Any students? How do you cope with transition from school to uni? From uni into employment?
- Thread starter Margot
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ProfessorWorm
Active member
I’m in the middle of it right now. It sucks, but the best thing to do is hunt down the Disability office as soon as you get acceptance and put in your paperwork for accommodations. If you get a say, ask for flatmates that will work with your sensory needs, i.e ask for people who want quiet if you are sensitive to noise. If your uni allows it I would learn to cook if you haven’t already a few simple meals that are sensory friendly for the days the dining hall isn’t serving something you can eat. And don’t feel pressured to disclose or not disclose to anyone who you aren’t legally required to to access accommodations.
I'm post-doctoral on the edge of the Warburg Institute, researching eucharistic alchymia. One problem you may find is you far outrun your tutors. Keep your academic mentor informed, and ask him for the full course prospectus, and focus on areas you have experience in.
The art of employment is to rephrase the diagnoses from negatives to positives. Employment offices use computer filters to junk various buzzwords, so it's really up to you to present the real you. In my case, I've trashed my mild high-functioning Aspergers diagnosis, as the DSM-5 statement is contradictory to my top IQ results. I'm better off commenting that it's likely you'll have to ask for further explication if I over-condense my reports. Did you notce what I did there? Planted a hook to get them to look further.
As far as social life's concerned, it's entirely up to you what you do. I used experience in school stage production to get mixed up in organising provision for the community, a giver rather than a taker, using my creative side. For that matter, there's no need to limit yourself to that community, the meetup events listing caters for all.
The art of employment is to rephrase the diagnoses from negatives to positives. Employment offices use computer filters to junk various buzzwords, so it's really up to you to present the real you. In my case, I've trashed my mild high-functioning Aspergers diagnosis, as the DSM-5 statement is contradictory to my top IQ results. I'm better off commenting that it's likely you'll have to ask for further explication if I over-condense my reports. Did you notce what I did there? Planted a hook to get them to look further.
As far as social life's concerned, it's entirely up to you what you do. I used experience in school stage production to get mixed up in organising provision for the community, a giver rather than a taker, using my creative side. For that matter, there's no need to limit yourself to that community, the meetup events listing caters for all.
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Athena88
New member
I am a mature undergraduate psychology student. Having previously attempted university in 2011 and was undiagnosed with ASD & ADHD, I found it difficult to understand why I was struggling to recall information in anatomy practical exams when I was aware that my mind made fast connections and retained and identified information easily until I was being observed and I fell apart! I was not diagnosed with ADHD until three years after, and it was only a few years ago that I was diagnosed with ASD (Asperger’s: according to earlier versions of the DSM/ICD diagnostic guidelines).
Nonetheless, since that negative academic experience and with the support of my current university professors, disability faculty and SFE DSA-funded mentor, I completed my level 4 first year. My Access to Social Sciences fully supported me at college before university. Still, I informed the college of my needs with a GP letter whenever I felt burnout or preferred to join lectures or work from home. That has been the case with my current university. I will not name universities that I am aware of that I am aware fail to support neurodivergent undergraduates adequately. However, following recent studies regarding neurodivergent student experiences, some universities may be considered far more neurodiversity inclusive, aware and supportive regarding a student's academic requirements and ongoing support.
Finally, I strongly advise contacting the disability team at any university (ahead of starting the first semester) and aim to get a learning support plan in place along with a thorough DSA assessment that may potentially provide students with grant-funded one-to-one academic mentor support and any assistive technology software like Glean (IOS) voice to note taking software (Dragon for Windows) and ClaroRead to name a few that are available.
Nonetheless, since that negative academic experience and with the support of my current university professors, disability faculty and SFE DSA-funded mentor, I completed my level 4 first year. My Access to Social Sciences fully supported me at college before university. Still, I informed the college of my needs with a GP letter whenever I felt burnout or preferred to join lectures or work from home. That has been the case with my current university. I will not name universities that I am aware of that I am aware fail to support neurodivergent undergraduates adequately. However, following recent studies regarding neurodivergent student experiences, some universities may be considered far more neurodiversity inclusive, aware and supportive regarding a student's academic requirements and ongoing support.
