“Moult: (of an animal) shed old feathers, hair, or skin to make way for new growth”. This prompt intrigued me for a singular reason. The last few years of my life have been consumed by insects. I have owned insects, sold insects, bred insects, drawn insects, painted insects, pinned insects. Similar to many animals, insects moult. The spiny leaf stick insect will moult six times in their lifetime, each moult gaining different characteristics and increasing in size. As my obsession grew, I became increasingly inclined to seize any opportunity to indulge in my love of insects, and this prompt teased me with the chance to share my fascination. This piece was going to be about insects.

I began by planning a kunstkammer with objects that I had collected in the past year- not just insects, but bones and dried flowers. This would be a museum inside an artwork, filled with whatever piqued my interest. In the midst of planning, I enthusiastically told my sister about my plans and she responded with, “you know that insects are just another one of your hyper-fixations, right? You will be bored of them in a couple of months.” She was right, of course.

When I was sixteen, I found out that I had ADHD. After the intense process of finding psychiatrists and starting medication, I was finally equipped with the language to describe my personality- “hyper-fixation”. Since I was a child, I floated from one obsession to the next. I always dove headfirst into whatever interested me. I wanted to be a palaeontologist for the first years of primary school. I collected every book about dinosaurs, adored my secondhand microscope and constantly rewatched my DVD of Walking with Dinosaurs. Soon after this, I discovered a love for reading, and while I drowned in Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, I became adamant I would be an author. Everything in my life went like this. I jumped from intense obsession to intense obsession, whether it was people in my life, books, TV shows, hobbies. When I found out I had ADHD, I finally had the word hyper-fixation. I could have found clarity in this newfound label, but instead I found resentment. Diagnosis meant permanence. My pattern of obsessions started to  impact myself and my well-being in the final years of high school. I was a jack of all trades, master of none and I had no idea of the direction I could steer my life that would be sustainable. I had no concrete passion. My family had all found their vocations early on and stayed on that track, working towards their dreams. I was lost, and all I could think about was how I would start a university course based on my latest passion, get bored and switch to something new, resent whatever livelihood I had chosen and run myself into student debt. So, I began my studies in philosophy because it had interested me enough.

Eventually, I realised I hated philosophy and switched to fine arts. Luckily, art was not another fleeting interest. Art was different. Art was the one constant through my hyper-fixations that had allowed me to express appreciation for whatever obsession I had thrown myself into while dopamine chasing. Art was the only thing that felt “forever”.

I thought about what my sister had said, that I would get bored of insects, and for the first time, I wasn’t saddened about it. Since switching into art, I felt as though I had found my calling. Art was impossible to get bored of- if I lost the dopamine high from one medium, I could simply try another. I could create while listening to music or podcasts so I never felt under-stimulated. I loved what I created and had instant gratification with each project. I could challenge myself. I could also express what I loved through each phase in my life. Over the past couple of years, my final projects had been centred around insects because I could- because I loved them and I had the capabilities to express that love.

Slowly, this piece was no longer my own cabinet of curiosities, rather, it became a self portrait. It became a representation of me at the current moment and the fleeting niche I had fit myself into, but most importantly it became a concession that this personality was ephemeral.

I have found that, like insects, I moult. My hyper-fixations are characteristics that define me, and as I grow, I move on. I moult. Hyper-fixations used to fill me with dread, but now I have begun to understand that I can cherish my obsessions as a part of my history, I can make peace with the fact that my interests are not forever, and I can be excited for new interests to come into my life. Right now, I am The Collector. I try to possess a slice of time through collecting bones and preserving insects. I love to learn about the miniature world that bugs and animals live in. Soon I will moult and I will take on another form. I will grow and gain new characteristics and leave other ones behind. However, I will leave my skin, and this self portrait, to honour the person I once was.