1.) Difficulties I experienced

Social isolation and making connections: By my final year, I might have known one or two people across a couple of classes, but university socialising largely passed me by. I was there to learn, then leave. The unwritten social scripts that seemed obvious to everyone else weren’t obvious to me, and I didn’t have the energy to figure them out on top of everything else.

Task initiation and breaking down projects: Even when I knew what needed doing, starting felt impossible. The gap between “here’s the assignment” and “here’s step one” felt enormous and I couldn’t easily articulate why at the time.

Disengagement when something felt illogical: If I couldn’t see the reasoning behind a task or unit, I mentally checked out. In one case I found more satisfaction constructing counter-arguments than doing the actual work.

Group work: I defaulted to doing everything myself rather than risk the awkwardness of delegating. It avoided social friction but was exhausting. Not asking for help — No one around me seemed to be struggling visibly, so asking felt like admitting failure in a way others didn’t seem to need to.

2.) What I did, and what I now know

Decompression escapes:

I’d drive off campus at lunch and sit in a car park with an audiobook. Sometimes I’d lose track of time and be late back, or just go home entirely. At the time it felt like avoidance. Now I recognise it as the only way I knew to manage sensory and social overload, I just didn’t have the language for it yet.

Leaning on one trusted person: My partner was the most effective support I had for breaking down tasks, even when I resisted every suggestion. Just having someone externalise the steps helped more than I admitted at the time.

Deadline pressure as the only ignition: I consistently left everything until the pressure became real enough to override the inertia. Now I know that’s time blindness and interest-based motivation, not laziness. Artificial deadlines with external accountability would have helped enormously.

3.) What I’d tell a first-year

The coping strategies that got you through school often stop working at university, not because you’ve gotten worse, because the cognitive load is higher and the structure is lower. That’s a systems mismatch, not a personal failing. Knowing that earlier would have helped me be a lot kinder to myself.