Inspired from “On being a University Student with Asperger Syndrome” – Stephanie Nixon

When I returned for my third year at the new Waterside Campus in October 2018, my world fell apart. It was like the sky was falling: confused at the layout, annoyed at the classroom style, mobile desks in my poetry classes (on BA Creative Writing). I thought the university had gone mad. What were they thinking? I was now used to Avenue Campus. It was nice. It was familiar. It was comfortable. And honestly, I never thought I’d ever go to university, since I had extra lessons every week only to just maybe have a chance at keeping up with everyone else. I struggled to achieve academically at both GCSE and A-Level. What they’d now label Special Educational Needs (or SEN). Another box. And, at nine years old I was diagnosed with the development disorder known as Dyspraxia.

So, now fifteen years diagnosed. A disorder that impacts the way brain orders movement and thought. It really is a wonder how I got to grips with cricket, both with bat and ball. Having five and half ounces thrown at me at school pushed me into the deep end. It showed me how to hide it a bit more. At the crease, my sense of direction is very good. In villages, it’s good. In the home counties, my sense of direction is good. It’s familiar. It’s comfortable. But drop me in London or New York. Ha! I navigate those places with GPS and headphones, someone speaking to me, guiding me. Really like Iron Man. Though, Google Maps is no match for J. A. R. V. I. S or F. R. I. D. A Y.

I have to find my way through verbal instructions. And over the years, like with any condition, hidden or not, you develop coping mechanisms. And I lived set on not playing the victim. No special treatment for Tré (for it not infringe on my life). I tried to live like everyone else. Why would I do that when I wasn’t like everyone else? That’s a question, isn’t it? Why?

I would avoid certain types of places. Things that were very twisty and turny were a no-go. Fairs. Oh, and UCL destroyed my spirit when I visited. Basically, a real world version of Hogwarts. No talking pictures, but the stairs like to change!

Northampton College’s Booth Lane corridors challenged me between the years of 2012 and 2016, where I went from BTEC Level 2 qualifications through A-Levels and into the first year of a HND before coming to university. Where I was befuddled by the hexagonal building. Or was it octagonal? I forget. One of those types of shape where my perceptions of depth were challenged five days a week for four years.

Anyone that’s seen me work, knows that I love a good folder. I love highlighters. Clipboards, post-it notes. I’m a stationary freak! At work, I print more than most. I like to lay things out on a desk, or seven. Or have it on a pinboard. I spread my belongings out and apologise later. I love White boards. I don’t like E-Books. That’s a struggle. Give me that new book smell.

I found many of the discussions around Dyspraxia to be about co-ordination but it’s also includes perception and memory. As a youth, tasks would take me longer to do simply because of the thought processes I would take to go through and then translating those thoughts to action.

Dyspraxia, often confused with clumsiness, is more than just having two left feet. I struggled to learn – write, read, learn, to play sports. But I got it eventually. And even to walk in a straight line. From scanning your card on the barriers to pressing buttons on the lifts to ascending the stairs and paying for stuff at the checkout, Dyspraxia is real and often goes undiagnosed. And the links between attainment and academic performance; is it worth looking into things like this in regards to attainment in HE – be it, race, class, sexuality or otherwise?

I knew I was academically able, but in the education system (Level 1 – 4 + FE) as it stood, I was not achieving academically on paper. Graduating with a 2.1 in Creative Writing in July 2019, it showed me that the problem wasn’t me (as I once thought), but the sector, in how it deals with and treats individuals with SEN and other issues that can act as barriers to study.

I didn’t choose to talk about my Dyspraxia on entry to university because I wanted people to see me as a person, not a dyspraxic person (for some tick box exercise). At school, my Dyspraxia was humiliating. Poor co-ordination 70% of the time. Spilling drinks. Missing my mouth at dinner. Walking into stuff. Occasionally ridiculed for it by teachers, who meant it in jest but didn’t have a clue.

So, anything that makes order of chaos is a gift. Lists. Boards, like the ones you see in crime dramas with all the bits of a crime scene – photographs, bulletpoints etc. Anything that brings clarity is a godsend. To learn, I had to teach myself how other people think. That’s why doing A-Level Communication and Culture helped a lot. I had to analyse people. Why do people think that way in certain situations? The series Lie to Me was helpful too, teaching me how to come to conclusions, finding method in madness.

It took me six months to accept Waterside, and another six months to get used to it. The almost Milton Keynes-like repetition, John Carpenter’s They Live in the view of John Franklin and Thomas Beckett. George Orwell laughing violently at the smell of rotten cabbage and hegemony.

But I have my lists. Boards. Cutting out the noise. Stripping through the bullshit; an alternative view of society through the lens of someone who sees the world different.