I became a mother last May.
And I had wanted to document the experience.
For me. For my daughter. And for anyone else who cared to know.

Mostly, it was descriptions of things I wanted to capture, powerful little moments that resonated. The notion of documentation, as I’d go on to see, is a hilariously naive idea for the newborn idealist mum who would proceed to get pulled into the tide and get lost as unstoppable life, like a giant undulating wave, kept pushing me up to breathe only to then bowl me over again and again, knocking out my wind, my energy, my concentration.

The effort to keep breathing, the desire to sit quietly, the obsessive need to accomplish every single tiny task piling up to become an unconquerable mountain, while she sleeps, the need to close my own eyes (especially this) — All of this was overriding every draw to document what was happening. And so much was happening. And it all felt worthy of commemorating.

Feelings, physical touches, emotions, shock and flickers of pain, flashes of unadulterated awe. So many times, so so many times of saying:
“Come back to that later and write it down before it goes…”

And then it goes and you regret and you move on until the next moment hits and you feel the same.

They’re there somewhere though, these lightning bolts. I picture them in my mind like the many million specks of dust that rise and fall as you shake out a sheet, catching on sunbeams and enabling you to witness as you look at them, for that second of focus, a moment of deja vu…

That first night we spent together in the hospital, the first time we all tried to go to sleep and me knowing it would be impossible, that I could not stop looking at this little creature who is suddenly now here and has changed everything.

Shock, the genuine shock, that this creature is real. That this has happened. We have created this little being out of nothing.

Moments locked in terror of the slightest lingering silence.

Moments of striking, incredible pain in your body that somehow, despite everything, are ignorable to do whatever and everything you need to do for her.

Moments in the middle of the night when you check her little chest is rising and falling.

The unblinkered joy of knowing your child is actually looking at and reacting to the black and white sensory images you drew that surround their changing area; the explosion of pride and validation that beats any other professional achievement in your life to date.

Moments in feeding, where you wonder how your body has suddenly become this dispenser of fuel.

Moments you are awed by your own ignorance of motherhood. Of women. Of what we can do. Of what we do and have done for millenia. Of what is discounted. Of what is never championed. Of what is never talked about.

Moments of horror seeing our maternal experiences cheapened and simplified down to a stereotype or a meme.

Moments when the little thing locks eyes with you and won’t look away. Like she’s reading you for signs of bluffing.

Moments when her fingers grip you and you feel the security your body pulses back into her.

Moments when you see the insanely beautiful connection growing between her and her father. And despite yourself, you’re jealous of it.

Moments when she’s gone, she’s finally gone and you have a moment to yourself, for anything else… and you spent your precious intervening seconds scrolling through all the pictures and videos you have of her on your phone until she’s back.

Moments when you want her to nap and her smiling face looks up at you in abject refusal and delight in doing so and as much as you were about to break into tears, she breaks you into laughing.

Moments when it’s hard. When it’s so hard, you’re lost and blind and are drowning in your own life. Then a locked eye and a laugh from her turns it all on its head.

It’s strange when you’ve spent a long time coming to a point of hard earned balance and stabilisation. I feel like I fought for my spot on that pedestal that symbolises security, ownership, certainty and to a extent, control, and now this little human, who can’t yet walk, can devastate that foundation with a single step, like a tiny, beribboned titan.

She is, without a doubt, the most powerful and impactful person in my life. She is not yet a year and holds our attention, our happiness, sadness, our sanity, in the palm of her hand, like the Fates with the threads of life, ever ready to cut.

This account doesn’t crack the surface, it barely tiptoes on the idea of everything that I feel needs to be said. It’s nothing really, in the grand scheme of things. Just a start.

The start of a new philosophical analysis of the intricacies of this new chapter of life for me. In One Designer Odyssey, I’ve talked about college, first jobs, set backs, addiction, recovery and growth. I’ve talked about striving for excellence, for humility, for understanding and empathy and authenticity in both who you are and what you bring to the table, whatever table that may be.

I imagine this chapter will be the path I wander, rather than follow. Mostly because I have a little driver at the helm who isn’t completely in control of her feet yet. And likes to take her time to look at the things around her, poke the soil, try to eat what she can pick up. Time has to be fluid.

Time doesn’t really exist in this version of reality. Only these scattered moments of impact and the space in between.

There is no time now.
There is only her.

Becoming a mother was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Leadership | Part 4

Communication is everything in managing client relationships and having a firm handle and consistent process for how you engage enables clients to have a reference point for what you’re doing, gives them a sense of comfort in you and your ownership of the situation — Therefore, you can be trusted. A client’s trust is worth its weight in gold and can be the difference in them coming back to you or not.

A new human to play with…

What I’d also remind you of is that your client is human. There was never more of a reminder of this in 2020 as Zoom was suddenly beaming us into each other’s houses and granting us rare glimpses into each other’s lives, homes and families, all in the same situation, all with the same concerns and suddenly, all unified under something bigger than us, that was bigger than work. It was about identification and connection.

To be able to work well together, we need to be able to relate to each other, find common ground to build rapport as well as act professionally and offer the person on the other side a clear and achievable path forward. I always put myself in their shoes and consider what I’d want if I was the client and for me, the simple formula is always the same:

• Show I’ve heard them and understood
• Give them a range of options that have enough information to make decisions with
• Give them my personal recommendation — to show that you have your own decisive, distinguishing voice
• Set the stage for the next appointment to chat

Think of every engagement like you’re planning an itinerary — whether it’s a conversation, a call, a simple email, or a workshop, the format should stay consistent:

1. Frame the situation — What is the brief, what are the key factors to call out, what are the goals, what is our approach, what are our timeframes and what are our next steps.
2. Follow up with a full email summary, complete with details on actions, the owners of those actions and next steps. Consider that this email may need to brief people who were not on the call so be as clear and informative as possible.
3. Set up a regular catchup meeting with the client and the team to ensure the project is going to plan, documenting the catchup notes and actions as above and circulating round to the team. What is this doing — Regular contact with the client shows a commitment on your part to getting it right and giving them what they want. It also shows a process driven approach, which reinforces the fact that you’re systematic and that their deliverables will be delivered to spec in a managed manner. People want to know you’re reliable and they’ll always go with someone with a plan rather than someone making it up as they go.
4. Repeat until the job is done and the money is in the bank.

Gauge your client tastes like you would a user

You want to be sure your client actually reads, reviews and appreciates all the work you’re putting in — That’s a given. As much as we are producers and problem solvers, we are also designers who get immense validation from our work as well as humans who want to know our efforts are being appreciated.

I can guarantee you a lot more satisfaction on this if you take the time at the beginning of any client relationship to ascertain what type of content they like to consume and establish those as your primary formats for information delivery.

Tailor fitting your content to the reader, while time consuming, is perhaps the most effective way of ensuring your work is noticed. This is empathy, this is showing respect to the person in question, respect for their time and actively builds rapport. But, from a business point of view, it ensures your pitches hits the nail on the head, both in terms of the tasks at hand as well as client buy-in and chances of return engagements.

Just keep in mind these main points:

• Structure — Make reading this document consistent. Don’t strain their attention or focus with lots of random pages or treatments
• Underscore the topic — Give them a hold to lock their attention to
• Brief descriptions — Keep it brief and to the point, and finally…
• Only communicate what is relevant to the person

Are they more visual, are they more fact driven, do they enjoy a deep dive or are they more analytical and prefer to see the charts and figures as opposed to write-ups?

Ask them for copies of reports, e-mails that they’ve actually enjoyed and are more likely to respond to. Ask them to define what they need in a report before you write it and you’ll find that your job is going to be much easier when you need to deliver it.

And that’s not to say you’re not thorough in your research and you cut content to the point of madness. Section your document relevant to the reader, while including a link to the entire document. Structure this well, with easy to find, digestible sections — but always assume that this will not be read in full.

Care about your client

As I said earlier, a deeper relationship with and understanding of your client shows in the work. It’s worth it to care about your client and actively follow their work. If they share something interesting, follow it up, reach out to them about it. If they have an Instagram, follow it;if they publish articles, read them. Building client relationships that are real and genuinely nurtured will give you trust and long term engagement. They also enable you to deliver their work better, to answer their questions better because you know them better. Because you took the time to do this.

Remember what your mother said: Always be nice

Even after I’ve finished a piece of work with a client, if I see something I know they’d be interested in, I send it on. Why? Because it’s nice. It shows you’re thinking of them, that you get them and you have a certain level of respect for them. They, in return, will feel respected, feel valued and be reminded of you and how nice and easy you were to work with and how pleasant it is when things are made easy… Then any jobs on the horizon will end up on your desk. All by being nice.

In the IADT Conversations series, as well as discussing pivoting from one discipline to another and the flexibility of the working designer, we also discussed how to drum up work, especially for those whose natural inclination was introversion and definitely not networking.

My fellow speaker Lesley Ann said of her own experience:
“I was nice to work with, I was organised, I was prepared and people knew me for this, so I had a lot of referrals just from word of mouth that kept me constantly busy.”

Which led the moderator, Fiona Shaw to say, this in its own way is your own form of subtle self promotion — At the heart of it all, it pays to be a good person. People want to work with good people. Never ever denounce the power of your working reputation for being your meal ticket.

The Art of BD

There is definitely an art to business development as much as there is an art in assembling interface elements on a screen — Don’t disconnect the two as this is exactly what we were missing out on in our college education.

You’ll pick up so much on how good business development works from just being on the job, taking your licks and seeing how different people tick — at the end of the day, it all boils down to how well you communicate, how well you listen and gauge the situation. Reading the room, gauging what’s needed to progress and what’s not is almost as important as what comes out of your mouth.

I had the benefit of observing and learning from lots of different teachers the right and wrong ways of engaging on this plain. It’s a different discipline altogether, requiring a completely different language and philosophy. There’s specific ways of speaking that helps you close deals.

There’s ways of reading a room and understanding the type of person inside it, their urgency, how they like to discuss and see information and reacting to this in the future so you can continue to build rapport.

There’s an understanding of when to dig down into the detail and when to keep things high level. It’s an unchoreographed dance that needs you to be loose, to feel the music on the day, to pick up on the signals your partner sends you. It relies on chemistry.

It’s not a natural thing for everyone but for the eager learner, there’s a lot that can be picked up with time and experience.

Looking beyond your role on the day

When I started doing BD, I was being called in to support from the design perspective initially, I didn’t see myself as having any other role than that. Looking back now, it was this observation period that let me see how these meetings really worked and how subtle they could be.

At the end of the day, you could be talking about a concept that you thought was going to revolutionise the world but what it boiled down to was deliberating starting a relationship with the person behind it.

You could describe initial BD meetings as the stereotypical first date, with two parties coming together, seeing what the chemistry is like and then coming away in reflection, wondering whether to call the other again. And all of us have been on some good, bad as well as truly horrendous dates.

I’ve seen extreme power plays and name dropping to non verbal intentions screaming in a silent room. I’ve seen overambitious people too bought into their own genius to consider other people’s thoughts. I’ve seen humble people be bullied by others and I’ve seen strong people be brought down for their lack of respect for the people around them.

Design and the job in discussion is one tiny facet — In BD, relationships are everything. Managing expectations around that relationship is everything.

Actively being part of BD has made me a more thoughtful and responsible designer because I understand how important the relationship side is, how crucial it is for the client to feel supported, to feel valued and part of the process at every stage. So I invite every designer to embrace this side of business and not downplay its role in how you deliver.

First impressions do count — So does the inspiration of possibilities.

At the beginning, when I was new to BD, I’d take strength from the fact that we’d go into every chat with a high level target of what we wanted to get from it. There was always a quick pow-wow beforehand and a recap after and this gave me the perfect framework to review my own performance with the team as well as learn about all the other dynamics going on in the room that I may not have picked up on — It was an awesome way to hone my ways of engaging and my general awareness of the psychology of these sessions.

For me, I was focused on the impression I’d wanted to leave with the client:

• Did I come off as informed there on what I needed to be?
• Was I personable enough or a little too informal? Did they remember my name at the end?
• Did I say anything that they were intrigued by that may have given them food for thought?
• Are they asking me more questions?
• Are they leaving with satisfactory answers?
• Is there something I should follow up with them on?

Whereas my colleagues, having spent years in different industries, doing BD with a range of incredible people had a whole host of other questions in their heads that they were chasing answers for:

• Who is the person sitting before me? What’s their history, what is their working background and why are they in front of us today?
• Is this concept something I can get behind? Does it have long term potential? Is it new and disruptive or a rehash? Does it have a unique value proposition?
• Why is this person doing this right now? What are their motivations?
• What are their resources?
• Is this person the right one to drive this? Have they ever done anything like this before? Would they need support? Is this us or potentially someone else in my network that would enable this person to succeed?
• Is this person missing something in the business plan that needs to be explored? Another avenue that they haven’t considered?
• Is the person adaptable?
• Do they have a decent understanding of the space they’re entering or do they need specific expert help? Do they know what they don’t know? (in the sense of do they appreciate all the answers they are going to need to have to move this project on to the next level and are they willing to put in the time now to do this?)
• Is this something that we can add value to?
• Is this someone we can happily partner with? Is this a decent ethical person that we can see ourselves building a long term relationship with?
• Do we trust them?

Seeing the two approaches side by side, it’s easy to see why my original thought was not going to bear the fruit the second approach was. The first might evoke respect; the second would evoke that AND direct value.

The power of a good question

There’s a lot that’s happening under the words we say and the questions we ask. The questions you ask, like I learned in Bushypark, go a long way into deciding what can be significant things in your future. I was lucky to be part of a startup from day one and see how BD and the evolution of relationships and business based on smart people, smart questions and mutual trust could grow a company.

Our job was not only to listen and ask questions but to facilitate possibility. To facilitate inspiration and to facilitate the formulation of a plan of first steps. Guys, at this stage, you know I love first steps.

We at this point are the enablers of possibility. And that’s a magical position to be in.

Once you start to appreciate the psychology behind the work, the work takes on a new meaning to you as a designer. You can establish a myriad of meaning, trust and confidence and glean a lot from one BD meeting. Don’t take them for granted, don’t phone them in because there’s more than a contract behind it — there’s every hour of thinking, sweat, frustration that this person has put in up to this point. There’s those backing them. And then there’s you and your team who could be on the cusp of becoming part of something cool.

