An autistic teacher

I was overwhelmed when I received the piano yesterday. I still am, however I'm starting to have lucid memories of all sorts of things in connection with it.
Some decades ago I taught a number of kids to play the piano. It got to the point where I was teaching them grade five, when all I had was grade four. It was a complete lack of self-confidence that prevented me from proceeding with the grades, but eventually I decided I ought to do something about it. I had a word with my friend Nina, and I taught myself the grade six pieces in the space of about a month. Then I taught myself the grade eight pieces in six weeks. I got a fantastic result for grade six (141/150), but just scraped through grade eight (100/150, the pass mark). By the time I came to grade eight though, I wasn't eating regularly and didn't have the fare to the examination centre, so walked the four miles each way. I was already tired by the time I reached the centre, and had grown to hate the pieces.
I then taught myself grade eight in both recorder and theory of music. I took these a couple of months later, and got good results for both.
In the meanwhile Nina had been nagging (I use the word kindly) me to go for a university degree. Of course I hadn't the confidence, and was convinced that both my playing and knowledge were not up to scratch. However I signed up for a third-year music course with the Open University, because it ws to be discontinued the following year. I got a distinction for that course, and for the following OU course, and left university with a first class honours degree.
In the meanwhile I had discontinued teaching. In those days I only charged £5.00 for an hour's lesson. This was another example of my lack of confidence letting me down. I should have charged considerably more.
Even so, I had been messed about so often with people cancelling without telling me, just so they could go out, or people not paying me. That's why I stopped.
Confidence is still my biggest weakness. I think that is why I haven't been able to make my degree work for me.
If it weren't for Nina's piano I wouldn't have done any of these things.