Struggling without a diagnosis

No worries what so ever. I don’t think I can do much to help, but if I can relate to your situation and highlight that you’re not alone in experiencing something along these lines, I will.

Does your university have an educational support service or do they have any services linked to supporting individuals with their course content? I imagine they have something that is geared to providing this sort of service, but I’m struggling to find the wording of what this service might be called? When I was at university, we had an advice service that acted almost as a directory and could point us in the right direction of who to talk to. They were very focused on helping ensure that students were able to engage with the course content in the way that they were entitled to and would be able to advise accordingly. Something like this might be a good place to start.

A diagnosis takes time and I would hope that an educational establishment such as a university would recognise this and have support systems in place. I’m sure they do, it’s just knowing where to look and knowing who to talk to. That’s where that student service or your tutor potentially comes in (to highlight or point this out to you).

With regards to your lecturers/ tutors, your knowledge of them would be better than mine. I was fortunate in having one person to go to, we were assigned to them in the first year, and I was just quite open with them on what I was struggling with (at the time this was unrelated to autism though). I arranged a meeting with them and had an in person discussion with them about my struggles and I was very glad that I did. They are educators and ultimately should want their students to succeed, my lecturer helped break things down and set up a bit of a plan for me on the back of our meeting. It required an open discussion (which was nerve wracking) but it was well worth it at the time. I only spoke to the one lecturer, and they sorted the rest. The details are a little foggy with the amount of time that has passed and due to my not so brilliant memory, so I’m sorry I can’t give to much detail or if it seems like I’m being a bit vague.

But to summarise, I’ve always been an advocate of asking for help when you need it. Someone at a university will be able to support you in some capacity, it is just a case of finding out who (I don’t use the word ‘just’ to trivialise the task, but rather to reassure you that it will be possible).

Again, apologies if this is not what you were looking for, but I hope in some way this has been useful. It would be worth checking in every so often to see if other suggestions are made in the upcoming days/weeks.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. It is very comforting to know others have had similar experiences. I have spoken to a few people at uni, but unfortunately, as understanding as they can be, they can not really do anything in regards to accommodations without the diagnosis (which seems really harsh to me). It is also  quite daunting to approach some lecturers/tutors... may I ask how you broached the subject?

thank you again :) 

Exactly. I'm coming to that conclusion; after over twenty years medicated.

Hello there.

Reaching out and asking a question is a huge step to take, so hats off for doing so and being so proactive. It may not seem like much, but it’s a brave thing to do. I have found this community to be very helpful, so hopefully you will too.

I might not be much help, but I can relate to a lot of what you have written here. The part where you mentioned imposter syndrome and and if isn’t down to being autistic then what is it/ what happens next is something that I can really relate to. In fact, in the end I mentioned it to the people diagnosing me due to the amount of anxiety it was causing me. They said to me that if ever that was the case with individuals, they weren’t just going to leave them in limbo or end things without recommended next steps. If they didn’t think I was autistic, they were going to offer tailored next steps etc. That did help ease some of my worries, as the wait times leading up to the diagnostic process was significant and I was worried about having to start it all again if the answer was not quite what I’d expected it to be. Perhaps speaking to the team when you reach that stage might help you too? Or even contacting them in advance to see if they have any resources available to ease some of your anxieties might help.

In the mean time, do you have access to student support services or a team that can advise you on the basis that you are awaiting a diagnosis? I don’t know if you could speak to a student union rep or someone in an advisory position to point you in the right direction of someone to talk to. I turned to a lecturer who was my tutor when I was facing difficulties at university and they were able to point me in the right direction. I’m sorry that this is a little vague, but it’s been a while since I’ve been at university and this isn’t an area of expertise for me. I’m just asking a few questions in the hope that it could be a starting point possibly? 

Hopefully others will be able to give some advice or ask questions to prompt reflection too- people are great at seeing things from lots of different view points here. Sometime the mods send links to relevant pages on the NAS website that could possibly help too.

All the best

edit: sorry realised my final sentence is a bit all over the place. I mean to say that i feel medication isnt working because NT anxiety isnt the issue at hand but idk if that makes sense