Some ground rules

Let’s lock down some rules of thumb for making these encounters matter:

#1 | Keeping meetings focused

I would advise any designer in BD to work on keeping your attitude and approach attuned to the situation you’re in — Have it clear in your mind and have the consensus of the rest of your team pre-meeting that X result is the goal of the meeting, that Y is what we want to leave them with and Z is the impact we’d like to have longer term. It seems very simple, but you’d be surprised how effective this is to keeping meetings on track and the thoughts of everyone focused on the job at hand.

#2 | Remember, you’re more than your speciality

Being able to contribute from your disciplinary point of view is one thing to focus on doing well, but never restrict yourself to thinking this is your only purpose in the room. This is particularly true for designers in the junior to mid range with higher aspirations to rise in the future.

If you can see a client drifting and you are in a position or have a comment that can pull them back into the room, do it. Aside from avoiding the over-reliance on other people to lead the conversation, you’re potentially saving an engagement from going south; you’re enabling yourself to be seen as a trusted voice in the company and in speaking up, you are enabling the conversation to reset along the agreed outcomes the team had already established at the outset.

There’s a lot you can add and inspire and create in these sessions — Remember, you have the privilege of being present at the beginning of something potentially significant. Be grateful, be mindful, be giving of yourself and learn from others.

Letting experience start to evolve your role

Tailoring your life and role to get the right fit

The experience you’ve gotten up until this point, from projects in college to all the various gigs and roles throughout your career, as well as the inescapable life altering events in between, has all had its hand in shaping you to be someone truly unique, who truly has a lot to offer professionally, as well as personally.

We all strive (the majority of you anyway, who have read to this point) to be a person who is driven, reliable and delivers consistently. Who is empathetic enough to anticipate, and support; who is conscientious about calling out issues and not leaving it to others to sort.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s design work or mechanical engineering. At the end of the day, a good employee is one who uses common sense, communicates well and delivers what they say they will — The rest is gravy.
Now, as we move on, this series sees us come full circle:

Identifying, based on all you are, all you know and all you’ve been through, where you are best in position to serve.

How best for you personally to lead, where your passions and needs can be met to give you a level of satisfaction that no one is going to know to give you, even if they wanted to — It’s about stepping out of your own way and finally, ensuring that this creates a ripple effect in how you empower others to do the same.

Bringing the best to client engagement, business development and your own personal brand of… was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jumping to Senior is a different journey for everyone. No-one ever gave me a handbook or a real scope to become a senior — in fact, when the opportunity came to present myself as a senior, I just jumped on it and figured that, much like learning to code emails or animate, I would pick it up as needed — I just needed to give myself the opportunity to be that person.

Think of it like putting on a costume:
Wearing the Senior Costume today, I’ve the opportunity to create the brand and collateral for a new company from the ground up, I’ve the power to establish approach and processes for design, I’ll be leading a team, I’ll be the authority on UX and I’ll have the implied trust of our clients, better yet, the management team who’ve put me here, that I am deserving of the role and that I know what I’m talking about.

Yes, our friend the dickhead Imposter Syndrome will pip up with his usual shite, “But you’ve never worn the Senior Costume before. You’ve never had anything like this kind of responsibility to manage all of this and surely, there is so much at stake if you fuck this all up?”

To which you’ll say, “Seniors have no time for any of this second guessing, I actually have too much to do. Schedule a meeting and we’ll talk later.”
Drop mic, walk.

We have to take that leap of faith because no one else can take it for us. There is nothing more empowering than starting from nothing, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. We fake it til we make it and that’s how we grow, because we try on the costume, see how it fits and then tailor it until it’s our own.

Everyone starts off without experience.

My first day leading a design team kicked off with googling:
“How to lead a strong design team”.

Seriously. I read everything I could find and then some. I had no idea what was the right way to do it for myself at that point and it’s a genuinely scary feeling, as well as a perfect opening for Imposter Syndrome to arrive at the door to make you doubt yourself even more. But that’s what I did.

Why not benefit from the experience of others until I’d found a way of making this my own? By doing things that make sense by someone else’s good example, you then find what works and doesn’t work for your particular company and your preferences and processes. You have to start somewhere. Rule number one.

#1 | Start somewhere

This is my mantra for when my world is threatening to drown me. The reality of life is that you are going to be overburdened many times throughout your career and it feels awful, overwhelming and suffocating. I identify with this feeling as much from a work context as I did when I was drinking a litre of vodka at night to silence my thoughts. The relief can be found, in both cases, in taking a first positive step forward.

I find that the first step, whatever and however small it is, is essential to break the weird stalemate position that simple fear leaves you in. It may be the first google that leads you to a piece of information that makes sense to follow. It may be a call to a peer you respect to ask their thoughts on what to do. It may be to open a journal and allow your thoughts to spill out. Whatever it is, you’re moving forward and doing something. You’re active.

The key is to take a breath, lay out the tasks at hand and make one step towards a beginning. Then begin.

I’ll never forget talking to my counsellor Sara* about being overwhelmed by the amount of things going on in my life that were threatening my sense of balance that I was fighting to keep hold of since leaving Bushypark. Things like banking, having my current and savings accounts set up in one bank, with my mortgage in another, with various payments, from home to house insurance as well as direct debits and other bill payments interfacing between the two — it was driving me crazy.

All of these stupid little issues were setting up camp in my head, making themselves comfortable and me miserable. Her advice to me was simple:
Try to think of one thing that will simplify the issue and do it.

The next time I saw her, I reported that I’d moved all my banking to the same bank as my mortgage account.

She actually clapped for me.
Skye, my dog, who had been sitting politely on the couch beside me, joined in, barking with gusto. Simple but effective — I had taken back ownership and my sense of power over the situation. And damn, that tiny little start felt good.

Making a start gives you back the power. Making a start deflates the growing tension and reminds you that everything is surmountable. Making a start enables you to gauge the reality of the situation rather than the overwhelm and gives you the motivation to keep going.

There doesn’t exist a designer role that doesn’t see you tottering at some point, scrabbling to get through the mountain of emails piling up in your inbox. Between actually actioning those emails, returning messages, attending meetings (which generally lead to more work on your plate) and addressing simple admin like booking your hours, your workload will oftentimes be intimidating and overwhelming.

Especially when you’re good. People like to rely on those that are proven deliverers so it’s in your best interest as well as theirs to be very measured with your time and prioritisation.

#2 | Lead a team knowing that you’ll make mistakes

Imposter syndrome will always play a role in how you feel managing the first team you put together. As usual, he shows up, drags his mucky shoes on the carpet and puts out a cigarette on your coffee table.

• “What right do you have to boss these people around?”
• “I saw you googling “How to empower your design team” this morning, wish they could have seen that, I’m sure they’d respect you more…”
• “Did you know that this person has at least 5 key skills that you don’t have and 3 years more experience in X, Y and Z? Do you honestly think that’s fair, Roisin?”

I hate when the bastard uses my name.

I think at the beginning, you’re always going to overthink your role in leading a team. The truth is it’s like any new relationship and any new dynamic — You’ll start out, you’ll get things right and wrong and over time, you’ll work out the best way to make the team work for everyone based on what you know of best practices and what you know of each other as people.

Don’t expect miracles from the get go, give yourself and the team the time and the freedom to try things in a supportive environment where the dialogue is always open.

#3 | Understand your team members as people

My team is wonderful because we’re all so fecking different. We hail from different countries, from completely different backgrounds and all of us landed in UX organically. We all have different approaches to working, different preferences in terms of working styles, resources, tools and how we use them. We are better because we are different. We’re stronger because we appreciate each other and more robust because we can be honest with each other.

Understanding people is the key to leading a happy team. Understanding the people you are working with and how they tick, what they respond to and what they don’t, what drives them professionally, what excites them, what pisses them off — This is essential to be able to manage the workload, to allocate the right jobs, to keep people satisfied in terms of their own career aspirations, their own objectives and their own happiness.

To get the best out of people, you need to know more than their CV. You need to know them and their motivations and you need to care about them too.

You also need to know yourself and recognise your own blind-spots as well as your strengths. Being aware of your own limitations as well as your potential gives you a deeper understanding that enables the best solutions to appear for a team.

It enables a team to find a place for everyone to find their niche (remember, Floor Plan Girl) to shine, to excel and to support and that, in my own meandering experience of doing this for a few years now, is what makes a team really feel vital and alive.

• A good team is not about one upping each other — It’s about enabling each other.
• A good team is not about individual glories — It’s about involving each other in the work and supporting each other to complete better.
• A good team is not about having this level of expertise in a silo — it’s about enabling others to share that expertise and improve themselves.
• A good team is not about working in isolation — it’s about being willing to share the human side of themselves to drive growth in others.

Loretta Malandro, Ph.D said “The human element in leadership is what inspires people.” I live by this idea everyday. This ability to show vulnerability and share mistakes made and lessons learnt is going to be what fortifies people when they are low, enables them to make mistakes without fear and evolve as leaders themselves.

This, for me, means leading by example.

It’s why I chose to write these stories and share the worst of my experience alongside the good. I think that allowing people to see into my experience enables them to identify with it and that in turn shifts the cogs to be able to address other things going on for them.

Maybe it’s about their designs, maybe it’s about their careers, maybe it’s about their lives — whatever it speaks to, it offers the olive branch with a humble invitation to start the change because someone else has done it before them and is willing to keep an open dialogue about it.

#4 | Lead the way: Set the example for behaviour

It’s crucial to lead from the front in all aspects of the work. I ensure I am as visible as possible in how I ask for information I don’t know, how I respond to clients in emails, how I present my work and how I conduct myself in meetings because I want to be accountable to myself and my team as having set the example for what I want to see.

This is especially important for junior team members, who are looking for the model to follow, who are still forming themselves and their practices and their attitudes. I am at that point, whether I chose the responsibility or not, a key point of reference and I don’t take that lightly. If I can’t stand by my own standards, how can I define or expect standards from them?

So own your example and do as you want them to do? This goes down to things as granular as sharing work and pumping the team for feedback on Slack, cc’ing them on requests I make so that they see me not sitting waiting for others to take action.

If I want to see habits and characteristics form in my people, they have to see it in me first.

Not only see it, but understand the significance behind it and why it gets results and unless the others find equally effective ways of getting the same results, they should consider taking up the approach.

#5 | Create templated approaches and adapt as needed

We talked about templated approaches in the At Work series. I’ve been emboldened by a host of designers who went before me, creating templated approaches that could be adapted for your own needs.

People like Jamie Levy, who wrote the incredible “UX Strategy”, who accompanied their books with simple templates and structures that have proven successful, enable others like me to step into the shoes of leadership with a system that I know can work. Eventually, over time, I adapted them templates again to suit my particular needs and this means that they work that much harder for the demands I have on my time.

You need templated documents and systems that enable you to work to your best ability. Whether it’s for enabling a client to understand the branding process or starting off an explainer video script, these templates are the tools that take away any sense of hesitancy from the work or those hopeless “Where do I start?” moments — These tools rule them out.

Once you figure out an approach for an exercise that works, document this so it’s a transferable process. This enables other designers to understand your process, but also gives them the rein and empowerment to develop their own. It’s all about you doing things in ways that get the job done well but that work best for you — Your approach may suit you but not others but by giving them a starting point and the freedom to explore and the crucial freedom to make mistakes and learn from them, you put them in the mindset of creating their own solutions. Not all designers have this mindset — If I could grow them, I would.

#6 | Encourage active collaboration and direct communication

This leads nicely into the idea of collaboration. A team is only as strong as its communication so keeping an open dialogue about how things can be improved is really important. This is not only for all to feel heard — We’re working in a sector that’s moving so fast, it’s impossible to stay on top of solo. Everyday, there are thousands of new solutions, softwares and techniques being introduced — you’d be mad to think as an individual, you’re capable of keeping up with everything by yourself.

And you shouldn’t either.

Creativity should be collaborative so bringing the team in to discuss new ways of working, giving them the freedom to try out new approaches and gauge their effectiveness, it all adds to your facilitation of their personal growth. That’s a special position to be in and a powerful one at that.

#7 | Empower your designers

From the beginning of my tenure at the head of a team, my experience of other leaders to that point hadn’t been very inspiring. There were micromanagers, unhealthy communicators, those who wanted to create a sense of competition in the team and those who just enjoyed the power trip.

If I was going to achieve one thing, I wanted to create an environment that was open to dialogue, whatever that dialogue needed to be and that empowered designers, recognising their ability and their potential, even when they couldn’t appreciate its existence themselves and enable them to open their eyes to it. I don’t expect I’ve gotten things right all the time. I don’t expect anyone ever does. It’s nice to know what your goal is though and I hope I’ve stayed true to that.

#8 | Deal with issues in the team head on and make this habitual

As a rule, most issues have something to do with communication or the lack of it. Whether it’s designers having issues amongst themselves or with others in the broader team, your role is to facilitate a conversation that can end in a resolution for both parties.

This is where laying the groundwork around general practice and communication from day one is critical in the success of your team — A junior designer can still own a situation if he’s clear at every point he hits a roadblock and enables himself to be supported in good time.

Good communication skills show you realise what is critical and it doesn’t become an issue around your own personal performance or ability, it simply shows an understanding that the team and the company needs this now and to get this done, realistically, it will need X, y and Z…

Be a diplomat and push everyone at all times to communicate better and facilitate this where possible. Sometimes, setting up the pitch, stating the rules for the game and agreeing to be the ref is half the work.

My approach to these situations is simple. I invite the people at odds to verbalise their issues but in a formulaic way that enables them to understand and empathise with the other. Think structurally and practically — The aim of the game is to have everyone going home with a better understanding of the other.

• State the issue.
• State the consequence.
• State the solution.
• Be respectful.

Take an example:

“Every time you cut across me, saying ‘I know’, I feel like you’re not listening to what I want to say and that makes me think, Why bother? Let me finish my thought and then respond.”

Sometimes, just the simple airing of your grievance in front of someone else (you’ll remember, me and Sean* in the pagoda in Bushypark) can work to suck out the venom. A problem shared truly is a problem halved but the fact is that we don’t actively allow ourselves to share what’s bothering us. We haven’t been conditioned to do this, which is why I am so keen to facilitate it.

There is so much freedom in letting go of all the small useless shitty things that bug you on a daily basis. There is so much freedom to be had from saying how you feel. And there is so much perspective we can get back from airing what we needed to and hearing the other respond.

Sometimes, you learn more that changes your perception of the situation completely. Sometimes, we realise the rationale behind decisions we thought were targeted at us. Sometimes, we realise it was never worth losing this much headspace over.