Finally, I strongly advise contacting the disability team at any university (ahead of starting the first semester) and aim to get a learning support plan in place along with a thorough DSA assessment that may potentially provide students with grant-funded one-to-one academic mentor support and any assistive technology software like Glean (IOS) voice to note taking software (Dragon for Windows) and ClaroRead to name a few that are available.
Are you open to some thoughts from another psych student? Birkbeck, Weekend University. I'm very critical of DSM-5, because it's lazy thinking - how can a top IQ be intellectually challenged? The whole thing starts in Dabrowsky's Overexcitability thesis, in the 70s, which is a masterpiece of narcissism, abusing kids who lack the confidence to fight back. Something else is going on.
Athena88
New member
I am always open to the perspectives and opinions of others.
I consider both the DSM-5 and ICD-10/11 outdated, given that the diagnostic criterion for ASD and ADHD is based solely on male adolescent outdated research and fails to account for individual differences (regardless of sex/gender) and is too condition-specific.
Furthermore, both diagnostic manuals fail to account for masking/camouflaging as a phenomenon often associated with girls/women. Both the DSM and ICD should be used solely as a guideline. Yet, many clinicians fail to critically consider other factors that may not be obvious and potentially misdiagnose or dismiss individuals, which may cause more harm than good long term. For example, variables such as self-medicating with stimulants for ADHD require further exploration rather than overlooking.
Finally, in what context are you referring to your statement regarding how can a top IQ be challenged? What do you consider to be a high IQ? What intelligence tests and parameters do you consider credible to evaluate an individual's IQ?
First, please forgive apparent boastfulness. That's not the "real me", part of my inherent personal value system. The real me prizes humility, which placed me in a position to make the kind of difference I might have dreamed of as an adolescent setting life goals. One morning about this time of year in 2012, I woke the the radio news announcing the team had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I muttered, "That's not why we did it", rolled over and went back to sleep. Over the next few days, I went in search of what they were on about, in a world of abuse, because the subjective beneficiary, the EU, hadn't been in existence for the time credited, "since WW2". Even in the most generous definition, it dates from the ECSC, 1954. However, looking at the work done, I saw what they meant, as I'd led out on the lead claim, reintegrating Eastern Europe. The way it works is that the prize is given to living people, or extant organisations. The EU has a Common Foreign and Security Policy Service, which it inherited from us, in the Western European Union, which did date back to 1944. I'd actually put the key under the door myself the previous year, and going through the Nobel Prize Committee's Press Release, started ticking boxes. I think I initiated about 40% of the work which won the prize.
Anyway, I was being treated by a Harley Street dentist at the time, and they gossip. Next thing I knew, a couple of top shrinks wanted a look, and their report painted a very different picture from the "normal with some extras" idea I had. IQ 153-4 aged 60, implying mid-160s at peak, Mild high-functioning Aspergers. Hyperperceptive (that's the "some extras" bit, my weird had done its thing during the testing, fielding a world-changing diplomatic approach in full view of the medics) - you can see why they were interested. So I asked for elucidation, academic papers, to which I had the reply "erm..." - and one of the shrinks was a UCL Professor! So I sat down and started looking, came up with the Markrams' Intense World Syndrome, which had gone nowhere, but raised the probability I'm "gifted". The testing had included an MRI, which was like a christmas tree, and a 24-hour EEG, which showed only vestigial Beta-phase sleep, and a brain activity level running between 30% (at rest) and near 100%. Further consideration tool me back to age 8y6m, when my prep school had got me mixed up in the extension of IQ testing to kids, courtesy of the Tavistock Clinic. It started with the same huge General Knowledge test for all, 7-14 years old. My year dropped out fairly soon, I kept going, and was only starting to struggle when time ran out. I now know it was the initial cohort profiling, and the letter of acceptance so pleased the Headmaster he read it out to the entire school in assemvly - including the fatal words "and particular congratulations go to {Rahere's real name}, who has the GK of a 14 year old. Investigating the "mid-160s" showed this was how they assessed IQ before Binet - 14/8.5 = 165%. No wonder I was a marked boy - the main cohort test was followed by one for the outliers, and finally they hauled me up to Belsize Park for one done under their own test conditions, which saw me hand the paper back, wait while it was scored, then the entire place exploded as they came to see the raree. The head honcho came down, congratulating me - what for, I never learned. My only take-away was that I could never test again (it's in the maths, the denominator is the product of the difference between the subject's score and each of the reference baseline's - so Me - Me = 0, wiping out the rest, and as you can't divide by zero, the subject can't test). Told by my father I'm normal, I got on with life.
