Published on 12, July, 2020
I always feel like there’s something inside me that makes it very difficult for me to communicate to people, especially about how I’m feeling and what I need help with. I always have to think for a bit before I say something or reply to someone. Sometimes, that’s not even enough, as my words often come out clunky and unclear, which has annoyed a lot of people. And when people are talking to me, it always ends up with me saying “yeah” over and over again in response to their statements, as I literally don’t know how to respond otherwise. One time, when I responded that way a bit too much, they said to me, “You really don’t care, do you?”. Except I do. At one point, I tried telling this to my mom, and how I was feeling very anxious and mentally unwell because of it. She told me it was because I was a Scorpio. Like, what? I got so mad that I nearly yelled at her. Instead, I just left the room quickly. I’m almost an adult, and this is still a problem for me. I’m a bit anxious about life after high school, as I don’t how well I’ll hold up in college with my mind being the way it is.
School - hell on wheels, 6th form - not as bad, university - much more bearable, even enjoyable, post-grad - heaven. The further I got up the academic system, the more autism-friendly it became. PhD study might have been designed for autistics.
Wow, that's the complete opposite of my experience. School was fine, uni was just about bearable, PhD (maths) I dropped out because I couldn't cope with the social demands. We were supposed to work in an open plan office all day every day, have face to face supervisor meetings every week, and go to talks, coffee mornings, journal clubs, conferences etc. Even if I was an extroverted NT it would have been a huge amount of interaction and verbal communication.
I did my PhD in molecular biology in a research group averaging around 8 people. They were the only people I needed to interact with on a daily basis. I worked in a laboratory with just those people, and shared an office with three of my lab group. We had fortnightly lab meetings, which were OK, just boring. I had to present a few seminars and I did one conference talk. I self-medicated with alcohol to cope and they mostly passed off fairly well.