Use yourself as the test dummy if needs be to start the process. This is where being open for criticism and feedback yourself opens the door for others to be more honest about their own feelings with you and proves you walk the walk. Never hold others to a standard you wouldn’t hold yourselves to and show them that anything can be said as long as its intention is to help, to give value, to resolve issues and its delivery respectful to all involved.

#9 | Create a healthy feedback environment

I’m a massive fan of constructive feedback. I’ve seen it working too many times to question it and so I promote it seriously and endlessly in my team as a key part of elevating our work and practices. What I can’t stand though is bad feedback.

This doesn’t mean feedback I don’t agree with, or criticism that rips my designs and ideas to shreds — I tend to revel in this as my humble ego has learnt too many times that Roisin as an island sucks as compared to Roisin with others in my corner.

Bad feedback could be defined in my book as:
“Reactions that fail to inspire solutions”.

Designers, remember, are not artists, we are problem solvers. There may be massive creative skill and prowess driving our work but essentially, what we are here for is to solve a problem in the best way possible for our target audience. Appreciating the impact of good feedback and the damage of the bad is a gift that has the potential to elevate you and your work to the next level.

Simply remember why we do it: The purpose of giving feedback is to improve the situation or the person’s work or performance.

You don’t accomplish that by being harsh, critical or offensive — you accomplish it by being honest, helpful and proactive, guiding them through the weeds when needs be for everyone’s gain in the end. As such, we should be inspired by criticism. We should welcome it with open arms.

Bad feedback, on the other hand, has a way of changing the vibe of your whole experience, taking what should be a welcome part of the process and making it feel like an attack on your work and who you are.
This infuriates me. Which is why I’ve compiled the following list of how not to give feedback:

1. Angrily
Any feedback given in anger has the risk of making you sound (not one to mince words, me) like an ass. When you’re angry, you are overheated, irritable and giving feedback in this state is likely to make you a lot harsher than you’d like to be.

On top of this, anyone on the receiving end having borne the brunt of your anger will most likely avoid asking you for feedback again. This is just not worth encouraging as it breeds fear of sharing and this tends to trickle down in design teams. So take a breath, ask yourself if you’re in a good enough state to be objective and constructive and if not, put it off until you’ve calmed down.

2. In dribs and drabs
This is an incredibly frustrating way to receive feedback, as any designer who has asked for feedback before committing to a full design across a prototype. Imagine the frustration of hearing “Yep, looks great, let’s go with that”, then a week later, “Change that colour to red there,” to a month later, “You know what, I actually think we need to make a move towards flat UI, I never really liked these elements…”, to “You know what, I showed it to my friend last night and he said — ” and you, the designer, are left holding the carcass of a bullet riddled layout that never stood a chance, poor thing.

When you feedback, do it honestly and thoroughly and in one shot.

Make a list if you need to. It may sound anal, it may feel mean, but if you don’t call all your points from the start, you are doing a disservice to the designer, especially if someone else calls them out later and you find yourself inclined to agree. This only makes you come across as disingenuous whereas being completely open in all areas you think could improve from the beginning, tells me that you took the time to really look and not only that, you care about me making my work better.

3. Late
As with dribs and drabs, this is as much of a call to action to clients, as well as designers. Feeding back too late is useless, you’ve already wasted a lot of people’s time, money and energy and it’s not going to reflect well on your results or how they’re delivered, because at this point, your delivery is being iterated in panic mode.

Try to understand that by doing all the feedback upfront, early, when asked and investing time in the essential design iteration from the beginning, you begin to own your design more.

You understand why the designer made this or that choice, you’ve fed into the conversation and shaped it with the designer, so it really does become your baby.

As such, you can sell and defend that call when questioned. By not caring enough from the beginning, you leave yourself more suggestible throughout and therefore, a lot more vulnerable to losing time on confusion. This leads to you seeking different opinions in a panic, leading to a too-many-cooks situation, making vague suggestions on ways to change things that are not backed up by anything concrete.

4. Vaguely
This is my particular bugbear — I can’t stand vague feedback. At this point, the uninvited guest, who has barged into your home like an unwelcome hurricane, has kicked his dirty shoes off onto your coffee table and is asking for a foot massage and a toenail clip. No, no, no…

Vague feedback is saying no when you’re asked if you like something and following it up with nothing else. Vague feedback is voicing an opinion one way and then wandering off, without finishing your thought. Frustrating as anything and likely to drive the receiving party insane.

I don’t care what level you are, if you have an opinion, you should be able to back up an opinion with demonstrable facts and proactive suggestions on improvements.

Put yourself in the other’s shoes:

• What would I want to hear if it were me?
• What are the practical things I need to be aware of?
• Where do I need to be pointed to to gain clarity, what app, what design?
• Is there a resource I haven’t discovered yet that would help me?
• What reference makes sense in this case and simplifies this user journey?

Comments like “No, I don’t like it… “There’s just something off, it’s missing something, I don’t know exactly what…” That’s just not helpful. And you want to be helpful, that’s the whole point.

Structure your feedback and it will go far. If you choose to feedback, do it as you’d want it to be done to you: Be specific, name every point that needs to be addressed and have a clear reason why you’re commenting for each.

Be evidence based and ideally come to the table with a suggested solution. This doesn’t mean you do their work for them but take the time to do a quick Google for a reference or mock up what you think could be better. It’s not going to take a lot of time but is so much better than starting from nothing.

Aside from this, the designer should be grateful you took the time to help them like this. Be vague and you may as well just have not said anything. George Bernard Shaw said “the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This tends to ring true in a lot of companies.

5. Unfollowed up
This can also be said for when you start off by saying “Yes, there’s lots to work on. Let me catch up with you on it later…”And then you never do. Follow up on it. Please, for all the designers out there.

It’s just an unfair thing to introduce doubt without clarifying exactly what you mean. I don’t care if you don’t have time, make it.

If you’ve said you’ll touch base later, touch base later. And follow through. If you make the statement, be prepared to back it up or else, just don’t comment. All you have done at this point is unsettled the designer, made them question their work and potentially compromise delivery.

6. Remotely
This sometimes cannot be helped but if possible feedback should always be given in person. The simple act of sitting down beside someone and talking through the points is quicker, enables quicker and better conversation to be had and solutions to be discussed.

Remotely means you’re likely to miss things, you’re also likely to miss nuance in body language and reaction — It’s why as much as I value qualitative testing, I much prefer face to face user testing as that physical interaction gives me a million more silent but visible clues than a phone call.

7. In a way that shames
Just to clarify, feedback for me is a thing that should never be associated with fear or terrible judgement, only improvement and growth. I am of the view personally that teams should be able to take and give feedback in groups so that it becomes a normal part of daily practice.

Saying that, there are times when designers make worse mistakes than others and while these need to be called out, remember the person behind the error. When there is a bigger need for improvement that may lead to the person feeling exposed, embarrassed or insulted, this should always be done privately.

There’s no need for the rest of a team to hear anything they don’t need to hear if you feel it will make the designer uncomfortable. Again, we are UX-ers — consider your audience and the best approach to use to approach them specifically. Be kind. Be supportive and this will help your designer get to where they need to without feeling undermined or inadequate.

8. Holding back
I learned this interesting point in my journey, forming my first design team. I was new at this with a distinct desire to prove myself. I had a clear cut idea of the type of leader I wanted to be and that was someone who wanted to inspire. I wouldn’t call myself soft on my team, but I was gentle.

I was cautious and protective. I would muffle my true thoughts with over zealous compliments before hinting they might relook at X or Y… I was trying to be nice, not harsh. I was trying to help them realise their mistakes indirectly as opposed to outright honestly, being clever and subtle (so I thought) and lead them to the answer, hoping it would make itself obvious to them and resonate so I wouldn’t have to do any more than imply… Which is bonkers.

I realise now that by being gentle, they maybe didn’t grow as quickly as they could have had I not been holding back on my thoughts for the sake of their feelings. By being more direct, there is less room for ambiguity and a lot less chance of messages being lost in translation, which I’m sure they were.

Like in any type of relationship, honesty is always, always better. True with a partner, true with a team.

In hindsight, I think the fact that I was a female in a leadership role played a lot in my mind in the early days. I wanted to be seen as a confident, practical and encouraging influence and had no desire to be consciously or subconsciously labelled with the “crazy catty bitchy boss lady” brand, but this fear fell to the wayside as you do the job, give what you need to give of yourself to the team and see what comes back.

I’ve since seen the results of giving full honesty in feedback sessions and not only have I seen my teams work improve significantly in terms of their and my standards, but their trust in me and what I think of their work is stronger as they appreciate I will give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me god.

My feedback may help them break bad habits others will also call them out on. My feedback may teach them different, maybe quicker ways of doing things. Or my feedback may just give them a springboard to think — I do this to help and to enable them to get to the best possible result faster.

Being brutally honest (in the kindest possible way) shows them that I’m on their side and that we’re in it together because I trust them to react. I’m doing better by them and our company and I am enabling us as a team to see clearer paths to success now and in the future.

Owning what you bring to the table

Hopefully after a while of sitting in the more senior seat, you start to realise that you are still being asked to be yourself — you are there because you yourself were worthy of the role.

There’s no need to play for the cameras as it were, or feel like you need to be authoritative now that you’re in an “authority” role. Be yourself.

You’re in that seat for a reason.

*Some names in this post have been changed to protect identities.

Putting on the Senior costume and owning your new leadership status was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ll never be told to stop doing the things that make sense. So much of these values and habits carry on from the foundational years we talked about in the At Work series, simply because a few years further on down your career, their sense and efficacy are too fundamental to ignore. Start right and you’ll see how these skills get honed over time. 2-years-ago-you will have a system that present-day-you would probably see as primitive, but those foundations got you to where you are.

Doing the things that make sense

These tools, these ideas, these assets, they are among the most easy ways of instilling confidence in others as well as creating a system of working that reassures yourself at the same time. They reinforce that you’re always able to take control, that you’re able to deliver consistently, that you’re confident in being able to handle things well as they pop up. That you’ll always be able to improve on what you have. That you’ve got this.

This is why I emphasise so much in this publication about keeping notes on your thoughts, what your values and priorities are now, versus what they were then — It’s fascinating to observe and there’s so much to be learned about our own evolution along the way and how we can continue to push ourselves to be better.

This is also worth reflecting on as you remember why you’re there. For me, it was serving people. I was done with feeling like shit and I wanted my work, in all honesty, to alleviate anyone else’s feelings of dealing with shit in their lives.

My purpose was about designing better experiences for real people and doing my best by them. It was about instilling empathy in my clients and my colleagues to fight for the users as much as I would and deliver for them so that everyone would find a level of success in what we were working for.

With this as my end goal, it’s very hard for me to lose my passion for what I’m doing or not have that reflected in how I operate. Understanding what you’re passionate about is key and your notes, your history and your current priorities have all the answers to this: Let that be the thing that flows through in your work and how you deliver it. This is your own authenticity, that only you harness, that only you can bring to the table and this is the thing that generally inspires the client as well as the team around you.

Moving up

My own evolution and ascent up the ladder was a funny journey. While most of it came from an inherent need to please people, there was a lot that came through intuition and a solid understanding of the sense behind not putting off the things that you knew needed to be done. Even if it meant creating a lot more work for yourself. This is what life is in startup land and that’s where I got my chance.

Your main role as the startup designer is to be useful. That’s it.

It’s all about creating what you believe needs to be created and anticipating what would be good to follow this up with — This not only gives everyone else trust in your instincts but gives them a rallying call and another action item to address to keep pushing forward — This is what drives startups.

I started off as a mid level designer when I agreed to join the team in Elemental Concept as they embarked on the terrifying and exciting process of starting up a new tech solutions company. I was leaving behind a good salary but was convinced that being with decent people of great character was always the better option. I still believe this — I’ve never been driven by money but I was driven by staying sane. Anna, Phil, Mark and Bim had already proven they respected that, so it was an easy decision. We were starting in the trenches, it was going to be dangerous, but we were together and that was everything.

Before we signed contracts though, I was going over details with Phil and on an impulse, I asked if I could take the mantle of the Senior Designer for the new company. I asked for it, I made the pitch for it, I justified the decision. And I got it.

I’d gotten to a point in my life, professionally, personally, even in my dating life, where I was starting to be really direct with both myself and others about what I wanted and how I felt. Simply because now, I didn’t want to waste any more time.

I’d lost so much time to my illnesses, to depression, to eating disorders, to addiction. I’d lost so much time feeling shit about myself and my lack of control over my life. I lost so much time being unhappy. I was impatient with waiting to be happy, when I could take the power I could into my own hands myself. So I did.

Whether it was with Tinder dates (one of whom I dubbed “The Photographer”, who wanted to keep hanging out, despite him spending the whole date showing me his portfolio and explaining how his models found him creepy) or my colleagues who deserved to know what path I wanted for myself, it was just faster for everyone to cut to the chase:

“You’re a lovely guy, but I don’t see us as a great match. I genuinely hope you find someone awesome who appreciates you…” and “I think I’m ready to step up in my career — If you give me the opportunity, I’ll show you it was worth the risk…” respectively.

Embrace Decisiveness

Taking more leaps of faith and being that direct was the best thing that I did for myself and my career and my life.

I started embracing decisiveness and pushed forward the awkward conversations that needed to happen rather than continue to allow them to take up room in the back of my mind. They all paid off. At the end of the day, it’s us who have to live with the decision we make, not anyone else. The more decisive I was, the better I felt because I was being honest with myself. I was living authentically and there was beautiful liberation in not being my own prison guard anymore, by holding onto the idea of things that I didn’t need to. I acted on what I wanted. I allowed them oxygen, the chance to breathe and to become something.

Being honest with ourselves, with others, in what we want, in what we aspire to, just opens up the door to enable what we want to be achieved. Everyone can do this. Everyone has power in this and once you start, it’s hard to stop because good or bad, decisiveness and clarity allows you to move forward.

Getting the fundamentals right

This section pulls back to the essentials that take on a greater importance, as you move up in your career. There are so many things to just take as gospel and these things tend to be universal. For me, before touching a pencil, before touching a computer, have the foundations of being a solid performer, deliverer and team player down:

Rule #1 | Google first, ask others later when all obvious avenues are ruled out

I will be blue in the face telling people to google first.
Between this and “Check your padding”, I’ll probably end up with a really funny epitaph on my headstone. Google, our new messiah who receives more requests for help and guidance than most deities, should become anyone’s first port of call in the design world for any issues that pop up, whether you’re a junior or a senior.