However, I soon showed otherwise. In fact, I'd already opened my file with MI5, handling a senior Russian oligarch. Using advice from Sir Geraint Evans' lady wife Brenda during voice break, I then restarted a choir Benjamin Britten had wrecked, which gave the world Flo Welch, Ed Simons - you get the drift. In my Industrial Training year, I was spotted by an SAS staff sergeant in a circle including Simon Rattle, Eddie George, Mervyn King, holding my own as a sound engineer. You'll have noticed I used "fatal words" earlier - in exactly five seconds, I became a social outcast. The bullying started, and over the next three years, m life was hell, until I finally broke in class - big brothers had got a gym teacher involved, what had been a delight in prep now became torture. It even made it into Lindsay Anderson's film If..., attracting the wrath of the President of the BBFC - it was wound back, heavily. So once it was discovered, I was under Protective Measures, under the eye of the School Sergeant, a former Guards RSM. I flourished in the military framework, and was a right pest in the University OTC, out-thinking the PSIs trying to do nasty things to us. At graduation, I was refused commissioning, "the toms will never understand you", but a firm job offer was tabled. It failed due diligence, I was as good as they thought, I got the Regular IRA to talk - heck, it was hard to stop them, they were spitting feathers at what had happened, which made the job offer a non]starter - so instead I started at the bottom in an FT-10[ company, rapidly being moved to the Group Corporate Finance team when I saved Peter Carrington's mojo by a spectacular initiative at the start of the Falklands War, putting me under the eye of an FCO vetter, which was useful when it became clear you can take the man out of Intelligence, but you can't take Intelligence out of the man.
I eventually found my way into WEU, after giving the heads-up on the imminent collapse of the Iron Curtain, and soon established myself as an economic warfare specialist. Whence the Nobel Prize, for demonstrating that Musashi's "empty hand" philosophy was simply demonstrating to the other guy he has no hope whatsover against your speed: ultimately wars are only won when one side's resources are exhausted, so why start when you already know you're beaten?
Right. That's me. Back to the theme.
It was clear they didn't have the faintest, so I joined the Birkbeck group, where I got some bearings on where things were, and started to realise that Elaine Aron's High Sensitivity thesis didn't begin to touch it. I'd been trained by my grandmother in Pelmanism, which was used by SOE (mum was one of them) to boost perception, except I took it further, into a form of ESP. That was then taken further by the CofE, faced with ostensible seer gifts, so they tested me. Knowing my read was good, I passed the impossible question upwards, and dived for cover, in meditation, getting as far down as possible. Something spoke through me, and stopped, so I started to unfold, checking physiological normality, all fine, impossible question answered precisely. And then the weird started, building slowly until I ended up handling the ultimate faith question of all. So, with the Prince of Peace's guidance, is it any wonder we won the Peace Prize? That study took me to the heart of the Eucharist, and of the Devotio Moderna, in the form of an academic case according to the norms of the day, the Quadrivium. Two of the four facets were aptly described by Yale's Professor of the History of Music, Craig Wright - and then he moved to head their new Genius School, producing The Hidden Habits of Genius. I was therefore able to present a case built on his own work, extending it massively, and showing competence it more than one field.
