself when I couldn’t achieve them. Setting these goals would often lead me to procrastinate in starting new tasks for fear of failure.

Academically I have been very successful. I have a 2:1 Bachelor of Science honours degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and a Master of Science degree with distinction in Computer Science. This should be enough to prove to myself that I’m what – worthwhile? I honestly don’t know what it is. What I do know is that I’ve been trying to prove ‘whatever it is’ to myself my whole life and it has become detrimental to my wellbeing and it has to stop.

In July 2020 I set myself the goal of taking my ABRSM Grade 5 piano exam. I worked really hard, did all the preparation and really enjoyed the challenge. However it took over my life and I haven’t thought of anything else for six months. I took the exam yesterday and the stress caused me to have a memory block in the middle of one of my pieces. Fortunately the examiner was very kind and encouraging and I managed to complete the piece. The rest of the exam went reasonably ok and I’m fairly sure I’ve passed. For a couple of hours after the exam I was beating myself up as my goal was to get a distinction. Once I’d calmed down and really started to think about it, one thought kept coming back to me over and over again, “What the f@*k am I doing to myself?”. 

I’m sure that striving for achievement was one of the factors that led to me developing fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Over the last few years I have made great strides in regaining some function and if I don’t stop putting myself in these stressful situations I could jeopardise this. 

In short, I’m done with trying to prove whatever it is to myself. No more practical music exams, no more impossible goals, no more strict deadlines and most of all no more self-imposed stress. It’s time for me to enjoy what I have achieved in my life and be content with that. I’m going to learn piano pieces that I love rather than what’s on a syllabus. I have a very happy marriage and two gorgeous, well-adjusted grown-up children of whom I’m extremely proud. It will take some time to adjust my thinking but once done my life will be all the richer for it!

Edit: Exam passed!

Autism

Keeping an Open Mind……..

louiseissy

One of the features of autism is rigid thinking and I have certainly had issues with this over the course of my life. Recently I have been obsessed with reaching a set target weight in my weight loss endeavours. I was told by a doctor when I was in my teens that this weight was my ‘perfect’ weight. It also had the appeal of knowing that I’d be able to say that I’d lost a total of 10 stone. What I found myself doing was deliberately sabotaging my eating as I sought what I saw as perfection. I have to accept that I’m older now and have a lot of loose skin from being morbidly obese, it’s just not a realistic goal anymore. I have adjusted my target weight and now only have another 6.5lbs to lose to attain it. I may find myself losing a bit more but I’ve taken the pressure off and I no longer feel the need to self sabotage.

My daughter, who also has autism is very set on the age of films she will watch. She thinks that any film made before the year 2000 isn’t worth watching. I keep telling her that she is missing out on some wonderful films but she is adamant that anything before this date is ‘rubbish’. 

A couple of months ago I found myself doing something similar. I tended to dismiss animated films/TV shows as not worth watching. I think years of watch Disney/Pixar when the girls were younger had taken it’s toll. My husband has been interested in Japanese anime for a while now and suggested watching a series called Attack on Titan. I really wasn’t keen to try it – after all it was a ‘childish cartoon’ but unusually for me I decided to give a few episodes a go.

After two episodes I was hooked. Attack on Titan was very definitely not for children, in fact some scenes were traumatising for me. What struck me was how deep the story and characterisations were. The writing was phenomenal and completely different from anything I’d seen or heard of before. I hadn’t experienced much of Japanese culture before this and I was fascinated. The storylines were also very different from anything read before. I have often thought that films reuse ideas from previous films far to often. For me anime was a something entirely new and exciting.

Anime has fast become a new special interest for me. I’ve just started watching my fourth new series last night. It’s great to have a new interest that I can share with my husband. This has definitely been a learning experience for me and I intend to try other things that hitherto I’ve dismissed.

Attack on Titan