From coding fixes, fiddly Shopify questions, to how to establish a strong design team for a startup (yes, that’s a personal one done by me :D) — Google enables you to see what other people have done before you, what their solutions were and whether they worked. You’re also more likely to retain the information better if it’s something you’ve pushed to figure out yourself — Convenient answers withstanding, the satisfaction of solving the problem yourself means it’s more likely to stick.

A good Google before a BD session will make it look like you know what you’re talking about when you’ve no idea on the subject yet. It also enables us to rule out obvious answers so that we’re not wasting time flogging a dead horse. It’s the best resource at our disposal, so use it before you bug other people with questions. Consider how you’ll feel when you ask and the first thing they’ll do is find the answer waiting for them after an easy search. Keep your work cred (why not pretend I already knew that?) — Google first, ask later.

Rule #2 | Take notes. Always.

Professionally, note-taking is due diligence. Don’t assume you’ll remember everything and think of your perception to the client — This person is listening to me and noting the important parts of what I have to say. They respect that I am taking the time to be here and speak to them. I don’t want to have to waste my time repeating myself.

Not taking notes or actively showing that you’re listening and recording the information gives off an idea that what they’re saying isn’t that important and that in turn, that person isn’t that important or of high priority to you. In the At Work series, we discussed all the non verbal signals you are sending through your behaviour — this is that in a nutshell. Note taking shows respect, captures details for posterity — it only comes back in your favour.

Rule #3 | Bring more solutions than issues to the table

Getting to the point I am in my career was built on the firm foundations I believe of my film and TV career, which was all about being organised, reacting to when the shit hit the fan and to steal Tim Gunn’s famous catchphrase, “Make it work” when you need to pull it all out.

When I look back on my work of the last few years, I attribute my seat at the management table to the fact that my inclination to challenges is to first search for a solution, as opposed to immediately jump into a more negative risk assessment of the situation.

This is particularly important in the initial BD conversations, where we are selling ourselves, our ability to see the wood for the trees and our capability to realistically scope solutions that work and make sense for a client.

It’s a difficult thing to do, not to jump into what you clearly see as obstacles and risk areas. A lot of designers are terrified if you present them with something they’ve never gone through before and as such, can’t confidently speak on. Likewise, with managers, with developers, if you’re coming from a background of bad experiences and historical burns around these topics, naturally you are going to be more cautious. It’s all about finding the balance in the engagement with the client and where the place for this realistic information comes into play.

The thing is that there is always time when you get into the details to nitpick at every inch of a plan and properly troubleshoot it as it needs to be. Ensuring your scope is properly understood by all parties, that due diligence is properly done and the entire piece of work is timed, priced appropriately and agreed to as such, is a crucial part of the job. But it comes after the initial conversation, that should be focused on the Art of the Possible, the Solution. We’re dreaming big before we break it down into bitesize, digestible and doable pieces. The approach is always the same — You have to start somewhere.

Rule #4 | Ask for what you need

I see a lot of designers terrified to ask for the information they need to work. Confident or shy, not being afraid to push for the information you need to be clear is essential, you can’t work properly without it — you’ll just be wasting time. Ask — you lose nothing by asking a question.

If you don’t understand it, chances are others don’t too but what you need to know before ending any session is that you have the clarity you need to follow up the work or you have a clear path to finding the clarity you need.

Either way, most colleagues and clients will appreciate you double checking, as well as questioning their reasoning — if they’ve taken the time to come see you, that’s why they’ve done that; if they have paid for a workshop, that’s what they’re there for. Just understand the fine line between pushing them and not getting what you want and them getting frustrated vs. understanding you’re not getting it but making a mental note to reflect on it with the other members of your team who do. Always be mindful of the situation and make a considered evaluation on it. Don’t waste the client’s time.

Rule #5 | Know your deadlines. Keep asking until you get them.

There is no such thing as a perfect brief in the real world, as I’ve seen it. Particularly when you’re dealing with startups who need a certain amount of prescription in the initial stages. Saying that, there’s no excuses for choosing to remain ignorant, especially when you know something needs to be done, so be proactive and get all the information you need to get started.

Rule #6 | Get first drafts in as early as possible so direction can be signed off as a unit

This is where the designer’s desire for perfectionism in you has to take a back seat because honestly, giving people an idea of where you intend to go earlier, as opposed to two weeks and 50,000 perfectly placed pixels later, is a lot more useful in getting to the final design faster.

Check your ego at the door and learn to understand the quality you need when you’re in draft mode and the quality you need when you’re in delivery. These are working documents, not final proofs.

If you’re worried about how these will be received or your own reputation, reinforce this with your colleagues if it makes you feel better, but bare in mind that the sooner you can see your work as working design, you’ll find you have a lot less anxiety around delivery. You’re in the process of figuring out the solution at hand, not presenting the final pitch and this is key to keeping you focused on the right priority.

Sketches are your best friend here because you get to consensus quicker and the sooner people see things, the sooner they can feed back and the sooner you sign off the important things, the more time you can spend on making it stunning.

Rule #7 | Know the difference between good and “good enough”

This is the eternal designer battle — it’s an essential distinction to be able to make because at the end of the day, timing is everything. I’ve seen opportunities lost because we weren’t able to get designs out quick enough and many times, this falls down to the quest for perfection.

Guys, it doesn’t exist. What exists is good enough and not good enough to go and all I can say is that from my experience, you get a lot quicker at letting go the more you engage in BD and see the need for speed over pixel perfect finesse. For me, it comes down to a few tick boxes worth of criteria:

• Does the design include all the functionality it’s meant to?
• Is the design well laid out and generally balanced in terms of its design? i.e. consistent paddings, consistent brand approach applied, clear legibility, accessible colour palette, etc.
• Does the copy in the design reflect the client’s brand voice and the nuance required from the concept?
• Has the design been reviewed by the pitch team involved?
• Has the design been reviewed from both a usability and design perspective by another designer?
• Does your presentation layout feel strong enough to represent the company?

If you get a yes on all these elements, chances are your design is good to go and at this stage, it’s better gone and out the door, rather than staying on your screen to be further agonised over.

As I say, the more you do, the better you become at letting go and eventually, you’ll see yourself putting more store in solving the problem than designing the next beautiful product.

Rule #8 | Manage expectations across the board

Keep your timeframes in front of you, keep your priorities in clear order and keep people posted. Aside from the simple reality that keeping people posted stops you from slipping into problems, late delivery and overwhelm, you enable yourself and your team to be better by being honest about the status of your work in real time.

Your transparency, updates and honesty enable you to manage expectations, whether that’s for the team or the client, waiting on your work.

The issue I see here with a lot of designers is a fear to share until a design is perfect, or near completion. What happens a lot as well is designers getting snowed under with demands on their time, forcing them to try to finish everything in their spare time and actively risking delivery because they’re working at lower capacity at that stage.

Overwhelm is a production killer — no matter how motivated you are to finish, it slows you down and it’s as heartbreaking to you as it is frustrating to the client or manager who was expecting something now that they won’t get realistically till next week.

Even if it’s just to say nothing has been done that day, keep your team posted. The more others know about your work, the more involved, open and collaborative they can feel in helping you overcome obstacles that might be in your way. If I could have you take away one thing from this book, it would be across the board, things are better off being aired than not aired. Silence gives people nothing but regular check-ins allow everyone to feel like they have a grasp on the situations.

It’s very easy, especially when you’re in that headspace of delivery panic and overwhelm, to think that you’re fighting solo — you shouldn’t be. The only one who’s keeping you solo is you, so let people in. Share proofs and updates as often as you can and take managing expectations as a tool to empower your own control over your work.

Rule #9 | Report when you’re feeling overwhelmed

Even just flagging the feeling will alleviate the stress as well as alert the team who can then respond. It’s a question of proactivity over weakness. You are on that team because you deliver value. If your overwhelm is stopping you from delivering, the business needs to know so that it can change, reallocate work or reprioritise your commitments so that the burden is taken and shared.

This is your personal and professional responsibility. We’re all in this together, but a team can’t support you unless you ask for help.

Rule #10 | Manage your time and make it count

At the beginning of your career, as you’re trying tasks for the first time, no one can really be concrete on firm delivery turnaround, but as you go, it’s worth keeping tabs on your increasing speed. Be aware of how long it takes you to do common tasks and hold yourself to those times, because that’ll be your benchmark to tell managers, so that they can manage expectations around you properly.

Being able to manage your time well and accurately estimate effort is one of the most under-sung but incredibly valuable traits a designer can have. It makes you so much more reliable and easy to work with, so if it’s not something you’re great at now, I fully recommend you work on it.

Prioritise what tasks need to be done and give yourself an outline for realistically how much time you expect them to take. You will be amazed how giving yourself the deadline of fifteen minutes to complete a task will actually focus you and subconsciously put you in state to get it done in that slot.

I noticed this a lot during the pandemic in our new quarantine work environment — aka, the kitchen table, directly in front of my partner and his computer. After a week of intensive remote user testing from the not so comfortable set up of my bedroom, while my partner conference calls in the main work area of the house, I’ve been literally squeezing every free chunk of time, 5 minutes here, 40 minutes there between interviews and transcribing to do what I could and keep all my projects moving forward:

• Feedback to designers on the latest draft of a video (5 mins)
• Complete content strategy layouts (45 mins)
• Write UX copy for a PD user journey (10 mins)
• Write relevant UX sales points on a new build application pitch (10 mins)
• Call client to update them on next steps (5 mins)

Life isn’t always going to give you a free run at what you have to do. You have to be flexible and make it fit around your commitments. The key is being clear and focused on what you need to do OVERALL, what you have to do NOW, what takes priority and what needs what amount of time to be deemed good to go.

Find whatever works for you, there are so many techniques and time management approaches out there. I find having the list of commitments in front of me clearly helpful, either on JIRA, Trello or simply on post-its on my screen, which can be much more satisfying to attack your completed tasks with a big red sharpie X once you’re done and rip them off the desk in glee.

Keep evolving your process

This is a never-ending challenge. Whatever works. It’s all about honing the system that enables you to work at your best. You won’t always be in control, but again, it’s all about giving you footholds to next steps, so that even if you stumble, there’s still a path forward and a next best thing to do.
You’ve got this.

Pushing your performance at work beyond good to exceptional was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Feeling good in what you’re doing is the next step on in your career. Going from being useful, being valuable and getting to the point where you’re irreplaceable on the job comes from a confidence in yourself, what you can do as well as a consistent ability to keep those around you up to speed on everything you’re doing and planning.

Being and feeling in sync together as a team is such a wonderful feeling when it works — Rather than a solo sparrow, you’re a flock flying in unison. You preempt each other, you connect each other’s thoughts and flow as a body. When you find this dynamic with people, it elevates not only the quality of the work you do but the fun you have doing it at the same time.

Likewise, you want this flow to connect to the client too, because that in turn, connects them on a deeper level to the work you’re doing for them and your relationship going on from there. Caring for the client and their end goal sounds a bit trite but you can see the difference in the work of one who cares versus one who doesn’t.

Moving on in recovery, I was looking for work that would enable me to have a sense of balance and control. In terms of the six human needs, I was seeking certainty and security as a minimum to keep myself steady. When I started work with my current team, I was in a position to see how contribution was just as important in reaching a level of fulfilment. Seeing this level of collective flow and immersing myself into it helped me find my unique place at the table where I was actively adding to the synchronicity of how this team worked and why.

This came from taking the chance to dive in, with the ever present risk of it all going terribly wrong, and doing it anyway. It’s about being brave enough to be vocal, conscious enough to listen and smart enough to ask for help.

This leadership series is all about bouncing back from life and finding the ways to enable yourself to keep adding more value, to continuously push yourself along in your career. At this point, whatever you’re doing, you have experience, you have practiced skills. Now it’s all about making that flow into the next step, into Leadership.

Start with energy

I started anew in London, fresh off the boat from the Emerald Isle, a year sober and a nervous pulse of excitement pumping through my chest constantly. Imposter Syndrome still skulking in the background, wearing a fedora and vaping like a hackney hipster on a Shoreditch street corner, whispering in my ear:

“Okay, you’ve managed to manipulate your way into a real job in digital now. No brother to save you when you fuck up, no one to defend you when they realise you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about…”

He really is a bastard. His words over a year back would have been drowned by a litre of vodka followed by a blackout, but there was none of that anymore. This guy was a part of my life and would likely continue to stalk me for the foreseeable future, waiting for vulnerable moments to take little digs and so, for me to be able to function and flourish in London, I had to start acknowledging his presence before then shutting him down with logic.

The facts stood as follows:

• I was alive. I was here. I was independent and free from baggage, recognition and history here.
• I was here on merit. I’d been offered my job based on skill and confidence in myself to do everything I needed to do to perform my job well. That’s it.
• I was confident and sought after as a set dresser, as an Art Director, before my addiction took over my life. I knew I was good at what I did but there was a new kind of confidence you bring to the table when you’ve overcome something you never thought you’d get past. You just know that however bad it gets, your frame of reference for bad deals with a much more elaborate scale, so obviously, you look at your experiences in proper context and stop stressing the smaller stuff as you used to.

Yes, Imposter Syndrome was still my companion, but I was now able to recognise him for what he was — A bad actor who I could use to call my attention to my feelings and prompt a check in with the reality of the situation.

First step in a new career

I flourished in London. I established my home, established my character at work and soaked up every experience like a sponge. I was working in a digital marketing agency and was actively learning on the job, from understanding how to get the best out of Wordpress to making animated ads harnessing the power of the brands we represented to create little moments of joy, that we’d share as a design group in the office, eliciting the ever sought after “Sweet” from your peers.

It was the little things that gave you joy. I was happy — I was a sought after designer, I was living within walking distance of work, was seeing my sister regularly and was enjoying a city that I had no history of being a mess in — In London, I was a proud and strong, unashamed alcoholic in recovery. Life was simple and good.

Leaning into the pivot

Meanwhile, I was continuing on with my UX learning on the side.
My brother Niall had started me of on this fortuitous path and before leaving Galway, with his help, as well as online courses and tutorials on youtube, I built up my skills and knowledge on the topic, enough to convince this company in London to hire me as a digital designer, which I hoped would shift more towards UX.

I made sure that if I was involved in anything that I was always the one setting the example to push the conversation forward. I had spent too long sitting in sadness and depressed acceptance of my shitty life. The Bushypark education had reinforced my need to be real and be mindful of the lives of real people, particularly what was going on under the surface.

