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Advice regarding university

Myrmeleon

Hello NAS forum (I hope I'm posting this in the right section!)

I would like to ask for some advice regarding my possible options with my university studies. To start, I have a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome and also mental health issues in the form of anxiety (OCD in particular) and psychological trauma. I study a part-time distance learning course with a university online. I had to complete a written assignment recently, which I did not do very well on at all. In the weeks leading to my submission of said assignment, a sequence of events occurred in my personal life that triggered a lot of anxiety and traumatic flashbacks, which in turn affected my ability to work on the assignment in question.

I contacted my tutor of the module the assignment was for once I had submitted it, who had suggested I fill out a mitigating circumstances form as I had explained how my experiences leading up to my completion of the assignment had affected me and the work. Since then, my tutor has emailed me to say that he recommends discussing potential options with the support team at the university I study with. I'm currently waiting on a response.

I don't know what the options are at this time, but I feel very anxious about what I will be offered as potential alternatives, if anything at all. I worry so much about failure, with a lot of anxiety about having to work in something I would not get any kind of fulfilment in whatsoever (such as a retail job) as a result of my lack of qualifications. 

Does anyone have any advice about how I can deal with these kinds of thoughts and anxieties, and if there's anything I might be able to do going forward?

Thank you for reading. 

Parents

  • Have you applied for any DSA funding to pay for a mentor to keep in contact with you and motivate, memory jog and talk to you when it's all a bit too much?

    Anxiety is part of ASD - your fight-or-flight is permanently set on 11 so understanding that means you can develop strategies to mitigate or avoid stress triggers..   That should be your primary concern - all of your other symptoms spring from the inability to cope with anxiety.

    What subject are you studying? - there's often weird jobs that you might not think of immediately that you can monkey-branch to.

Reply

  • Have you applied for any DSA funding to pay for a mentor to keep in contact with you and motivate, memory jog and talk to you when it's all a bit too much?

    Anxiety is part of ASD - your fight-or-flight is permanently set on 11 so understanding that means you can develop strategies to mitigate or avoid stress triggers..   That should be your primary concern - all of your other symptoms spring from the inability to cope with anxiety.

    What subject are you studying? - there's often weird jobs that you might not think of immediately that you can monkey-branch to.

Children
  • in reply to Plastic

    I haven't applied for DSA, I kept meaning to but I never seemed to get any consistent responses from the university or SFE about whether having it would impact my disability benefits (I'm unemployed currently due to my mental health difficulties). Seeing if I could get a tutor or something put in place along those lines was something my therapist suggested to me earlier today, actually.

    With regards to the subject I'm studying, I am currently studying natural sciences, with an emphasis on biology. My hope is that someday I can work in something to do with entomology (the study of insects), cell biology, or generally something to do with animals. I'm worried about failing my university work altogether as I only really just got in with my limited qualifications (I only did the compulsory science GCSE and wasn't able to take biology as an A-Level. I wanted to go into the visual arts before I decided to pursue my other passion that is biology instead).