I'm celebrating. My coursework has been assessed and externally verified. I received my results in the post today. I'm pleased to say that I have been awarded an overall Distinction grade—and you can't get any better than that.
In ME terms, it was a struggle and the week-long setback that took me unawares in December was nowhere near as bad as the fully fledged relapse that followed in April. I won't pretend it was easy. There were times when I felt demoralised and frustrated. As the course progressed and I struggled with ever-decreasing and dramatically fluctuating energy levels, I became resigned that I'd never fulfil my potential as a photographer and that my reach had well and truly exceeded my grasp. And grades aren't everything—we all know that, right?
A weird little thing happened this morning. I was dreaming. In my dream my results had arrived in the post. I was looking at a sheet of paper that told me I'd received top marks. My classmate was there saying, "I told you so". And then I woke up. I reminded myself that it was just a dream. It wasn't reality. I braced myself for kind of middling results as I wrote my morning pages, reminding myself that my biggest success was completing the course and all those sensible things. And to make matters worse, emails were coming through on my mobile from classmates who had received their results hours before my post had arrived.
It was a good moment, opening that envelope and taking it all in. My dream had actually come true.
I've been celebrating all day. Texting and emailing, shouting from the rooftops. It's over and I've done as well as anyone possibly could, let alone a PWME. It was worth it.
8 comments:
CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!
Not much else to say except I knew you would do it and do it very well x
Woot - woot - woot! Happy for you, Digi. Much as one can say that it doesn't matter, the external assessment of one's worth as an artist, it is so very affirming, sustaining and all-round encouraging to get this kind of result (top marks, wheee!). And we do, even we PWME, live in the world, and this is something quite unequivocal to show the world. Ain't no-one can take that away from you or argue against it.
oh - and I like that you're still doing the Pages. Most I can do is the occasional Page, but that's partly because sometimes it's a choice between that or other writings (can't manage both). But I still love the process.
Thank you!
One unexpected aspect of this course has been the amount of research and writing that I had to do, and although I will say "I'm not a writer" I have to say that my written projects have shown me that despite living with this constant cognitive pea-souper, I can write rather well.
But… it was very hard work. Too hard, really.
As for the morning pages, they've become part of my routine now. Usually some rambling thoughts, plans and hopes for the day ahead or maybe a bit of anger or angsting about something on my mind. I'm actually at my worst symptom-wise on waking so I'm not putting a lot of conscious thought into the pages.
Interestingly, when I worked through TAW a year ago or so, I visualised completing this course with great success and top grades! Although I had to talk myself through tempering any unrealistic expectations and accepting the reality of my restrictions as the year progressed, it came true—although not exactly like the cute and easy 'living the dream' scenario that I visualised.
Having said all that, grades aren't everything. There are people on that course who didn't achieve as high marks but their talent and skill is by no means inferior. There comes a point when it becomes impossible to 'grade' any creative endeavour as 'better'.
Fab news, Dig, delighted for you! And I love that you dreamt your results too. x
Well done!
And I love your photos. I feel inspired.
xxxxx
Hi, Digitalesse
I've only just found this post, having followed you here from Velogubbed. I just wanted to say congrats on your results - a great achievement for anybody, but all the more so when you're combating mental pea soup.
Thank you Rob and thanks for dropping in :-)
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