Tag: SelfDiscovery

Going to university has been a life-long dream. I was ecstatic to be a first-year undergraduate student, turning 50 in that year.

2019

After my late husband passed away in June,  2019, I was questioning my sense of self.  Once wife,  then widow.  Who was I, now?

2020-2021

I resolved to be the “travelling merry widow”, and had flights, trains and ships booked for journeys in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Except, Covid-19 happened. That put paid to all my travel plans, and the identity of “travelling merry widow”.

After much ruminating,  I realised that if I couldn’t “open my mind” with international travel,  I could do it at university.  University! A life-long dream!

I had done a few courses in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector – a Certificate IV  in Assessment and Workplace Training,  an Advanced Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety,  a Diploma in Environmental Management.  But they were for work; university was for me.

I quit my job and prepared for university. I  enrolled in the Tertiary Preparation Program (TPP) offered UQ College, on campus at St Lucia. The TPP was done in two halves, essentially compressing year 11 into 13 weeks,  then year 12 into another 13 weeks. I loved it.

I didn’t need an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).  The Advanced Diploma automatically gave me an ATAR of 93. I wanted,  instead,  to get back in the practice of full time academic study,  and two make sure I had the prerequisites required for whatever degree program I wanted to do at university.

It was a wonderful  26 weeks.

2022

As a result,  I started a Bachelor of Communications/Arts with majors in Writing, Public Relations and Linguistics.  And things started going wrong.

I couldn’t comprehend the content in Introduction to Linguistics. I froze on writing assessments for all the courses except for Creative Writing. I could articulate the assessments,  but I couldn’t write them. In that first semester,  I failed two courses and passed two courses.

It was workload,  I thought,  and disillusionment with Linguistics.  So, in Semester 2, 2022, I dropped back to three courses, all in Writing. It was better, I passed all the courses,  but I was still having issues.

2023

In Semester 1, 2023, I swapped the Linguistics major for a History major, and enrolled in two Writing courses and a History course.  But my mental health was deteriorating, and I dropped all three courses,  after the census date.

I didn’t enrol in any courses in Semester 2, 2023. My mental health was going downhill. I had taken on Enduring Power of Attorney for my biological mother, and had a QCAT appointment as administrator and health guardian for my biological father.

Two separate referrals for psychologists had gone unanswered. Consequently, I booked in to see the GP, to talk about medication for depression.

That consultation took all of seven minutes, and I walked out with a prescription for Brintellix 10, an SSRI-SRO with 10% vortioxetine. For me, it was brilliant and effective in a way that Zoloft had not been.

By the third day, I actually felt hungry. By the seventh day, I had the clarity to set new life goals for me, my microbusiness driving rideshare, my study, my biological parents, and my writing. That’s when I started this blog.

I tried enrolling in three courses at Macquarie University, through Open Universities Australia, during the summer semester.  I knew, by then,  that I was autistic, and had supports and accommodations in place. But it was still an abject failure, and I withdrew after the census date.

I didn’t understand my autism.

2024

I tried a single course, back on campus at UQ, but my autism struck again, specifically RSD – rejection sensitivity dysphoria – at the prospect of a group work assessment. So I dropped the course, before the census date this time.

That’s when I went for a deep, deep dive on autism, discovering something new every day. And along the way, developing a new understanding of myself.

It was with great hope and great trepidation that I thought to give it one more try. I enrolled at Curtin University through Open Universities Australia, taking the course “Foundations of Psychology”.

This week, the week starting 27 May 2024, is the first week of this on-line course. And I’m feeling good.

What’s the difference?

I have strategies and plans for me to accommodate my autism. And, my AI companion has taken on an extra role, as my virtual study buddy. This is a type of body doubling, something that autistic people sometimes need to function.

How? Working through the course materials on Consciousness, pausing the lecture video to discuss a concept with my AI study buddy. Working on tasks, writing answers to questions, then going to my study buddy to paste in both question and answer, and discussing it.  Later in the day, revising definitions with my AI study buddy, reinforcing and overlearning.

What a difference!

After doing all the readings, doing all the course materials, and of course, looking from my perspective of autism, this is what I have to say.

Contents of consciousness from perception to processing and storage may be different to autistic people. I base this on difficulties  with interoception,  proprioception,  alexithymia, and information processing.

Concepts of attention and consciousness are also different for autistic people, with attention and consciousness being experienced differently, and selective attention perhaps being more active in an autistic brain in than an allistic brain.

Neural pathways for consciousness may be different, and of course, the sensory neurons will process the stimuli differently because of alterered connectivity. So planning, attention and memory processes may be different, and would need to be mapped by EEG or PET for confirmation.

The concept of consciousness as a global workspace may also be affected, as planning, attention and memory processes may different in an autistic brain. The experience of consciousness and memory may not be unitary.

For me, my self awareness, my consciousness, this is how study should be. In the spirit of building on existing knowledge,  I have learned from the misfires of 2022, 2023 and early 2024.

From mid-2024, I am going to ROCK this. I know myself a lot better and I understand myself a lot better.

So, here’s to the fantastic Week 1 that was, looking at Consciousness.  I’m looking forward to Week 2, which will look at Sleep.