Any autistic PhD students struggling out there?

Hi everyone,  

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful responses. It has been nice to hear that there are others who have experienced similar things and able to keep going or find another route that suits them. There is no one else in my building that I am aware of that is autistic and most people that I try to share my experiences with act like I'm being really weird so I feel a little isolated. I am the only person in my research group doing lab work (they all do epidemiology) as well so I am on a different floor from them. Most days I just drift in and out of the lab and no one notices.

I have shared my diagnosis with both my supervisors, the university, the research centre and the disability and wellbeing services. I am on a waiting list for ASD intervention services and psychology but I've been waiting since my diagnosis and have been told it may be another year or so unfortunately. The university disability team and myself drew up a list of reasonable adjustments but my supervisors mostly just ignore them. I have been fighting back and forward for the last 3 years to get them implemented properly but they usually just arrange a big support meeting and then go back to ignoring the adjustments again. There was a massive blow-up before Christmas as I had asked the post-grad advisor for help because my supervisors couldn't agree on a plan for the project. We were having multiple meetings a week for hours discussing it back and forward. I told him at that point the lack of direction and the stresses/hostility in the lab were leading to me feeling suicidal. His response was to enforce 1 hour weekly meetings with my supervisors who suddenly became very hostile and were putting me under a crazy level of pressure with unrealistic demands. It wasn't until Christmas when I had a meltdown in one of our meetings that they told me (and the head of the building) that the post-grad advisor had told them to push me as hard as possible so it wouldn't look to the other students that they were going easier on me because I was disabled. They have backed off on the hostility since but I have sort of given up fighting for adjustments now and just want to get to the end.

I think maybe the biggest problems I am having are not actually ASD-related but because of ASD I am not handling the stresses well - my supervisors are never around, there is no post-doc or staff that I can ask for help if things go wrong, there was also no real plan for my research until the end of second year (we only have 3 years) and most of the equipment I am working with is broken. I had to change my secondary supervisor mid way through second year as she was extremely hostile after I told her about my diagnosis. The final straw was when she snapped at me saying "ASD is not an excuse, you need to take unpaid leave get your mental health sorted out" because I didn't have analysis done for an experiment. I had been flagging this experiment as problematic for months and asking for help with it because the drug we were using turned our cells to confetti but for the assay I was supposed to be counting them. It turns out the experiment wasn't possible with the drug we were experimenting with. 

I keep going through the same cycle: I pick myself up, put together a plan to focus on a set of weekly objectives and then because I have no one actually teaching me something goes wrong and I fall behind. My supervisors response is usually that I have made some error because I am incompetent and I should try to figure out what it is but they won't actually take a look at the work or the experiment at all. They seem to have given up caring if I finish or not. So I go back to struggling, get overwhelmed with frustration, have a meltdown, need time off and the cycle repeats over and over. I can't really set a routine at the moment and that isn't helping - the work I do is part lab, part computer based analysis and so what I am doing changes all the time. Maybe this is what is making things worse. 

In the mean time, I run, swim, cycle and try to burn off all my excess stress energy. I also meditate, do yoga and deep breathing and see a counsellor. I try to practice mindfulness. The only things getting me through at the moment are diazepam and sleeping tablets but I don't like to take them until the worst moments. I just seem to keep hitting the same wall of high anxiety followed by depression. I keep wondering, will I actually finish? It is a great shame to me that I am struggling so badly. Everyone at my lab sees me as incompetent now but when I did my undergraduate project I won the award for the best project even with heavy competition. I won the scholarship for my PhD as well. I just wish I could get out of this cycle of burnout and have my brain running at full speed again but nothing seems to work.

Sorry for the wall of text but I know some of you asked for more context.

Well, I won't describe how my PhD is going and how my supervisors are handling it but it's not much better, believe me. Seems like PhD study is like that .. what about contacting other teachers than your supervisors?  I was lucky to find such helpful, understanding teachers. No body in my faculty knows about my autism because I self-diagnoused only few months ago. I also find a break to recharge for few days is very rewarding and it eventually "pays back" because I am then more productive and able to handle the stress of it all

Well, I won't describe how my PhD is going and how my supervisors are handling it but it's not much better, believe me. Seems like PhD study is like that .. what about contacting other teachers than your supervisors?  I was lucky to find such helpful, understanding teachers. No body in my faculty knows about my autism because I self-diagnoused only few months ago. I also find a break to recharge for few days is very rewarding and it eventually "pays back" because I am then more productive and able to handle the stress of it all

I strongly encourage you to document all of this. This could form the basis of a lawsuit later on. #notlegaladvice

I did try to change my supervisors in second year and was unfortunately told it was not possible. I was barely involved in the process and left at home for two weeks with no idea what was going on or if I would be removed from the program. In the end they upped my supervisory meetings to once a week despite my reasonable adjustments recommending less face to face time where possible. This is what eventually drove me to complete a breakdown where I began crying, shaking, became unable to talk during a meeting, I then left abruptly and considered pretty seriously taking my own life. I ended up calling for help and had to take 3 weeks off to recover. I stopped trying to fight to get my adjustments after that. They usually just stick me in a meeting where everything is blamed on my ASD and not on the situation that led me to the meltdown. I think you are right though, that even if the staff are making me feel guilty for taking time off, I need to make sure I am doing it. Maybe I haven't been doing that. As you say, it pays back when I come back and able to work at double the speed of others.

I am sorry that your situation hasn't been much better xx