I'll therefore answer your question on "what is intelligence?" with the answers in his book. It's the ability to see what nobody else can, handling data sets and concepts others can't. My 70% of a normal brain builds data sets far larger than Joe Normal can cope with, the hangup with communications: the guy can barely cope with the Executive Summary, and certainly not with the argumentation behind it. Building it comes from many sources, so assembling it is obsessive to someone with the attention span of a flea finds it obsessive. And there's always the threat of overflow: thank heavens we have Pavlov's Transmarginal Inhibition
ready to impose an IAS fugue! That's a facet of meltdown: most of it's classic trauma, though.
From a more spiritual angle, I needed it, and EQ, to handle the numinous, my main guide. This is Newton and Nash, wandering the night for inspiration and confidence in sensing the ineffable perfect answer, the key to the pattern.
How do you detect it? Arthur C Clark's definition of the miraculous being simply advanced technology applies. The Intelligent perform miracles. When Joe Normal wanders away shaking his head, the subject's applying intelligence. Yes, an IQ of 140's exceptionally intelligent, but it's not genius, per Craig's thinking. We must be there first. And this is where neurodivergence comes in. We're never satisfied with mediocrity. We're different, and if that difference is in the search for excellence, then we're going to meet another of Craig's tests, we make a difference to the world. Billy Billingham, the SAS's RSM, puts it this way, they search for Tier One individuals, world-changers. I've completed Gandhi's unfinished business, by being placed in exactly the right place at the right time, but also by being the right person - mum followed her SOE service with two years working as PA to the Indian High Commissioner, Krishna Mennon, during the Independence Talks. The first plus was simply being of sufficient service for my interlocutor to want to know more, and persisting despite my reticence, until he discovered to his joy we was facing a diplomatic unicorn he'd been in hunt of for weeks. That I had the background was a real plus, but the real clincher was when they returned after evening prayers to find me at prayer too: they asked what I was praying, and I opened to show them my prayer was that their prayers be answered. I'd established common ground.
This brings me to EQ. During my search for an understanding of trauma (the classic studies being neurotypicals), I realised I'd accidentally healed the teacher-trauma, which was in the form of 40 minutes in unsupported crucifix pose on the wallbars. Top gymnasts hold it for ten seconds: I was approaching diaphragm failure. When I found myself aligned with the numinous, this of course came to mind, and in meditating on it, healed the trauma! It was, however, a single instance in that it was an adult causing the abuse. Behind it lay the horrors of big brothers and my own age group, which started to play up when I finally returned to the gym in old age. I started discussing it on linked-in, and that attracted the attention of Bruce Duncan Perry, particularly when I focused in on perception of the intangible, missing from the other forms of perception. The rationality of pure subjectivity threw the "scientific" test out immediately, and so I was able to hook Maslow's transpersonal, at the peak of his pyramid of aspiration, in as the foundation for transception: the main field runs from the empathic through Third Sector medicine into the numinous, but there are of course innumerable other instances, such as Wendy d'Andrea's curious observation of bilateral crossover interoception in couples where one carries childhood trauma - both can read the other's interoception! In my case, after the IQ observations, a wiccan aura-perceptive was categorical my aura's that of a Reiki master, so after due research showed it was possible (my CV aligns with Usui's circle's), I took it to a healing centre's open day to test, successfully. The core's acupuncture meridian power channels, the mastery comes from diplomatic empathy and numinous power-tapping.
This starts to add a qualitative vector to the debate. It's evident nonsense to talk of quantitative, although Reiki does talk of skill level. I've clearly opened the door to the weird and wonderful, without being too enthusiastic about anti-gravity gurus and the Randi crowd. That's the thing about world-changing, there's no reset button, no repeats, and in my case, I don't control it, mostly. I'm not a performing bear.
