This is the second video in a four (4)-part video blog series by Andee Joyce. If you like this post, please leave a comment for Andee below.
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Intro to Video Blog Series (Introduction by Johanne Regunathan, OCDD)
0:00 Welcome to the Andee Joyce video blog.
0:04 Singer. Songwriter.
0:05 Musician.
0:07 Artist.
0:08 Comedian. Blogger.
0:10 Self advocate.
0:12 This is video two of a four part
0:15 video series.
Andee’s pep talk
0:20 If you have a developmental or intellectual disability.
0:23 No matter what anyone says,
0:26 you have a right to be here
0:28 and do everything you were put on earth to do.
0:31 And if you support somebody with an intellectual
0:35 or developmental disability, tell them that as often as possible.
0:39 In fact, tell everyone who will listen.
0:42 Our lives depend on it.
0:44 In this quarter’s video, I’m going to be talking about
0:47 how I manage my emotions around performance.
0:50 I could probably write an entire book about this,
0:53 but in the meantime, there’s this.
Looping and clapping (live footage)
1:05 I’m not going to try and stop you.
1:07 [Clapping]
1:10 What does it say about me –
1:12 and about autism in general –
1:15 that my favorite stim all the world
1:17 requires the cooperation of a roomful of people?
Why I get up there
1:21 The other day I was doing a background music set in downtown Hillsboro, Oregon,
1:26 in an art supply store called Colours Art,
1:29 and I was playing guitar and singing with my back to the store window.
1:33 An 11 year old girl and her mother came into the store,
1:36 and she told me that she recognized me from the back from the sensory friendly
1:40 show that I did at the Walters Center last April,
1:43 and wanted to come in and meet me and tell me she loved my music!
1:47 This was nine months after I did the show there.
1:51 She saw a 60 year old version of herself singing and storytelling
1:55 and cracking jokes and leading flap-alongs and clap-alongs,
2:01 and it gave her hope.
2:03 It’s things like that, which make me remember
2:06 why I do this, why I’m still breathing.
2:10 I had a lot of meltdowns when I was first getting serious about this ten years ago.
Managing fear of screwing up
2:15 Sometimes I still have them.
2:17 I always have to look out for that evil troll in my head, tells me
2:20 how bad I am at everything because of internalized ableism.
2:25 For years, every time I went up there, I had the thought, Oh God, I hope
2:28 I don’t screw up again.
2:30 Which of course increases the chances that you will, because anxiety
2:33 does things to your hands and whatnot.
2:35 [laughs]
“Uncrushed” excerpt 1
2:36 Mmm…what if there were no charts,
2:41 no tiny red hearts,
2:44 no such thing as a following?
2:48 What if there was no pitch perfection,
2:50 and rejection was protection,
2:53 what would you want to sing?
2:55 For me,
Rejecting fixed mindset
2:57 the key to that was learning to reject fixed mindset.
3:01 And it is an ongoing process because most of the world marinates
3:05 in fixed mindset.
3:07 And it’s very hard to unlearn.
3:10 Sometimes I still slip up.
3:12 I think it helps me to remember that I’m not a finished product
3:15 and never will be, and neither is anyone else.
My child will never…
3:20 Fixed mindset says you’re either born with talent or ability, or you aren’t.
3:24 And fixed mindset was behind the original definition of autism.
3:30 The idea that who you are and what you’re capable of doing is locked in place
3:35 by the time you’re three years old. And it was behind all those parents
3:40 of autistic kids who used to say to me and my autistic friends,
3:43 “my child will never go to school, have a family, get married, etc.
3:47 You are nothing like my child. You can talk.”
3:51 I can?
3:53 News to me!
3:54 I’m reading from a script right now.
3:57 Fooled you, didn’t I?
4:00 True facts:
4:02 Almost every skill I have now developed after the age of 50!
Video of me messing up!
4:07 Yes, yes, yes, yes!
4:09 My microphone’s not on! [Andee and audience laugh]
4:11 My microphone’s not on! [Andee and audience laugh]
4:13 All right, here we go.
4:17 Let’s try this again.
4:18 [Clapping]
4:19 Someone’s gotta be the best, or the prettiest.
4:24 [volume lowers] Everything these days is a contest, I guess.
Finding “kill switches”
4:26 Finding kill switches for the troll is
4:28 the key to every single thing I do
4:31 on stage or off.
4:33 What thing I always remember
4:34 is that the troll wasn’t any nicer to me when I wasn’t performing.
4:38 In fact, it was kind of the opposite.