My new brand was empathy, proactivity and progress, that lives and breathes through my work.

Being a self taught UXer in a team with, as of yet, no real focus on usability, made me feel that there was eventually going to be an opportunity there to push for this to have a bigger role in how we operated, it was only a matter of time and I wanted to be ready for it. This drive to be ready only got better after I had my first “blow”.

Suddenly redundant

I lost my first job after seven months in the agency due to company cutbacks. Sadly, due to funds being low, the last ones in were the first ones on the chopping block. We all found ourselves in the CEO’s office one day for a chat that became the end of that era.

It was a normal day. I came into the office in the morning, exchanged the regular pleasantries with everyone, a bit of banter with my friend Ollie and went about my day. Nectar campaign, EMC memes, Standard Life animated ads — I was juggling a few projects and so had those in my mind, things to finish by the end of the day, when I was unexpectedly called into a meeting with John*, the CEO, along with one of our marketing interns and a copywriter.

I’d never had any one on one time with John before. He hadn’t been part of my hiring process and so my only contact with him up until this point had been watching him take a bouncer in the races we had in Hoxton Square at the summer barbeque and random moments in the office. We walked into the larger meeting room to find him sitting there on the other side of the table and three seats awaiting us interview style in front of him.

The conversation was quick and generic — The company was not bringing in enough revenue to keep us going as we were, that the team was going to need to make cuts if they wanted to survive and that sadly, since we were the last three in, we were the first three out.

It was hard to hear. Our sudden joblessness, combined with a struggling company narrative, juxtaposed with the weekly blasts from one of the company directors, regularly calling the room together to celebrate the various new contracts and wins of the company. Later, I’d understand from the management perspective how this sort of behaviour is needed at times to bolster confidence and inspire hope, but to us in that moment, it all felt very shallow and insincere.

“You don’t have to finish out the day, guys,” John said. “You can just head home now, guys, it’s lunchtime, no-one has to know. There’s no need to come back today. You can come back to pick anything up next week. We’re sorry again.”

Felt like on top of being let go, we were actively being kicked out.

We walked back to our desks. Ollie glanced up at me and asked if everything was okay. I said yeah, not knowing what else to say, what could I say? Was I allowed to tell him? I felt like I had to leave, like I was the cause of a bad smell in the office and the polite thing to do would just be to just walk away and leave the window open.

I grabbed my bag and a few books and left the office. Slightly numb, slightly shocked.

I went back to my flat, grabbed Skye the dog and went to Dalston to visit some charity shops, f I wasn’t working, I’d at least get a little extra treasure hunting in, where I found a necklace with a beautiful design of outspread wings. I appreciated the subtle irony in it — It became my talisman for strength in the years after.

Skye and I went to Haggerston Park. The sun was out, it was warm and Skye was happy, frolicking around the park earlier than usual and keeping me firmly in the moment. As bad as it was, here I was, in the park, in the glorious embrace of a London summer day. I was calm and warm.

I’d been through so much worse than this. Coming back from addiction, coming back from shame, this was kind of nothing. If I could handle one, I could certainly handle the other, they were incomparable. So I was always going to be okay.

Ollie texted me later, saying he’d heard what happened and how angry he was. How he and Craig, my other friend on the dev team, wanted to support me with whatever I needed, whether that was a portfolio site, or references, whatever I needed.

I smiled. How blessed I was to have good friends. How lucky I was to have support but more so, how thankful I was to be mentally healthy at this moment. If this was a setback, at least I had the headspace to deal with it. The work I’d put in before was kicking in and paying off because there was no fear of finding something new. There was only the moment I was in, the sun, the grass, the delighted dog splashing away in the pond…

I was actually happy.

I call it a “blow” in quotation marks, because it was actually the most useful thing that could’ve happened to push me forward. That’s London, baby.

Now, I was going through the novel experience of going through the proper recruitment process on the ground, exposing me to a lot of different companies, a lot of recruiters and a lot of professionals. I was suddenly being forced to step up my game in terms of skills to be ticked, which I wouldn’t have had the time to learn if I’d have been fully employed. I was suddenly exposed to so many different styles of interviewing as well as different opportunities which I took full advantage of to sap all the knowledge and learning I could.

Finding opportunity in unforeseen circumstances

I was lucky as well. Having spent years working contract to contract in film and TV, I was never in shock or fear coming to the end of a job, I simply kept faith in my own abilities. I never doubted I’d find a job because I knew I wasn’t going to not take a stock person’s role in Tesco if I had to. Funnily enough, not having too much ego around how prestigious the job had to be, I recognise now, was such a liberation in terms of how I felt about being jobless.

Being jobless in Galway post-rehab left room for volunteering in my local cat shelter, which for an animal lover like me was just gloriously healing. It left me room to apply for care training, should I want to completely change tracks and give myself over to a life in service to the elderly, which I’d had a lot of experience in as we were carers for our grandparents for years. It also left room to teach life drawing, which again, was healing as it reinforced the creative side of me that gave me confidence that fuelled my soul.

You’ll always be okay

As long as you can pay rent, feed your body and feed your soul, you’ll find that you don’t really need that much more.

It left everything open as a possibility, which then in turn led to less anxiety around it. I knew I was likely to find something, I always had before and even if I didn’t — I would find another path.

There was nothing crazy to fear anymore, because I’d just beaten a real dragon. Little lizards weren’t worth my energy.

I learned so much from the different jobs I had in those first few years — every job endowed me with new skills and new knowledge that was as nourishing to me as food. I went into every next opportunity as a result, so confident in my increased salary expectations, so confident in my ability to perform, because I knew what I’d evolved from and for once in my life, I wasn’t discounting it, or writing off my skills as luck or chance.

I was good at what I did, I knew how to articulate it well because I knew how much it went into the success of what I was doing. This quiet confidence gives you this pleasant reassurance but you have to believe in it. It involves giving yourself the credit you deserve and not underselling and this is hard to do.

Particularly as a woman.

Handling a sudden job hunt

This harkens back to a lot of what we discussed in Chapter Two about finding work, the principles are essentially all the same, the mindset of being suddenly jobless being the thing you need to actively get to grips with here. When the loss comes as a shock, it’s so easy to let yourself fall into self pity. Feeling sorry for yourself is natural, it’s another way of grieving the loss of your job but unfortunately, it does nothing to put you into a better position.

Owning the situation with a specific action plan

I found myself in this situation twice in my time in London. Both times, the job losses were sudden and required an immediate call to arms, so that’s exactly how I played it out. I broke it down into an action plan which helped me organise myself while actively not allowing me to fall into any feelings of sadness or disappointment I had about the situation. It’s important to process what’s happened, to air it and discuss it but equally important, to move on from it with action and purpose.

Self pity is just not practical. Being practical and realistic is the mindset that’s going to save your sanity now.

I needed an up to date portfolio, an up to date CV and a slew of adaptable cover letters for different jobs I wanted to chase. This was all action for the first week and was treated like my full time job at that point. The sooner it was done, the sooner I could get around to actively enjoying my free time out of work.

The Power Hour

Knocking out all the key assets and having these PDFs or site links ready to go, you could go confidently into phase 2 of the operation — I called this the Power Hour.

In a nutshell, the Power Hour consisted of a scheduled hour, every day that would be dedicated to searching roles, adapting cover letters to individual applications and sending those off (my target was usually a minimum of 5 decent applications a day). This hour also saw me networking on LinkedIn, reaching out to companies that I liked even if they weren’t hiring to make connections and following up on emails and previous applications as well as chats with recruiters.

One hour giving you power over the situation.

Embrace the calm

This in-between job time also gives you the freedom to take advantage of the rest of the day, to go to a museum, to sit out in the park with a book, to meet a friend for lunch, go to the gym, knowing that you’ve already put in your dedicated time on the job hunt that day. This was necessary for my own wellbeing. You have to enable yourself to be happy.

Killing yourself by never leaving the computer, mindlessly scrolling through job boards for hours on end isn’t going to help you arrive into a new job in any way refreshed or less tense. This process should liberate you from the computer that most of us are shackled to in our working life — You need to enjoy the break when you can, even when it’s not there by choice.

It’s also really important to use the time not working to restore yourself as well, to sleep more, to do the things you wouldn’t get to do otherwise, while still feeling like you’re on the right path — This is going to have you walking into the new role on Day One, feeling more alive, more rested, more excited, more willing to get stuck in and this is the best thing you can do, for both your own career and your new company. It’s tending to yourself in all areas, not just one.

This scenario has inadvertently given you the gift of time. It’s yours to use in whatever way you want so optimising it is essential.

Think of yourself as a writer, meeting their word count quota each day — Once you’ve hit your target, stop. Take a break and be good to yourself.

You’ll thank yourself when you’re back in the 9–5 that you were able to take those moments to enjoy a bit of sun on your face at 11:45 on a Wednesday morning, sipping a diet coke in the park and watching your dog chase squirrels while everyone else was at work.

Elevating how you work, even in unemployment was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Surviving Myself | Part 4

This is only my story but I embrace and love it for what it taught me about myself and how I think about the world and the people in it. Life is going to throw spanners in the works, it’s going to dip and it’s going to rise and you, throughout it all, will not remain the same person. All you can do is take the learnings from your experiences and translate them into goodness that can be paid forward in what you do, what you say, how you deal with people and definitely into how you work.

Your mental health over the years can expect to take bashings at various times in your life. This is normal, this is okay — it’s all about how you deal with it, whether it be through therapy, rehab, or simple honesty with those around you. It’s how you face it and persist until you find the solutions that work for you.

From a ridiculously young age, I hated my body, I hated my face, I hated my personality and how isolated I felt in terms of my real self and what I projected onto the world for all to publicly see.

It was only through the fall into depression, into the eating disorder, into alcoholism, into all the bad times that enabled me to truly acknowledge my issues and push myself forward towards some semblance of happiness. And I got there.

How you talk about it matters

My advice to you, not only in terms of mental health, but around your work, around your family is to be actively conscious about how you talk about your issues and yourself.

Don’t indulge in extremes or outrageous thinking like “This is never going to end”, “I’m a terrible person” “Things will never change” “There’s nothing I can do” — Learn to recognise these thoughts, hear them, let them exist and ground them back to reality. It’s all about being reasonable and logical with yourself — We in design and technology are solution finders so being creative and practical gives us a tangible ladder to escape the dark holes.

Practical advice that works for me, would be for every negative thought, write down three potential steps to improving the situation. Not only does it put you in a better headset, but it forces you to dig deeper into your thought, which, undefined and unchallenged, can become a bigger monster than it necessarily is.

Don’t sit in passive negativity without questioning why you continue to be there — you have the power to get yourself out of anything. It just requires a next step.

Shedding the unconscious impulse to blame others

Rehab granted me the rare opportunity to see myself reflected back in others’ eyes, to see how my own ticks and coping mechanisms were stopping me from moving forward and this is something I will be grateful for forever and feel sad that others will generally never experience.

We were raw, all raw, naked and exposed before each other, so at that point, why hold back? Why help someone stay stuck when there was clearly a problem they were avoiding and tools we saw them constantly using to do so?

I found this coming back to me personally in terms of the blame game.

It was a subtle tick, masked to a certain degree by a way I had of telling the story to warm others to me and constantly make myself the victim — This comment from X made me feel defeated, so I… This action from Y sparked off everything. The group were very quick to call me on this as they saw it happening and I’m glad they did.

Check your words, check your language as they can be the means for holding yourself hostage. Blaming others for the situations I found myself in was stopping me having proper acceptance in recovery. Until I became aware of it and started to constantly check myself, which I still do to this day, I was going to continue on a habit that would constantly stop me taking ownership of my role in everything I was doing and therefore feel like I could always say it was someone else’s fault.

I look on it like a gift, a true gift, especially in terms of how it’s translated beyond recovery into my work life. Look at it from a team perspective:

• Something goes wrong with a project and you were on the team — do you take your responsibility or do you immediately move to pass the buck?
• How are you dealing with issues instinctively? Do you inspect or deflect?

I didn’t realise how much of a crutch this was to me and once I saw it, I didn’t like it because it really fought with my own internal value systems and the standards that I had for myself. So I fought to keep it as far as possible from my MO and continue to do so today.

It definitely hits a nerve when I’m hiring a new designer. You can’t go through something like this and not have these incredibly honed spidey senses around emotional intelligence because this was my life for so long and after spending over a month in rehab and a year in focused therapy to enable yourself to think clearly, you recognise warning bell behaviour a mile off.

That’s not to say you won’t still get it wrong and I’ve definitely gotten it wrong in the past, but you have these flags that alert you to the presence of a little bit of fear or deeper things that may lead to issues later on down the line.

Taking stock of everything

One of the last things you’re asked to do in Bushypark at the end of your time there is to follow step 4 and “make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”.

This fearless inventory, outlining the key moments in your life, where you felt your addiction take root and grow, the things you did that you wish you could take back, every shameful moment, every regret — In essence, every single thing you would need to get off your chest to move on, would become your ultimate confession and release.

The idea is to recount your life in as much detail as you could, write it down and read it aloud to one of your counsellors, who would listen to you without judgement and having heard it, would be your witness to who you were. Together, you would then burn the document and in the burning, acknowledge it as the past and not your future. It was a powerful ritual.

I chose Sean*, another counsellor in the house who’d been particularly impactful in how I started to reshape my way of looking at things, particularly around food. We chose the little pagoda outside in the grounds as the spot to read the inventory and were followed there by the two gorgeous collies who were the pets of the house. We took our seats on the benches in the little stone temple. I was suddenly nervous, with pages of shames shaking in my hands. Sean smiled kindly and nodded for me to begin when I was ready.

I still remember my skin prickling on the backs on my arms as I started to read and the tears that came as I unlocked the worst of my memories, what I felt was the worst of myself. Sean listened, nodding silently as I made my way through paragraph after paragraph of my 10 page masochistic memoir and waited as my tears came and my sobs racked my chest.

The reading experience was unreal, both physically and mentally. When I think of trying to describe how it felt — Think of yourself stripping naked, having cold water poured over you and then having a blast of wind ice your entire body. At times, it felt like being winded after a gut punch, you’re struggling to fill your lungs and your breath is sporadic.

But at the end as I finished the last page, the sensation was different. It was like arriving at the peak of a mountain after an incredibly hard climb, sweating, exhausted, out of breath but all of a sudden, drawing in an air that was cleaner. Clearer. Healthier.

