Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
tl;dr : I'm worried that my autism is at odds with my university degree course and my ability to finish it successfully.
I've been at university for three years now but I only got an autism spectrum condition diagnosis a few weeks ago. What I have learnt since then about autistic fatigue, burn-out, special interests and alexithymia seems to shed some light on my struggles to get on with my degree course for the past couple of years. I'm worried about what to do moving forward to combat these difficulties. I have disclosed my disability to the university and should be getting some support by the time I start my fourth year this autumn but given the extent of my burn out and my suspicion that my lack of interest in the subject Im studying is the root cause for my fatigue, I'm worried that this support won't be enough for me to successfully finish my degree.
When it comes to special interests I tend to become very interested with something for a few weeks, and use it to make sense of how I'm feeling. This is where alexithymia comes in - I like it when someone describes the feelings they experience under circumstances similar to my own, because this helps me see what my own feelings might be. Once I feel I have learned enough and get bored I move onto the next topic. I'm worried that the subject I chose to study at university was just one of these short term interests. It was interesting for a bit but only in as much as I could relate it to my inner life and use it to find out more about myself. But there isn't a lot of material that feels right and interesting to me and I've come to actually find most of my studies boring and annoying.
This, I fear, leads to autistic fatigue and I suspect it has led to an autistic burn out that has been affecting me for around two years now. Without that sense of interest I find it almost impossible to engage with what I'm studying. Because of my issues with processing I need to take in every word in order to understand, make sense of and retain information. I can apply this hyper focus for subjects that I am interested in. But it is difficult to motivate myself to focus like this on my university material - forcing myself to get through the work anyway is very time consuming and often leaves me physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
Does this ring any bells for anyone else? Does anybody have any advice?
Thanks,
Phoebe
Hi Phoebe,I understand perfectly your difficulties. I have a long experience with studies. In fact, I never stop to study, but I spent more 13 years on the chairs of the universities.The advices of @Mantra are good. An add, I do it that in my studies and my work, and at the moment I help two french students to manage this problem (one student is Asperger). It is the management of the breath (like cardiac coherence), of the body during the courses and after the course how to organise your homework and more.Sorry for my English, my mother language is french. But your studies French. Certainly you speak and write better than me.