4:40 I think I was led back into this at the half century mark
4:43 because I didn’t want to die feeling that way about myself.
4:47 Second time I had a meltdown after a performance,
Talking back to meltdowns
4:52 after it was over –
4:53 because you know, you can’t really do anything while you’re in the middle of a meltdown.
4:56 You have to wait for it to pass.
4:59 I wrote down a list of 54 different things a troll says to me
5:02 in first person, and number 23 on the list was “I must change.
5:06 I must become a different person entirely.”
5:10 I’ve told everyone I know that if you ever hear me say anything
5:12 that sounds like that, you can say, “that’s number 23!”
5:16 And that will help redirect me.
5:18 Medication and therapy also make me more redirectable.
5:21 Mostly, learning to do what I do on stage is about repeated messing up.
Error tolerance!
5:27 You don’t learn anything if you don’t mess up a lot.
5:29 [Andee laughs]
5:31 I just had to keep going out there trying new things,
5:35 making live recordings with my phone, getting as specific as possible
5:39 about what I wanted to work on instead of globalizing it.
5:43 Instead of saying “I was terrible” or “I don’t have any talent”or “nobody,
5:47 nobody cares about this.”
5:49 I learned to say
5:50 “that part of the song was a little tricky to sing while playing guitar, maybe
5:53 is there a way to make it easier or prepare myself better?”
5:55 Error tolerance:
5:57 It’s what’s for dinner.
5:59 I’ll tell you something.
Brain trolls vs. fans
6:01 The day after I did
6:02 that show at the Walters, the troll focused on a couple of extremely minor
6:06 hiccups and clobbered me relentlessly about them.
6:09 I had a pretty good meltdown about that.
6:13 But you know, that 11 year old girl didn’t care if I jumped time for two seconds
6:17 because of an audio issue that was beyond my control.
Uncrushed excerpt 2
6:24 One thing I do often
6:25 is write songs to give myself a pep talk or cheer myself up.
6:31 Sometimes it works right away.
6:33 Sometimes it takes years. And everything in between!
6:37 So how do I manage this stuff?
6:40 I chip away at it a little bit at a time.
6:43 Every experience I have gets added to my personal internal data bank.
6:49 Sometimes it feels like
6:50 I’m not making very much progress, but then…
6:53 [Andee Singing] Smile when they say you’re too much,
6:55 have a brain trust you can trust…
6:57 And one day you’ll look down and there you’ll be
7:01 – uncrushed!
7:01 Mmm.. uncrushed
Conclusion
7:07 I feel like skill building
7:08 is something that I want to keep doing for the rest of my life.
7:12 For as long as I’m physically and mentally capable of it.
7:16 I probably couldn’t hurt with the neuroplasticity either.
7:19 Maybe all dogs can’t learn new tricks, but old humans?
7:22 We’ve been doing that forever.
7:25 Thanks for listening.
OCDD extra: What is ableism?
7:27 Andy talks about ableism.
7:29 What is some
7:32 ableism?
7:33 According to Merriam-Webster dictionary.com
7:38 is any prejudice, bias
7:41 and discrimination directed towards
7:44 people living with disabilities?
7:47 It is based on the idea that people with typical abilities
7:51 are superior and more valuable than people with disabilities.
7:56 This is not true.
7:58 Ableism also assumes that people with disabilities
8:01 need to be fixed or changed to fit a norm.
8:04 This assumption may appear to be an expression of caring,
8:09 but serves to hold back the success of people with disabilities.
OCDD extra: Link to “Uncrushed” full song
8:14 Earlier in her video,
8:16 Andy shared a clip of her new song I’m Crushed.
8:20 To hear the full song, go to the description below this video.
8:26 So right below this video there should be text.
8:29 Click on more and the full description will open
8:33 And you will find the link for the full song
8:36 that will take you to Andy’s YouTube channel and you can listen to it there.
OCDD extra: How to Tell Your Story Like Andee
8:40 To learn more about how to tell your story like Andee,
8:43 contact the Oregon Council on Developmental Disabilities.
8:48 You can email us at info@ocdd.org
8:53 or call (971) 225-3659.
9:00 You can also find information on how to find support,
9:04 or more information, or examples of others
9:07 telling their stories on our website at www.ocdd.org
9:15 You can also scan the QR code on the screen.
9:19 Also, the first video in Andy’s video blog
9:22 series is on our website and it’s on the homepage.
9:27 You can link to it from there.
Thank you for watching.
To learn more about Andee, visit her website at rhythmandautism.com
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