Something extremely physical happens to you in the telling. When I finished, I looked up at Sean and he was smiling kindly and appreciatively at me.

Sean:
“How does that feel?”

Ro:
“Good, I think. Liberating. Exhausting. I’m just glad it’s all out there.”

Sean:
“I think you’ve done extremely well. You’ve been honest, you’ve been fearless, you’re not hiding anything anymore — Nothing. Now it’s time to say that’s done. That’s in the past. Everything starts from here.
Are you ready to burn it?”

Ro:
“Yes, I am.”

When we set the pages on fire, I started to cry and laugh at the same time. It was liberation. All the shit that had happened had happened. Now it was gone. There was only the raw me left and my potential to do better.

Sean gave me a hug and left me alone to watch the last embers burn.

The dogs stayed with me. I sat in the pagoda, with the wind singing in my ears and the trees around me. It felt like the universe wrapping its arms around me in support. In the middle of this beautiful place of nature, I felt love. I felt care. I felt hope.

Looking back on it now, I wish in a way I could have saved what I wrote (think of the head start on this publication, for one thing!) but it would never have meant the same to anyone as it did to me. It was my acknowledgment of my own flaws but also my admission to myself that I was allowed a second chance and that I could reinvent myself exactly as how I wanted to be.

Redefining myself

Leaving Bushypark, I was a raw person in every shape of the word. My armour was gone but I had tools to defend myself that wouldn’t push me backwards, I just had to build up my strength with them. Now was my opportunity to continue to evolve myself as a person and reframe my own idea of who I was.

I think sometimes we get locked into the idea that we can’t change, that this is who we are, whether we’re stubborn, or we’re lazy, or we’re depressed. It’s simply not true.

I feel like we are all capable of reincarnation if we’re willing to fearlessly look at ourselves and reframe based on the values we want for ourselves.

For me, it was about continuing on as I wanted to and feeding this into every aspect of my life, both personally and professionally: In full honesty, I wanted to address my problems head on and be direct, even if it was uncomfortable. I realised the importance of time lost through simple things that needed to be said not being said and the relief and satisfaction of getting the answers you wanted, whether they be positive or negative. Discomfort had proven a more effective path to change so I wanted to embrace it when I needed to.

Allowing myself to be a priority

People pleasing had gotten me where I was so my primary concern was not defaulting to please others and sacrifice my own happiness in the process. It was about understanding my own human responses and being kind to myself, not using every perceived slip or failure as a stick to hit myself with.

Creating healthy boundaries

It was about persisting with implementing what I’d learnt, which for me, was creating strong boundaries that I stood by, both with family and work, so that I didn’t risk slipping again into overwhelm.

Continuing to take personal inventory

Understanding that the more I invested in knowing and caring for myself, the more I gained from my recovery saved me throughout a potentially risky time immediately after BP. It would have been so easy to slip back into drinking — I had my own house, I had the excuse of professional advice telling me to create boundaries with my parents and family — everything I needed to start the cycle all over again if I chose to.

The alcoholic mindset is an insanely sneaky and insidious thing. Maintaining counselling, maintaining my aftercare meetings, where myself and other BP graduates met on a weekly basis with a counsellor to have an honest check in with each other — These were essential rituals I needed to follow to give myself the fighting chance to not give it back that power.

Rising Up

The power of taking the time to reflect

Like I said at the beginning of the Surviving Myself series, I actively tried to pre-empt the issue of addiction before my addiction had even come to life. I would never have imagined it would take on such an impactful role in my life but I am so grateful for it. I embrace it fully for what I gained from it.

Addiction had given me the permission to focus on myself and who I wanted to be. It has enabled me to have so many necessary conversations and say out loud so many things that needed to be said that may have never had a forum otherwise. Even for my family, who all in different ways participated in the experience, it was a chance to take stock and reflect and that’s just not an opportunity a lot of people get in life.

For this reason alone, I feel extremely blessed to have gone through what I did. I wish more people could have the time I did to realise who they wanted to be and what they could leave behind.

I’ll end this story with a simple piece of advice — Don’t put off the time or space you need to work on yourself.

The investment will pay itself back time and time again because, as we said before, you are the unique product here, you are fucking worth taking the time for. Only when you’re properly nurturing and taking care of yourself can you be properly enabled and empowered to thrive.

This is the only life you’ll ever have on this planet — Use it well.
Don’t lose any more time than you need to. Bad things will happen and while you may not feel in control, you can control how you react and how you choose to respond. And if not today, there is always tomorrow.

Be kind to yourself. Be realistic with yourself. Invest in yourself when you need to and don’t think that slumps define you forever — These are the bridges to opportunities, to new chances and new starts.

You have the power to change your life at any stage, at any time.
It just takes one step to start to rise.

There’s always someone to talk to

If anyone is affected by any of the issues discussed here, there are so many outlets to talk and get help.

Check out MIND for practical resources around:

• Getting support / Supporting others
• Addiction
• Workplace Mental Health

*Some names in this post have been changed to protect identities.

Moving on — A life post rehab and what it brought about was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I remember going through a glowing period, I think six months after leaving my treatment centre, when I felt the last dregs of shame leave my system. And this was momentous because considering I went into treatment, thinking:

“Fuck it, I’ll abstain for six weeks. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be able to drink on the other side. No harm, no foul.”

Having actually had some proper transcendent moments in there, after leaving rehab, I’d decided that if this was going to be the time I was sorting everything, I’d sort everything.

I was in a ridiculously privileged and perfect position to do this:
Myself and my dad had bought a gorgeous little house ten minutes walk away from town that he had just finished refurbishing and was now ready to move into. The mortgage was small, so all house costs could be covered by a roommate coming in and taking the other room, leaving me my dole income and savings to dedicate to my day to day expenses, keeping the dog fed, the car in petrol and investing in my own mental health.

Investing in my mental health

Which I did — Every week, on top of my weekly aftercare session with Bushypark, I’d drive the hour out to Gort, County Galway, to my counsellor Sara*, who was everything I ever needed and more in a counsellor at that stage in my life where I was finally ready to engage.

Sara was an ex-Bushypark counsellor, a recovered eating disorder case, addict and alcoholic, so she more than got what I was going through in all its facets. Aside from this, she is a straight talking, no bullshit badass, who while allowing you to have your dog sitting beside you on the couch as you talked, calls you directly on your cageyness and was the voice of reason, sense and true understanding enabled me to pull myself out of the hole of shame I thought I would die in after Bushypark.

I would canonise this lady if I could, for calling me out directly as required and never failing to push me for more or reward me for any tiny victory.

Many addicts will tell you that it’s not that hard staying sober in the first few months after leaving rehab, it’s actually the shame being triggered in you that rocks the boat and causes you to drink again.
And I had a hell of a lot of shame to contend with:

• Shame for my new status of alcoholic
• Shame around my behaviour, both of what I remembered and didn’t remember
• Shame that it had gotten this far and those I’d let down, those I’d disappointed, those I’d embarrassed myself in front of
• Shame for the pain I had directly caused my parents, who had to see their youngest degenerate herself and slip down such a dangerous precipice and by the skin of her teeth, remain alive, but would constantly be a source of fear and worry
• Shame for my siblings, especially for the sister who had to watch me throughout college, shrinking in size and battling demons that she had no power to help me with
• Shame for the loving boyfriend I’d driven away
• Shame for countless times I’d put myself in my car with a bottle in my hand and the potential massacres that could’ve happened
• Shame for every horrendous flashback, every drunken memory, every dream that saw me drinking and losing my way again
• Shame for every moment ruined

Shame is a physical and mental burden

The shame is hard to describe. It’s so many things — In a way, it’s sound as it’s deafening. In a way, it’s weight, because it’s backbreaking heavy . In a way, it’s a lack of oxygen because it chokes you. In a way, it’s hopelessness.

Pure utter hopeless despair that this is always going to be the way it is and nothing is ever going to make this go away. It’s shame that makes you pick up the first drink or reach for the pill. Because shame was the thing you were distracting yourself from in the first place.

The moment I lost my shame happened while I was walking home from my brother’s house. We’d had a lovely evening playing with my baby nephew, night had fallen and around me was the smell of warm grass in the air and I thought, “Jesus, I think I’m happy. I’m together, I’m in control. I can do this and not only can I do this, I can do this well. This is the best I’ve felt in years.“

All of a sudden, I was starting to value myself again and what I was actually doing, how I was dealing with this situation and my life in general. Have you ever had one of those moments in the street where you find yourself physically and mentally beaming and thinking to yourself “Fuck, I feel like I am finally okay, and not even okay, like I am actually fecking happy?”

The idea of never being enough

Shame doesn’t need to come from something as extreme as an addiction. Indeed, shame was part of the catalyst that sent my drinking off into the spiral it did — I was running from Shame, drowning it out with noise, hunger, distraction and vodka and it always caught up with me.

My shame came from deeper issues around who I was and how little respect I had for myself and what I brought to the table. I was a person of a ‘certain’ level of talent, with a ‘certain’ level of look, with a ‘certain’ level of intelligence, but no more. I was a massive disappointment to myself because I felt everything I was, every single quality I possessed was on the cusp of something but was never quite enough to actually matter or be worth valuing.

I felt that I saw potential in myself and others did too. I had a certain amount of talent, beauty, grace, but that it all felt just short in every area of my life and I battered myself with this impossible yardstick on a daily basis.

Know that when you can’t actually articulate what you’re aiming for, you’re setting yourself up to fail. You have set yourself an impossible indefinable target. When there’s no clear end to the goal, how will you ever know you’ve achieved it?

Setting impossible goals

I didn’t realise that this was my tendency until I went through rehab and was pushed on all of my shit to the point of crazy, exasperated revelation.

Our group sessions in Bushypark were times for us to take certain steps of the 12 step programme in tow and discuss where we stood within them and open up further about our experiences. It gave the whole group of twelve the chance to delve deeper and be pushed to reveal more by the members themselves, who at this stage, were completely exposed and so were impartial.

All your shit was laid bare in rehab from day one. You revealed the worst of yourself on the floor for all to scrutinise and pick at and as brutal as it was at times, it was a liberating godsend too. Actually saying out loud where your addiction had brought you and being able to hear and identify with others’ stories and the impact of their vices on their own lives, it was a powerful thing. We used the collective experience and insight, with the guidance of the counsellors, to help each other process deep waters and trauma and come out of the tunnel, free, forgiven and unjudged.

One day, we had been discussing families. For me, it was my desire to bring happiness to my family, even if it cost my own and I’d been actively doing this since I was nine years old, the day my parents told me they were splitting up.

You can always expect a certain amount of pain from a marriage split and for the kids to feel this in different ways — For me, it was all about pleasing both parents and making both feel adequately loved and appreciated so that at least would not be a source of pain for them. Sounds like a big job for a nine year old and it was — I could never divide my time equally enough between the two.

If I felt one parent had us for a minute longer than the split time, I would become nervous and antsy to the point where I would remind them that we’d need to go back to the other’s house as it was now their time — saying this would then make me feel instant shame, regret and guilt for the parent I now felt l’d betrayed and rejected and I would try to squeeze their hand on the drive home, tell them I loved them and massively overcompensate to try and make up for this horrendous thing I had to do… And that cycle continued in various forms, for a long time.

My parents, just to be clear, are incredible people and dealt with their split in a brilliant way that allowed us to see them equally, we didn’t see much animosity between them as kids. No, all of this came from me and my mind trying to find some way of making life okay for everyone. If they felt okay, then I could feel okay. And this was my job.

Except, it wasn’t really.

In this session at Bushypark, this thought found its voice in the biggest outburst I’ve ever had. We were discussing my mum and dad and how I would still need to do all these silly little things on the other side of rehab just to be sure, just to be sure… when Pat, my personal counselor who was leading the group that day, grabbed this sentence and held it aloft by the scruff of its neck.

Pat:
“Be sure of what?”

The room was quiet.
Pat was staring directly at me and me, slightly shocked, back at her.

Ro:
“Just to be sure that they feel okay…”

Pat:
“How do you know when they’re okay?”

Ro:
“…I don’t know…”

Pat:
“So how can you know that you’re helping them feel okay?”

Ro:
“I’ll know, though, I know them, they’re my parents…”

Pat:
“Is it your responsibility to make them feel okay?

Ro:
“Well, it’s not NOT my responsibility, they’re my parents, I love them, I want them to be happy-”

Pat:
“But it’s not your responsibility to control them or their feelings either. Do you see how this is arrogant of you to think that you’re the one in charge of how they feel?”

Ro:
“No, but I don’t think-”

Pat:
“Could they make you feel okay? In all the last few years, while you were starving yourself and drinking yourself into oblivion and hurting, could they make you feel okay?”

Ro:
“No, but-”

Pat:
“But what? Do you not think that they wanted to do that for you?”

Ro:
“Of course, but-”

Pat:
“Do you not think if they would have wanted to save you, their daughter, going through all this madness, all this pain, they would’ve done it?”

Ro:
“Of course, they’ve tried…”

Pat:
“Yes! They’ve tried! Exactly. But trying doesn’t change how you feel. Can they change how you feel about yourself and how you look at things?

Ro:
“No…”

Pat:
“That’s right, because only you can change how you are handling your life. Why do you think that you are so great and powerful that you can control people — look at what it’s done to you! How long have you lost to this, it’s useless! Yes, you can care but it’s a useless exercise to think you are responsible for making them happy — You know yourself it’s impossible otherwise, you wouldn’t have any problems at all…”

At this point, there were tears in my eyes and I was getting angry.

The blood was boiling and seething inside my veins and behind my eyes as it was suddenly becoming clear to me how much of my life had been lost to an incredible pain and anxiety that was suddenly, demonstrably all of my own making.

Ro:
“But I wanted to help..”

Pat:
“You were never going to help, Roisin, you were never going to fix anything because you didn’t know what the real thing to fix is! Tell me why you’re getting upset?

Ro:
“BECAUSE I CAN’T MAKE THEM HAPPY AND I HAVE TRIED TO FOR SO FUCKING LONG AND IT’S KILLING ME AND I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE….”

Everyone in the group was still and silent. My rage, my piping hot anger, which had felt a second ago like an actual physical pulse reverberating through my throat, had fallen back, the momentum lost and replaced by a sad, exasperated, exhaustion, in the realisation that this was fucking it. This was the fucking reason, the pivotal linchpin of everything, why I had been struggling for so fucking long.

Pat beamed.

“That’s it. Well done.”

The group ended. Pat and I went to talk.
We suddenly had a lot to catch up on.