I think we all understand masking, but are you aware of transfer, where aspects of your mask become parts of your true identity? My question after the Reveal is, which do I prefer, which is the real me, the lived identity caused by my father telling me there's nothing exceptional about me - which I disproved, to his cost - or the shallow traits identified by the shrinks? My answer's obvious in that question, humility demands that I live normally, reclusive, because whatever the wider truth, neurotypicals can't cope with us.
Hi,
I've attempted uni before back in 2002 but left after a breakdown close to the end of my degree. I started a fine art degree back in 2023 aged 44 and was diagnosed with adhd about six months into the first year. I've just completed my second year so burnt out I've applied for a leave of absence. In both years I never managed to do a full week and my anxiety and shutdowns have gone through the roof.
General advice would be seeking out the wellbeing and disability support at uni for things like SWAI extensions and applying for DSA through student finance. The latter assess you (not in the traumatic way like a PIP assessment but in a 'how can we make life easier') and things like taxis to uni, specialist software and equipment, mentoring services etc.
Whilst all this is good, I do feel that uni staff in general need to be trained in neuro diversity. A lot of my stress came from mixed/vague messages and briefs etc that were hard to interpret, failure to provide materials prior to lectures as required by SWAI and huge seminars where you didn't know anyone and would be put in groups for tasks. That isn't an inclusive environment. My university doesn't offer 'quiet spaces' except in the library which is a bus ride away.
Work also needs to be done with DSA and their providers eg transport. In the first year I was allocated a taxi company that was so unreliable (not turning up or being an hour late daily) and another one that after I was hospitalised lied and said they weren't my provider. It took DSA over two weeks to respond when I queried this and by that point I'd missed the last of the semester. Then I had to learn to drive that route on a motorway which causes massive stress because that was preferable to the taxis (I now can't use taxis I get panic attacks) and as a result I lost my PIP. There is also little flexibility with taxis - you have to give four hours notice to change or cancel a time which is no good if going into meltdown or shutdown for example. If cancelling within a shorter timeframe than this you are liable for the full fare not the train fare equivalent which in my case was £40 each way. This is something that needs to be addressed.
I've attempted uni before back in 2002 but left after a breakdown close to the end of my degree. I started a fine art degree back in 2023 aged 44 and was diagnosed with adhd about six months into the first year. I've just completed my second year so burnt out I've applied for a leave of absence. In both years I never managed to do a full week and my anxiety and shutdowns have gone through the roof.
General advice would be seeking out the wellbeing and disability support at uni for things like SWAI extensions and applying for DSA through student finance. The latter assess you (not in the traumatic way like a PIP assessment but in a 'how can we make life easier') and things like taxis to uni, specialist software and equipment, mentoring services etc.
Whilst all this is good, I do feel that uni staff in general need to be trained in neuro diversity. A lot of my stress came from mixed/vague messages and briefs etc that were hard to interpret, failure to provide materials prior to lectures as required by SWAI and huge seminars where you didn't know anyone and would be put in groups for tasks. That isn't an inclusive environment. My university doesn't offer 'quiet spaces' except in the library which is a bus ride away.
Work also needs to be done with DSA and their providers eg transport. In the first year I was allocated a taxi company that was so unreliable (not turning up or being an hour late daily) and another one that after I was hospitalised lied and said they weren't my provider. It took DSA over two weeks to respond when I queried this and by that point I'd missed the last of the semester. Then I had to learn to drive that route on a motorway which causes massive stress because that was preferable to the taxis (I now can't use taxis I get panic attacks) and as a result I lost my PIP. There is also little flexibility with taxis - you have to give four hours notice to change or cancel a time which is no good if going into meltdown or shutdown for example. If cancelling within a shorter timeframe than this you are liable for the full fare not the train fare equivalent which in my case was £40 each way. This is something that needs to be addressed.
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