Eva Talks Autism
Eva Sheils
This is the first entry in a column about my experience as an autistic at Queen’s University Belfast. To start with some contextualisation may be helpful. I am an MA Film Studies student, having graduated with a BSc Psychology from Queen’s in 2021. I was diagnosed as autistic after graduating from my undergraduate degree, so enrolling at university and starting class again has been a completely distinct experience from my undergraduate degree. This column may have more explanations of definitions of certain terms, which won’t always be the case.
Knowing the general structure of the university and the layout of the campus, having lived here before during my undergraduate degree, was one of the main reasons that I chose Queen’s for my master's course. My brain likes things that I can predict, and enrolling in Queen’s again was much less daunting compared to a new university and possibly moving to a city I had never lived in before.
Having access to the support team at Queen’s has been revolutionary for managing the demands of my course and having programmes such as MindView and CaptionEd. on my laptop to help with my note-taking. The actual process of meeting with an assessor and a specialised tutor was remarkably easy. My assessor made me feel so at ease and it was the first time, in a more serious professional context, that I felt as though I did not have to overexert myself having to explain what autism is. They were already deeply knowledgeable and provided so much understanding, which made me feel more comfortable expressing my specific needs. My tutor has also been wonderful and having regular meetings with them has been useful to keep up-to-date with all my tasks. I would certainly recommend the disability services at the University. Even if you think you might be neurodivergent, the disability services can offer assistance for your studies or if you are seeking a diagnostic assessment.
So far, my experience as an autistic student at Queen’s this year has been much more positive than I was expecting, yet still challenging. One thing that I certainly find frustrating is the language that surrounds autism, especially when getting assessed for support. I am very aware that it is systemic across multiple types of assessments, but it can be challenging and hurtful reading back on assessment reports and your behaviour being described as deficits. It certainly is not exclusive to university disability assessments, but it can be difficult to reconcile that the language surrounding autism is how autistic communication and behaviour is ‘wrong.’
I can appreciate that socialising with my classmates has gone pretty well, much better than I had been expecting. I believe this is because films are a ‘special interest’ for me. A special interest is essentially a highly focused level of interest in a particular topic. It can be confused with a hyper fixation, but a special interest will be persistent for many years so lasts a lot longer than a hyper fixation. Film being my special interest is also one of the reasons I decided to study it. Therefore, I always enjoy talking about it and it inevitably comes up in conversation with other film students.
However, socialising is quite a taxing activity for me, even when I enjoy it. It essentially requires a significant amount of cognitive load in order to socialise especially within a group. This is because of a concept many other autistic people will be familiar with; masking. To provide a brief description, masking is the process of social survival, where autistics may learn to mimic neurotypical social behaviour in order to not be seen as weird. There are many reasons for this strategy such as to feel safe, avoid being ostracised, to make friends and belong. Although, I do want to mention that the concept of masking is not inherently autistic, it can be present in other situations such as social anxiety or other neurodivergences. A non-exhaustive list of masking includes:
forcing or faking eye contact during conversations
imitating smiles and other facial expressions
mimicking gestures
hiding or minimising personal interests
developing a repertoire of rehearsed responses to questions
scripting conversations
pushing through intense sensory discomfort including loud noises
disguising stimming behaviours (hiding a jiggling foot or trading a preferred movement for one that’s less obvious)
Being back in the classroom has made me realise how extensive my masking behaviours are. It is a constant feedback loop in my head regarding how ‘well’ I am performing at any given social exchange. Essentially, as soon as I am around people other than my family, I am masking at least on some level. However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy social interactions or that it’s less authentic, but it is always mentally taxing. This means that I spend a lot of my time replenishing my energy and doing things such as engaging in special interests, which is challenging when trying to balance all my studies.
This column is a snapshot of my experience at university so far. Overall, it has been much more positive and less overwhelming than I was expecting. This is no doubt due to additional support that I now have access to here at Queen’s. I want to just iterate that these experiences are my own and that it is not the same for every autistic person. There is a caveat in our community that autism is different for everyone, and my experience should not be generalised to everyone who is autistic. The best way to understand autism is to ask multiple autistic people about their experiences, not just one.
Cover photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Eva Sheils is a MA Film Studies Student, as well as a Health and Lifestyle Reporter and Monthly Columnist for The Scoop.