Passion leads to truth and truth leads to freedom

My angry outburst was the beginning of real recovery for me.

That was the moment I stopped thinking in the back of my head that rehab was doable and then I’d drink again on the other side, no — I suddenly had a very clear vision of why I was the way I was and behaved the way I did. And it was an impossible way to live. An unsustainable and painful way to think and while it didn’t solve my problems, it was like I had finally floated outside of my body for a moment and seeing myself below, realised:
“Oh, wow, this is why she’s so fucked up…”

You’d have to be with that level of perceived responsibility on your shoulders, it was crazy.

In my head, if I couldn’t make you happy, I failed. That’s it. It was never my responsibility, except when I made it my responsibility. It was never within my power to achieve in the first place, so god love me, I was always, always, always going to lose — I was backing the losing horse before the race even began.

Know your limits. Find the right help

You can’t make others happy. You can love them, you can support them, you can certainly try to raise their spirits and help in their lives and do what you can, but as I can attest to in no uncertain terms, other people doing the same for me never changed how I felt, so why should I be the exception to the rule? The only person we actually have the power to make happy is ourselves.

Everyone has their own work to do and until you’re in the right headspace to do it, you never will. And you won’t be forced to either. I think one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve realised and no doubt, my parents, my sister, my brother went through it too, is that as much as you want to just stop someone’s pain, as much as you want to do whatever’s in your power to do, you can’t be the one to do the heavy lifting.

Only the person in question can pull themselves up from whatever black hole they’re in.

I remember a few years back a friend came to me asking if I could talk to her teenager, who was going through a really bad depression. Going through rehab and managing to stay on the straight and narrow gave me a weird kind of street cred — I was suddenly the person people came to whenever they were dealing with anything addiction or mental health related, which is a nice compliment but also a big responsibility to take on your shoulders. It should be treated in a measured way, both to manage their expectations as well as your own and the limited power you have to make a difference here.

The kid had stopped going to school, refused to do final exams and as such, never applied for college and refused to get a job. On the back of this, they refused counselling and antidepressants and were stuck in an endless cycle of sleeping late, not socialising, barely eating and then staying up all night online.

It was like they were passively tolerating their physical life and only finding joy from the digital presence they were able to inhabit and the virtual world that again, would allow them control over what people saw and what people thought of them.

I identified with this person a lot and gave what advice I could about encouraging them to find a counsellor they felt comfortable with, which is one of the biggest triumphs you’ll have. I went through at least 4 counsellors before meeting Sara after Bushypark, who seemed to have been born to play this role in my life at this time. The others played their own parts, some more than others but it is really about who resonates best with you as a person.

I also invited them to consider what a proper psychiatrist would advise in terms of antidepressants, because for me, that’s what enabled me to just begin the process of healing, to have the clarity to start the work, as opposed to sitting lost in a fog of perpetual despair.

The truth is that everyone’s journey is different, as is the solution to their problems. What may have worked for you may not work for someone else and depending on your readiness to deal with the real issue at hand, you may have to resign yourself, sadly, to the fact that there isn’t anything you can do, because at that point, whatever the behaviours are, or the drug or mental issue is, it’s giving that person something they need.

Understanding why you go down these roads

My eating disorder destroyed my relationship with my body and my food and even today, still rears its head when I’m feeling vulnerable, but I know it for who it is now. Aged 19 though, it was beautiful. I loved it.

It gave me a sense of control over something when in all other areas of my life, I felt I was powerless. It allowed me to control the container that I was stuck in that I hated, that being my body and demonstrate to myself that I could change, that I had strength and will power and an ability to survive on literally nothing and still survive. And like anything at the beginning, it just felt great. As the pounds came off me, as my clothes started getting baggier, as people started to notice and compliment me, it felt fucking amazing. I was GOOD at this, I was better than others. I pitied others because they would never have my control…

That feeling doesn’t last for too long, but the memory of it keeps you coming back. Even as it’s destroying you and your life around you.

We don’t go through these things for the craic. Our addictions, our coping mechanisms, our protections, be it alcohol, OCD behaviours or even self pity and blaming others, give us the sense of control that we don’t feel we have and we crave. And control is a hard thing to give up.

Your recovery belongs to you

Long story short, I can’t do anyone else’s work for them. No one can.
I’ve had this idea in my head ever since I was a child that I had to fix everything and everyone else and that doing that would make me feel in control and this was a fight I was never going to win. Post rehab, I’d never resonated more with the concept of putting on your own oxygen mask before caring for others, because it was suddenly clear that I was responsible for myself and if I wanted to be useful to others, in any tiny way shape or form, my own house had to be in order.

It was the revelation that began my true recovery but I think that also gave me permission to start caring about myself more and put myself first, for the first time in my life. That was hard and probably the biggest adjustment on the other side of rehab, both for me and my family — The status quo had now changed, if I wanted to save myself, I needed to learn to push back, have clearly defined boundaries for myself and others and live in a way that allowed me to be my most authentic, calm and happy self. No drink, no drugs, no behaviours to fall back on this time — It was all about reconstructing who I was and how I’d choose to live my life.
I could have chosen oblivion.

And I chose to be happy.

Continued in Surviving Myself | Part 4.

There’s always someone to talk to

If anyone is affected by any of the issues discussed here, there are so many outlets to talk and get help.

Check out MIND for practical resources around:

• Getting support / Supporting others
• Addiction
• Workplace Mental Health

*Some names in this post have been changed to protect identities.

Losing the shame was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the Bushypark Addiction Treatment Centre, on the 21st of September, 2013, I wrote the following, under the heading of “Acceptance”:

I have to deal with Life on Life’s terms.
Life is never going to bow to my wishes. I need to accept that awful things will happen, shocks, deaths and all that and I will HAVE to deal with it all, without substances or behaviours. I have to use what processing skills I’ve learnt here to do this for the rest of my life.

It’s all about how we process things and how honestly we allow ourselves to feel, deal and move on.

Starting the real work

What I gained from my time in rehab was clarity and a skillset that I would need to use to maintain my balance and continue towards the person I wanted to be. I knew who I wanted to be, the best parts of myself and the elements I needed to be wary of so my efforts were focused on allowing myself to flourish and renew, behaving everyday in ways that reinforced that person.

Saying that, it took a long time to get there and years of falling further down the rabbit hole, even before alcohol became part of the problem, before I could really open my eyes to a new way of existing in the world. It takes time to get to breakdown, it takes time to get out.

Before alcohol, there was an eating disorder

I emerged from college, excited and eager to prove myself to the world, finally repay my father for his support throughout the last few years by standing on my own two feet and earn through the skills and talents I had.

I also emerged with a serious eating disorder, worsening depression that I was incredibly good at masking as well as a growing desire to hurt myself when I was stressed. I had been seeing counsellors for a while and was taking antidepressants as it became clear to my family from my dropping body weight that there was something wrong with me.

As with the drinking, the issue had to reach the interest of everyone else who would force me to react rather than me addressing it myself.

For my part, I knew I was dancing with something insipid and dangerous, but it gave me calm and control over the external shell that I was trapped in, that I had hated since I was 5 and I wasn’t going to actively stop engaging in the behaviors unless forced. Again, had I listened to my Jekyll/Hyde voices here and drilled them for the why’s and the why-nows of the situation, I would’ve maybe found more validation for making more significant moves sooner to help myself.

But I think at this stage, I also needed this. The ED gave me something I needed and made me feel special.

Even if it was physically and mentally destroying me.

There’s nothing like putting an anorexic in a room with sixteen other anorexics to make them really beat themselves up over what a shit anorexic they are. At least, this was my experience as I entered the eating disorder unit in St Patrick’s University Hospital in Dublin. I’d been on a waiting list for years. My ED behaviours kicked off in earnest after I started going out with my first boyfriend and continued on to the heartbreak of my family for years.

Finally, after talking about it for years, after calls from my dad and bi annual chasers, we got the call that there was a place open and that if I wanted to take it, I had to go within a week.

Of course I didn’t want to. Aside from the fact that I was now 22, working in Ros na Run and trying to pretend to be a functioning member of society now, I also didn’t think I was thin enough to go.

“Give me a bit of time,” I wanted to say to Dad. “A few weeks just to really give them a good candidate, I’ll slim down just a little bit more and then at that stage, we’ll be rocking…”
Of course, this was concrete proof that I desperately needed to go now.

This mindset made it harder though when I finally arrived up there and walked into the office of the main doctor in charge of the unit. This man took one look at me before proclaiming in a flippant, offhand way, “I thought you’d be a lot worse, from what your dad was saying…”

Jesus Christ…

He literally couldn’t have said anything worse. He couldn’t have said anything that made me feel more like a fake anorexic, like I had been overhyping the mental prison that I had been locked in for 4 years at that stage.

I felt like an idiot. Like I knew it. I knew it myself. I wasn’t ready. I needed more time, I wanted to get worse first. This guy, this man, this fucking professional had just confirmed everything the horrible wanker of a voice in my head was trying to whisper: “Roisin, you are fucking embarrassing.”

This start embedded in my brain that I had already managed to fuck this up and that even though this disease was torturing me on a daily basis, as much as I was shit at everything else, I couldn’t even get this right.
It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

How we were ‘treated’ in this treatment centre

In the unit, we were treated like children.
We had no freedom, no privacy, you woke up in a dorm, you went to the bathroom together, you went to breakfast where you all had to sit until the last girl had finished the bare minimum we had to eat, which could take hours.

In between groups where we discussed our issues, we were made sit in a tiny little living room by ourselves with a TV constantly bellowing out and of all the insanities to have in the room, all the stupid fashion magazines that we wanted to torture ourselves with.

Walks outside were forbidden, the privilege having been removed for all once two girls were deemed to be power walking. This right to air and space never came back either in four weeks I spent there.

The living room had occasional check-ins from the staff but in reality, it was the perfect classroom to learn how to have and expand on an eating disorder. It was a breeding ground for toxic thoughts. The in-mates, ranging in insane extremes of the condition, shared everything with each-other and since you weren’t allowed to be by yourself, unless you were in the toilet or with your counsellor, there was no blocking your ears to it.

Pro-Ana Live

It was like being in a live chat show of the Pro-Anorexia sites we were all guilty of visiting — I learnt how they hid food, how they purged, what they did to hide their diminishing shapes being discovered, how to dull their appetite, what to use to confuse your body it was full — it was madness. It was Eating Disorder 101 and my impressionable mind, while genuinely wanting to get better, if not just to escape this fucking hell, was soaking it all in like a toxic, masochistic sponge.

I saw the full extent of my own madness the day myself and another new inmate, Chloe, were sent to get a DEXA scan in another clinic twenty minutes away. We got a cab together and on the way, got to know each other a bit better. Chloe was older than most of the girls on the ward by a good ten years but was definitely one of the worst in terms of her condition. Her arms and legs were spindles, her face was sunken. She was what I knew I was aspiring for but knew was never going to be acceptable to my family.

We arrived at the clinic and were taken off into different rooms to do the scan and wait for our results. For those not in the know, a DEXA scan is a high-precision type of X-ray that measures your bone mineral density and bone loss. If your bone density is lower than normal for your age, it indicates a risk for osteoporosis and bone fractures and as you’d imagine, for eating disorder patients, lacking in the basics in body fuel, vitamins and calcium coming from our food, it was very likely to affect us.

Chloe’s diagnosis was bad. She explained what the doctor told me in the taxi on the way back to hospital:

“He said my density is critically low, I’m definitely going to get osteoporosis and I need to go on supplements and get treatment immediately”.

“Wow, Chloe, I’m so sorry…”
I was lying. I wasn’t thinking about being sorry for Chloe at that moment.
I was fucking jealous of her.

My own diagnosis had come back saying I had higher than normal bone density so I was going to be fine. “Just keep working on yourself and you’ll be grand,” they said.

Another failure. I couldn’t even get this right. The easiest condition for an ED patient to get and I wasn’t only nowhere near it, my density was above fucking average.

As I said this to myself, I remember hearing another voice, quieter than the others, but suddenly audible in the room, clearly say:
“Oh shit, Roisin. You are genuinely this angry that you haven’t been diagnosed with a disease that could literally cripple you? You are so so sick in your mind, you see that, right? You are actually properly crazy”.

I was. I didn’t care.

I needed to go through my hatred of myself to come out on the other side renewed. Not fixed, and this is the joke of the matter with anyone telling you that you can fix depression, you can fix an addiction, you can fix an eating disorder and post, the person will continue on completely as normal. Unfortunately, this is bullshit.

We are humans, flesh and blood, mind and spirit and we need these things to work in balance with each other and things can fall out of balance very easily. The main thing that you need to keep in mind when you do, is first things first, know it’s okay and second, that you can deal with it.

Any work you do on yourself in the effort to ‘fix’ anything, is essentially internal work on your own maintenance manual, or the scientific study we discussed earlier. Everything you need to function well goes into that manual, everything that makes you flow well is noted, anything that puts a cog out of place is called out as an alert so you can actively deal with issues as they arise.

I don’t want to fully disparage my Eating Disorder treatment centre for the work they do or how they did it — I know for many girls, it was their enabler to a better life, a healthier one. Saying that, for someone going in hoping to feel a sense of hope, it left me more broken. Enabled in a much more negative sense in that I was now a lot more informed as to the art of the disorder. More able to cover up my problems, more sneaky, more manipulative and more desperate.

From one disorder to another

Bushypark for me was the mental and emotional shock I needed to break my toxic cycle, but as we’ll see later, maybe when I was in the ED clinic, I just wasn’t ready to let the problems go yet. This, in my opinion, is half the battle. Those who are at the end of their tether have nowhere else to go and at that stage, at 22, I wasn’t there yet.

As much as my toxic voices pained me, they fuelled me and while they’re still satisfying a certain level of need, you’ll not feel inclined to change things. Better the pain you know than that you don’t.

By the time, I hit Bushypark at 26, the only alternatives to continuing on drinking were rehab or suicide. There was nowhere else to go.
I was ready for something new.

A different kind of in-patient treatment

My new life had begun.
Our day started at half seven. 3 to a room, we woke up, showered and changed and tended to meet up at the picnic tables outside of the house, where the smokers assembled and we checked in with each other, to reflect on the group sessions of the day before, bitch about the cold or complain that we still had a lot of steps homework to catch up on.

Our group was surprisingly tight, our counsellors would tell us. Realistically, groups tended to vary between those forced to be there, who had no interest in being sober, those serious and those appeasing others. Our group was particularly dedicated, held no punches with each other in our feedback and as a result, we were so close as friends within a few days.

