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Son really struggling at university - social anxiety

Toadstool

Hi,

I'm new to this forum - I hope its ok to post. My son has been referred for an autism assessment by the GP but he hasn't actually been diagnosed. He went away to uni last weekend, staying in halls - he knew he was going to find it difficult but he really wanted to try. He's been to all his course induction activities and said he's looking forward to starting the course properly next week.

But it is the living arrangements he's struggling with. He's self catering, sharing a kitchen with four others. He's not dared leave his room to speak to them, he's been going into the kitchen at 6am to make himself some food when nobody is around, and then staying in his room when he's not at course induction activities. His flatmates have put notes under his door asking if he's ok and if he wants to join the whatsapp chat. It took him hours to work up the courage to actually read the notes, and he doesn't want to join the group chat. I've suggested he tries writing a note for his flatmates, which he might try but he's not sure. He's coming home this weekend (already planned) so he'll have a break then. But we're not sure whether the best thing would be to try to see if he can move into a self-contained studio flat, so he can have his own kitchen and not have to see anyone, or whether this won't help him and isolate him further. We could reach out to the university residential experience people but I know he won't accept help, and wouldn't feel able to go and approach them for a meeting or anything.

He hasn't spoken to anyone on his course yet, but he's fine with that and we know it'll just take time and he may or may not make a friend or two.

Parents

  • Thank you everyone, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. And I'm sorry to hear the difficulties many of you have also faced. He doesn't have DSA as I didn't know about it until recently, and also didn't know that we could possibly apply for it even without having the autism diagnosis yet. We will look into doing that. His uni have put things in place with just evidence of referral but it is things for assessments like extra time in exams and longer deadlines, but those are things he doesn't actually need. They've asked him to go in and talk to the disability support unit about what they can put in place to support him with anxiety (I think this might be things like not having to do large group presentations maybe) but because of his anxiety he can't make himself go in to see them!

    I think it would be helpful for him to be able to acknowledge that he is likely autistic and tell people, as then they would understand and he might get more support. But he's struggling to acknowledge it himself - I think because its never been something that was mentioned to us/him through his whole childhood, even though he's clearly struggled, so it feels like it will take him a while to get his head around it.

Reply

  • Thank you everyone, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. And I'm sorry to hear the difficulties many of you have also faced. He doesn't have DSA as I didn't know about it until recently, and also didn't know that we could possibly apply for it even without having the autism diagnosis yet. We will look into doing that. His uni have put things in place with just evidence of referral but it is things for assessments like extra time in exams and longer deadlines, but those are things he doesn't actually need. They've asked him to go in and talk to the disability support unit about what they can put in place to support him with anxiety (I think this might be things like not having to do large group presentations maybe) but because of his anxiety he can't make himself go in to see them!

    I think it would be helpful for him to be able to acknowledge that he is likely autistic and tell people, as then they would understand and he might get more support. But he's struggling to acknowledge it himself - I think because its never been something that was mentioned to us/him through his whole childhood, even though he's clearly struggled, so it feels like it will take him a while to get his head around it.

Children
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