Surviving or thriving? My experience of the education system.

In this blog, Emily Wooden, shares her experience of navigating the education system as an Autistic girl, and the subsequent impact of reaching Autistic burnout.

I never used to hate school, in fact, I used to love it. My primary school was a small, nurturing environment, described as a little ‘bubble’. As a young, undiagnosed Autistic girl, I absolutely thrived there. It was only once I started secondary school that things changed. Five times bigger than my primary school and practically pulsing with noise and academic pressure, I spent as much time as I could trying to stay unseen by everyone around me, in the hopes that this would help me to survive. Every lunchtime I’d hole up in the school library, right in the corner, as it seemed to be the only place in the entire building that wasn’t painfully loud. I used to love learning when I was younger, but now spent every lesson counting the minutes, just trying to get through the day.  

I had migraines every day, was ill almost weekly it seemed, and my attendance was so poor that my parents were constantly getting calls and letters from the school. By the time I turned fourteen, I was in such a state of constant anxiety and distress that I could no longer bear to go into school. The masking that had become second nature was requiring every ounce of energy I had. Suddenly, it was like I had hit a wall, and I completely shut down. 

In January 2019 my parents woke me up in time for school, and I just refused to go. Point blank. It felt genuinely impossible. My body and brain were screaming at me, and had been for years, but now they demanded to be listened to. For the next few months, every morning was the same. I was done coping with all of the intense, overwhelming, unmanageable feelings that I’d been living with.  

I only remember feeling two things during this time of my life:

1. A blaring alarm, like you see in the movies, that swirls and flashes and turns the entire room red. I was having a constant emergency that no one else could see.  

2. Complete and utter numbness. The entire world had turned grey and the only thing I felt able to do was sleep.  

While my friends were studying for their GCSEs, I was trapped in my bedroom, convinced that I was lazy, weak, a failure. I had no idea that what I was experiencing had a name. I was in severe autistic burnout – a real, physiological response to years of trying to fit into a world that wasn’t designed for me.  

“I was done coping with all of the intense, overwhelming, unmanageable feelings that I’d been living with.  ”

After over a year, my parents and therapist found an education option for me. A tiny school for secondary students who, for mental health reasons, could no longer attend mainstream school. This was the turning point for me. The building was set up to be a quiet, calm environment designed for students who had been overwhelmed by the chaos of traditional schooling, with supportive teachers who understood the difficulties we’d been through. For the first time in years, I regained my love of learning and managed to finally complete my GCSEs. That year taught me that the problem had never been me. The problem was, and continues to be, a system that expects everyone to learn in exactly the same way, in exactly the same environment. When I was given the support I needed, I didn’t just survive – I thrived.  

After this, I found an apprenticeship working in a children’s nursery. However, it took less than a week for me to buckle under the exhaustion of the environment and subsequently quit my position. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to work a classic 9-to-5 job, and this small taster of working life was one of the first times I realised just how different my life may be because I’m autistic.  

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be normal, to be at the same level as my peers without standing out. Dropping out of mainstream school at fourteen scuppered those plans but also helped me to realise that my path didn’t need to look the same as everyone else’s. Upon researching my possibilities after leaving the apprenticeship, I decided to study for an Access to Higher Education Diploma through an online education portal (Distance Learning Centre). One year later, I was accepting my place at a nearby university and on track to start the term at the same time as peers in my year group, despite having fallen a year behind.  

“The problem was, and continues to be, a system that expects everyone to learn in exactly the same way, in exactly the same environment.”

But the scars from my school years still run deep. Even now, at twenty, having just finished my degree, I still have moments when I feel like that fourteen-year-old girl again, struggling to make it through the day, bed-bound with anxiety and lack of energy.  

Education systems aren’t set up to cater for the Autistic girls masking their way through school, constantly on the verge of burnout, heading for an inevitable breakdown. I felt so unsupported and alone at school and, after dropping out, thought I had no other options. The narrative around education is so rigid that when the set path becomes impossible, you feel like you’ve failed. But there are options. There are alternative ways to learn that don’t require you to sacrifice your wellbeing for your education, which is something I wish I had known earlier.  

Students deserve to thrive in education, not just survive. Every Autistic girl deserves to have her needs recognised before she reaches breaking point. My journey through education has been far from conventional and I imagine the rest of my life will follow the same trend. I’m learning to make peace with the life I will live, the life that will look different to how I ever imagined.