We’d have morning groups that would focus on different topics and these would largely involve us sharing how our addictions influenced these aspects of our lives. Being an open discussion, we could probe each other’s arguments, push for further information and better honesty when we felt the answers were too shallow. We’d be the catalysts for each other to have real revelations and identification, because of the variety of our ages, experience and situations.

We were all uniquely able to bring a different perspective to the table that helped to enable different insights into different circumstances in people’s lives as we learned about them and revealed more about our own. And we were the makings of a motley crew. From gamblers, to drug addicts to alcoholics, we had no shame with each other because we were all there for the same reason — To figure out the root of the problem and recover.

We were all humble. No one was better, no one was worse. And that was everything.

We all had tasks in the house on a daily basis, whether you were on cleanup or cooking prep with the house chef. Like doing seva in an ashram, you did your daily service to the house, the group and it kept you busy in between groups. In the evenings, you had dinner and then, after the last group of the day, a bit of free time to write, walk or run, maybe even have a bit of TV time, before going to bed and start the whole thing over again.

There were some breaks in the routine. Sunday saw us having art therapy as well as a weekly AA meeting where other non housemates came, listened and shared alongside us. We could also have visitors on Sundays.

Wednesday was family day, when all the families of us down and outs would descend on the grounds of Bushypark and take part in both full group therapy with all housemates and their clans in session together, as well as individual sessions with just your family, you and your personal counsellor.

These days could be heavy, revelatory, dramatic and angry — You never knew how you were going to feel after family day. You could be feeling incredibly positive and optimistic and then suddenly find yourself with your nose in the proverbial mud, after some deeply buried nugget was unearthed that led to hard conversations. It was all part of the process and a powerful part at that.

It’s a phone-less existence in the house, all mobiles are gathered as you enter on the first day so throughout the month and a half I spent there, I received a lot of mail on a weekly basis. A string of brilliantly rude cards from my dad and notes from my mum with beautiful quotes, messages of love and support to keep my chin up, cards from my sister, who despite living and working in Dublin, was driving down every week to come to therapy with us. A long letter from her then ex-partner, just sending his love and support (which made me all the more delighted and happy when they got back together). All of this post made me feel so loved. So unworthy of it in my shame ridden state, but so loved.

It was one of the first Sundays in Bushypark. It was a nice day for once, I was sitting outside with the centre’s dogs at my feet, when I saw a car pulling up in the drive of the compound. As it got nearer, I thought I recognised the driver — My best friend’s dad.

Next thing I see is the car pull to a halt, my best friend leap out and run to me while I, unbelieving and completely overcome, cry a waterfall into her shoulder. This moment was so immense, I can’t describe it. It was like getting winded by someone punching me in the stomach except the punch was in the heart.

Marie and Kate, my two best friends from school, had only been told I was going into rehab a week before in a text before my phone was taken away.
I was much too ashamed to call or explain in person — I was in two minds to tell anyone at all. The text basically told them where I was and why, that I wouldn’t have my phone and that hopefully I would see them on the other side feeling better.

Marie was moving to Australia that week. Yet, the day before she flew, she had taken the time to chase down my treatment centre online, find out when she could get permission to come and visit me, have her dad drive down an hour from Galway so she could see me before she moved across the world.

Moments like these were when I knew that as much as I felt I was disgusting, as much as I had fucked everything up, that there must be something left in this sad shell worth fighting for if my friend had gone to that much effort to support me. It still makes me choke up thinking about it. I don’t think she even knows the impact she had that day, not even her dad, Martin, in simply driving her down, in not judging her daughter’s sad alcoholic friend.

She made me feel like the essence of who I was, the character of Roisin O’Toole, was someone of value, someone worth rooting for, someone worth love, someone worth the time to recover. It gave me hope for happiness and hope for a life post-rehab, despite all I’d done.
It was an incredible gift.

Continued in Surviving Myself | Part 3.

There’s always someone to talk to

If anyone is affected by any of the issues discussed here, there are so many outlets to talk and get help.

Check out MIND for practical resources around:

• Getting support / Supporting others
• Addiction
• Workplace Mental Health

*Some names in this post have been changed to protect identities.

Addiction is easy. Recovery’s the bitch. was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everyone has a chapter they don’t read aloud, certainly not to everyone, and for the most part, this is mine. A handful of people know the full extent of my descent, while others may have caught glimpses here and there of a troubled Roisin but never considered it went as far as it did.

This series is being written because life is bumpy. Mine has been a regular country road of potholes that has managed to finally get some funding for a bit of tarmac filler for the past few miles. The point is that bad times don’t define your life. Life is as beautiful as it is challenging, painful and gut wrenching at times. What I hope my humble example goes to show just that there isn’t anything you can’t come back from. I’ve boiled it down to life being, as much as work, as much as design, about adapting to what you have and what you can do at any given moment.

It’s not Instagram selfies and fabulous experiences, all captured around a balanced home and an empowered work-life . Social media has created a toxic environment where the emphasis is on display — Show the world how great you are, show the world what you have achieved, show the world what you believe — No wonder so many of us feel like we are constantly failing, that we’re never doing enough, that it is too exhausting trying to achieve what we see others seemingly just have fall into their laps.

We end up thinking our own lives don’t measure up when the whole time, it was always a false benchmark and at the end of the day, all we are doing is giving ourselves another stick to beat ourselves with. Let’s put this stick down, step away from the smartphones and consider what it is we actually want.

Unforeseen burdens

You may not have as fun an anecdote as rehab to liven up your dinner parties, but this is life. Life is hard and unpredictable and impossible to control. As much as I’d love to think in my twenties that I could handle everything it was going to throw at me, I had no idea of what was to come and how it would impact me.

Best intentions be damned

I had actually, actively invested in prepping against this exact situation. I knew that our family had a history of alcoholism, I had family members who were open with their own experience struggling with it and I knew what it could do to people, to relationships, to families — At a very early age, I was questioning, is it worth it? Probably not.

So I abstained. I intentionally elected not to drink as a teenager, I chose not to drink until well into my second year in college and even then, they were tentative steps into a world I was wary of. But it still got me in the end.

This was my journey and yours will be yours, but please let me assure you that if you let them, the worst times can inspire the best. Depression, addiction, deaths in the family, this is all par for the course. The sweeter things too, like the arrival of kids, the blossoming of new relationships, the breakup of others, marriage, divorce — These are all part of life and will interrupt whatever is going on and force you at times to take new directions.

Riding the waves of change

Heraclitus said “The only constant in life is change”.
My dad would later add to this thought:

“The only constant in life is change and death, so you may as well go out and make the most of it while you’re alive.”
- Dr. David O’Toole

Life will give you all these options, all these crossroads and you’ll have to respond and at times, feel that you may have chosen the wrong road. God knows, I’ve done this enough, especially when the wrong road kept leading me into the bottom of a vodka bottle.

Please know that this is okay.
It is so, so okay for you to fuck up and fuck up again if you learn something from it. Strength is not doing what you had originally masterminded but weathering the challenges and emerging on the other side with no regrets.

Losing control

I was rapidly coming to the end of my drinking spiral, to the point where I didn’t recognise risk in getting discovered anymore. The functional alcoholic is a sneaky being and has many little tricks designed to hide their addiction, hide their behaviours and hide the reality that is their problem.

My fail safe was calling into my parents on my way home from work so I could see them (or more so, that they could see me, thriving and overcompensatingly “fine”) before I headed home to relax in my cocoon, knowing I wouldn’t be disturbed and drink myself into oblivion.

I would, of course, have a ready tap to my addiction in a bottle of diet coke that was constantly, innocently on my person, which was laced to the hilt with vodka. Not to drink in front of them, at the beginning I wasn’t even that bold — I’d go to the bathroom, take a quick slug and go out again and if I was seen doing so, no one would think anything of it. Genius in simplicity.

Then as you fall down the rabbit hole, you become sloppy…

The bottles of vodka start piling up and instead of destroying the evidence and bringing them down to the recycling centre, you start hiding them in random places in the house, thinking you’ll come back to them later.

Your urge to drink suddenly can’t wait until after work so you start going out to the off licence at lunchtime, not even considering that the same person who’s serving you everyday is seeing you clearer than anyone who deems themselves to be close to you at that time.

You stop showering as often because it means getting naked and being, for a while, in some way aware of the body you still hate, still think is too fat and disgusting. It means standing tall for at least 10 mins, it means looking at yourself in the mirror and possibly locking eyes with yourself and not wanting to deal with the wreck looking back at you.

You stop reaching out to friends because at that stage, you know you’re just going to lose time. If you meet them, you’ll see your friends and that might be nice, but it’s that much time away from drinking. And while seeing your friends, your extremely addled brain logics out, is nice, drinking is necessary.

Better see them another time, drinking is too important today, honestly. They’ll be fine, I’m sure they didn’t want to see you anyway, isn’t it just easier for everyone to just leave it and do their own thing, yeah, it definitely is…

This is what happens in your head as you’re about to cancel the appointment.

The momentary relief is immediately compounded by a hammer of guilt and shame that once again, you ditched an opportunity to see friends who love you because your addiction is now making your decisions for you.

You are lost. You are pathetic.
Where is my glass?

Reaching the precipice

One of the lowest points for me is only a smattering of blurred memories because honestly, I was blacking in and out that day. I was after visiting my mum, completely wasted and had started cooking dinner for us with the idea, I believe of going back out to work that day. But I was gone, I was so far gone, I don’t know how I even thought I’d be able to cover my tracks.

That day exists only in foggy snapshots:

• Me cooking at the hob, the day being warm and extremely bright outside
• My spatial awareness and slurring speech being all over the place due to my intoxication
• Mum going up and down the steps outside
• Blurred vision from tears in my eyes and manic sobs pulsing in my throat
• Me on the couch, lying in my mum’s arms, telling her I was done, I was so done, I was too far gone and nothing would help me, I was tired of trying and that I didn’t want to be here anymore.

Poor Mum. I remember her holding me and crying, as I repeated it over and over, “I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t do this anymore…”

For a moment that was so incredibly pivotal in my life, it makes me sad that I don’t remember more of it.

Unmasking the addiction

I used to think that maybe there are stages of addiction, where for a moment, your consciousness tries to take back control, that something within you is trying to get you caught, because the body and the mind is afraid. Like a kid after the first burn who has started to reach their hand back towards the flame, the body instinctively flailing around, throwing pots and pans to capture someone’s attention, desperately trying to say “Seriously, someone, look. This person has no idea what they’re doing, they need help…”

I believe sometimes that I wanted to be caught. There were times I wanted people to know how awful my life was, how insanely ashamed I felt about myself and my pathetic existence, I wanted people to see reality — not fix it, but just see it. See me.

As I lay there, crying into my mum’s knee, I knew my cover was gone. There was no going back to my den after this. I had killed the only chance of continuing on my shitty life and part of me was mourning that.

Part of me was also calmed by admitting that I wanted my life to end.

It was the first honest thing I had said in a very long time and sad as it was, it was a relief in and of itself — I didn’t want to cause pain, it wasn’t about what it would do to others I left behind, it was about an end and an end being so much better than what I was living through.

Continued in Surviving Myself | Part 2.

There’s always someone to talk to

If anyone is affected by any of the issues discussed here, there are so many outlets to talk and get help.

Check out MIND for practical resources around:

• Getting support / Supporting others
• Addiction / Suicide
• Workplace Mental Health

Navigating Chaos was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At the end of 2020, I took part in an online talk for IADT on the topic of pivoting, organised by my original muse and enabler of words, Sherra Murphy, from my previous “Identifying Personal Role Models” piece. It felt like fate, with her reaching out just as I was finishing up my first drafts of these articles, referring to her and her influence on me as a mentor and again, ironically, what she wanted to talk about couldn’t have played more into the theme of this publication.

She’d been looking to create a series of conversational discussions to be streamed online on design, careers and creativity to help ease the sense of frustration the students were having over what they were missing by not being able to see one another and participate in normal college life during the pandemic. Naturally, this was an awesome opportunity to re-engage with my old life, the cards that I’d been dealt, both personally and professionally as well as talk through the transition from there to here.

Understanding that YOU are the product

What really emerged most from the chat, which saw me sharing the virtual stage with designer and fellow IADT alum, Lesley Ann Daly and lecturer/moderator Fiona Snow, was the idea of thinking of yourself without the context of a specific frame, box or label:

In essence, you are not just a model-maker, a set dresser, a designer — You are a specific product that is uniquely suited to many different things.

Life isn’t linear — neither should our career paths be

We often fall victim to the confines of our own ideas of what we are or a narrow mindset that doesn’t give us the freedom to cross over into other things that we are perfectly capable of doing. I was so glad to have done the talk as Fiona and Lesley Ann’s experiences consolidated this idea that we are not one thing and that at the end of the day, there isn’t just one linear path for us in our careers.

We are a unique combination with our skills, talents, experiences, values and attitudes that makes up a resource that really can’t be put into words, that can’t be put into simply one box, which makes us infinitely more invaluable as professionals. Keep a tally of these skills and values as you go — just a little check in every few months to gauge your own learning as well as see where your head and heart are yearning to go next.

Life is not meant to stand still

If your career does swing, embrace that swing. If life intervenes, as it always will, know that you can weather more than you think. This is part of the ride, part of your unique journey and is what we’ll go into in the next chapter.

Don’t think about your life as linear — Take it as it comes as you never know what a swing might lead to. You may not know what you will end up doing, you may not have a specific plan. All you want to be doing right now is accumulating experience, skills and traits that add value and this is emotional development as well as practical.

Remember, a designer is essentially a problem solver, who can apply creativity to find solutions. Our value is as much in being a thinker as a do-er.

Our own definition of ourselves is everything. How we frame ourselves makes the difference in where we end up. You’ll find out in the next series how many ways I could’ve been defined were I to settle for those ways of thinking about myself — alcoholic, depressive, anorexic, suicidal, desperate, lost.

I know in my heart that it was my belief that I was more, so much more than my current state at any given time that saved me, heart body and soul. That I was more than my worst reality. Not losing sight of that was the key to opening up all the different doors of opportunity for me, not closing myself behind just one.

I look forward to sharing this part of my story in the next few posts, in the hopes that it may help someone feel a little less alone.

Continue the journey down the rabbit hole in Surviving Myself | Part 1.

Pushing yourself higher despite life getting in the way was originally published in One Designer Odyssey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.