BACK TO CONTENTS 15 UNITE STUDENTS | MEETING THE NEEDS OF NEURODIVERGENT STUDENTS FOCUS GROUP FINDINGS A common experience for focus group participants was anxiety about making friends and taking longer than neurotypical students to develop friendships. I already accepted that I wasn’t going to find very many friends because I hadn’t been diagnosed with autism at the time... I already resigned myself to sitting in my room. Neurodivergence, and queerness in some cases, could feel like a barrier to making social connections. I like this prospect of meeting new people, but I always end up being too anxious about actually meeting them. I like this concept of something new, but I think while you are an adult you come with a very complicated package, with a whole lot of problems you have to explain to people who are not like you. Like: ‘Sorry, I’m queer; sorry, I’m neurodivergent’. There was widespread experience of ‘not fitting in’ and one of the participants had experienced bullying. Feeling ‘different’ could be an unpleasant surprise to those who had previously had an accepting friend group. Coming here was actually a bit of a shock, because I didn’t realise or expect how much different I am to other people. However, the opportunity to meet and spend time with other neurodivergent students mitigated these issues. It should be noted that the focus group was drawn from the membership of a student-led society – Bristol University Neurodivergent Society (BUNS) – so this analysis does not take into account the views of students who don’t wish to be part of such a group. Nonetheless, the impact of BUNS was overwhelmingly positive for those who took part. I think if it wasn’t for BUNS, I wouldn’t be at uni anymore. There’s many times where the only thing that’s kept me going at uni is BUNS... It means everything to me. BUNS is just fresh air coming at you. It provides a rare chance to be a part of the majority rather than isolated or in a minority: Having a good social network, not feeling isolated, not feeling alone, not struggling with mental wellbeing. Not feeling weird and strange and all of that. Neurotypical people just get that with everyone you meet and it wasn’t until I met with people in BUNS for the first time - I couldn’t understand, emotionally, what I was feeling. It was this just intense elation and happiness. I literally can’t even explain what it was like. It was this inner peace. I’ve never seen so many people like me before in the same room. And an opportunity to decompress from the challenges of fitting into a neurotypical world: It’s a once-a-week opportunity to just spend an hour not masking or anything. Just chilling out, being myself around people like me, which is rare. Overall, it provides neurodivergent students with something more akin to a mainstream student experience: Suddenly, it felt like I was in those pictures you see in the prospectus where people are just hanging out with their friends. That was the first time I’d really found what I assumed the university experience would have been. SOCIAL CONNECTIONS