Hi everyone,
I'm not only new here, but I'm also pretty new to realising that I am actually autistic. I came to realisation over the Christmas break largely because of the absolutely debilitating misophonia i was experiencing in lectures. It got so unmanageable I had multiple panic attacks in lectures and was then unable to attend any lectures for the last month of the term. It was then through seeking help from the available support at university, which has been incredibly helpful I must say, that I was diagnosed dyslexic with a 'spiky profile' which was a genuine shock to me as I never felt I was. Upon exploring this alongside other sensory issues that were becoming more and more intense the worse things got, a neurodivergence diagnosis seemed more and more fitting.
I started to try and learn more about autism and the more I started to look at my life and history with mental health, what I always struggled with, what seemed to affect me differently to other people around me, and most importantly learning more about masking, what it is and the fact you can do it without realising, it was like everything suddenly made the kind of sense I genuinely had come to believe was out of reach for me, even after 12 months of private talking therapy. Now even though I haven't had the chance for an official diagnosis yet, I keep realising and learning and noticing new things that only re-enforce this and i've come to accept with some certainty that I'm autistic.
It's a positive realisation in that way, finding an actual answer to the question of 'why is everything *so* much harder for me than it seems for other people?' and 'why can't I seem to just... function and live a normal life like everyone around me?'...
However, i'm currently in my first year of a Chemistry degree, something I'm deeply invested in and I have a huge amount of my self worth and potential future wrapped up in, and the experience of unmasking has recently started to become more difficult and is having a markedly negative affect on my ability to study, focus and even engage with some of the required assessments and I feel like I'm completely drowning and it's going to stop me from being able to do this.
I've recently been awarded and assessed for DSA and should soon get some additional support including equipment to better record and navigate lectures that avoid misophonia triggers, some targeted software to help with reading, comprehension and time management as well as some one to one tutoring on study skills.
I suppose I'm feeling like the intensity and unbalanced nature of my experience of unmasking is going to completely derail my last chance to complete a degree and change my life in the way I needed it to, that I was aiming for before discovering I'm autistic, so I'd really benefit from any specific or general advice about navigating a challenging degree while processing such a huge change in my understanding of myself...
Not a lot to ask I know...
Thanks for having me here and hope you're all doing ok
