Thursday 04-04-2019 - 15:04

My name’s Jake — I’m a Tourism Management student at MMU and during my second year, I found out that I could have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). I’m waiting for my official diagnosis and I’m on a very long waiting list of around three years. 

A few months before I came to University I had a bad mental health episode. A friend was concerned about me, and she made the connections between a few things in me – like my special interests and my anxieties around that time – and her family member with Asperger’s syndrome. Since then, I’ve been on a journey of exploring myself and how I work. I’ve been trying to understand myself through hobbies, my interests and connecting with friends who will help me find myself — I’ve come a long way but I’m still getting there.

I struggle to connect with people on a daily basis, especially at University as I struggle to understand sense of humour and jokes. I struggle with large social groups and prefer a social group with one, two or three people. 

Socialising at University can be hard for people with ASD. A big example is Freshers Week — of course, everyone books tickets to go to nightclubs. But as someone with ASD, I struggle to go to nightclubs as I have overactive senses and the noise can be overwhelming. I’d rather go somewhere less loud, but a lot of students tend not to understand that and plough on 
regardless to 42s or somewhere. I am very sensitive to smells as well as sound, so if I’m somewhere with positive smells, it can calm my anxiety down, rather than a bad smell which can make it worse. 

With my academic life, I try to adapt and be as ‘normal’ as possible. If the library’s loud, I just don’t go there, or if my flat’s loud, I go somewhere else. I like to focus on work rather than socialising — being focused calms my anxiety down and I can focus on coursework while being inside a group.

I think University has two aspects of life — your academic life, where you work, study and you get support with that, but I think a larger part is the social side where you move away from home and live in student housing in Fallowfield. I think this is a bigger part of University life than just the academic. Autism impacts the academic side as well as the social side and I don’t think it’s being supported enough.

If there’s more understanding and support of ASD, it could help me connect with more people. Invisible disabilities, like mental health issues such as anxiety or depression, have become more of a popular topic and there’s more understanding of them but I think Autism has been pushed to the side-lines a bit. 

Universities should be a supportive and inclusive environment for all students with disabilities, not just the visible ones. They should support students through the whole process, even when they’re waiting for an official diagnosis. Every student matters and should all be treated equally.