Hey there, MisWired here. And today, I want to talk about university. I know, most of us would rather forget about it, but just hear me out for a minute. As many of you know, I’m a college dropout. After five years of chasing a degree that I probably wouldn’t use ever in my life, I decided that I just wasn’t good enough to keep up with what was expected of me. And even as I think about going back, there are things I often think about that I’ve quickly come to realize that as a neurodiverse, a lot of what is expected from me just doesn’t work.
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Before I go any further, I feel like I should go into details about my university life. I joined university at 18 to study International Business Administration (I.B.A.) which I studied for one year. But during that one year, I didn’t feel like I was cut out for that kind of life. So, after a year, I ended up switching from I.B.A. to Information and Systems Technology (I.S.T.) which I ended up doing for four years. But one thing was sure, no matter how brilliant I was, no matter how dedicated I was, I was never going to live up to expectations without extensive support. And that’s the weird thing, despite the fact that I didn’t feel ready to join university when I did, I never felt like I got full support, especially from the university.
Which is a weird thing. You would think that if you have an official diagnosis and disclose it to the university, both of which I did, that they would try to make sure that I was at least getting some sort of support? Yeah, no. As I quickly learned, support for neurodiversity and hidden disabilities is only shown as long as they need to appear as if they are supporting us. I was hospitalized twice, got readmitted once, and the agreement that we made with the university as part of my readmittance from the side of the university were never upheld. While I was still in university, I kept telling myself that because my grades were so bad, that the university had no incentive to uphold the agreement, and to a certain extent you would be right. But it’s about the matter of principle.
The fact that it’s not just neurodiversity that’s affected by this mentality, but disability in general that makes it super painful. No matter how you look at it, our worth is often determined by how well we perform in school. And that often translates into the work force. So we’re often forced into fields that we don’t enjoy, pushed into university whether we want to join or not, expectations placed on us that we often feel that we can’t achieve. And what happens when we fall apart? The blame is entirely placed on us. Decisions are often made for us, more often than not without involving us, and then we’re expected to carry them out without complaining. I don’t know why, but the fact that people often believe that we don’t know what’s best for us, don’t think that our concerns are valid are often the ones who believe that we aren’t doing our absolute best.
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At the end of the day, people need to understand that even if they think we're suitable for something, that doesn't always mean we are. There are a lot of factors that determine our suitability, and the most important one for us is always our interest. No matter how much money it may earn us, or how much prestige it gets us, if we don't like it, we most likely won't thrive in it. And because of how we are treated from a young age, interest is always the hardest thing to gauge. So try to listen to your kids. If they say they don't feel like they're ready, or that they don't like something, there's more to it than just rebellion. More often than not, they know there is an issue, but don't know how to verbalize it. Patience is key, and will reward not just you, but your child in the long run.
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