Do you have any 'reasonable adjustments'?

[EmotionalPumpkin]

I'm in the types of reasonable adjustments that can exist for people with social anxiety, e.g. at work, at school or at university.

Does anyone have any, formal or informal, in place, and if so how do you feel about them?

[biscuits]

reasonable adjustments are excellent for making the world of work and education more accessible.

When I went to uni I went into complete panic. I tried to go again the next day and panicked and was sick everywhere! So I rang the admissions man and explained what happened to me, he was really nice. I said I planned to get counselling to help me prepare to try again the following year and he said he would defer my place. When I went there at the end of my degree to collect my dissertation mark, he was on the desk and he remembered who I was, which was really embarrassing.

I was allowed to choose accommodation that was a smaller building too (a massive Victorian house) with mature students, so I didn't have the pressure of fresher's week. But I actually moved into proper halls two weeks later after meeting this guy in a bar. He told me that someone was moving out of his halls and I should ask to move in, so I did!

[biscuits]

Are there any particular adjustments that you would like to have?

[EmotionalPumpkin]

Originally Posted by biscuits

I was allowed to choose accommodation that was a smaller building too (a massive Victorian house) with mature students, so I didn't have the pressure of fresher's week. But I actually moved into proper halls two weeks later after meeting this guy in a bar. He told me that someone was moving out of his halls and I should ask to move in, so I did!

That's really cool! I work at a university and am involved in making adjustments for students, so I'm glad to hear that you were offered something that helped with the transition, even if you didn't need it long term. What did you study?

I totally avoided the whole freshers thing at university by staying at home to study. But later on I did postgrad and moved into a student house so was able to have that more studenty experience in a way that worked better for me.

I had a bit of a setback over the last few months and have found public speaking really difficult again. My manager has been really supportive though and sees it as optional part of my role, so that has helped a lot.

It's something that I've had difficulty with before and I've always felt bad about avoiding such things. The idea of having a 'reasonable adjustment' put in place hasn't felt too good to me previously, but I'm starting to view it more positively, as a tool to become more confident with speaking in groups and a reflection of the fact that I can do all the other parts of my job just fine!

[biscuits]

Aw your jobs sounds really rewarding

That sounds perfect really. That at the moment you can opt out of public speaking, but that when you feel more confident around people you might do a little bit of that aspect of the job.

It's a really positive thing having the option to only do the parts of the job that you find challenging when you feel ready to. I think it's great that you could try it a little bit if you felt able to. That's really supportive because after a while you might like to give it a go, but there is never the pressure to have to do it. Or there might be a time when you feel really knowledgeable and confident to speak about a specific topic. Whereas if you had to do it before feeling ready to then it would have a negative impact on your job satisfaction and MH.

I studied psychology. How about you?

[EmotionalPumpkin]

Sorry Biscuits, I am not good at keeping on top of forums clearly

Psychology is a good thing to study! A nice mix of science and people. I studied English, film and then sociology.

[biscuits]

Aww no worries!

That's a good selection! You could study film at the uni I went to and they used to put films on each week in the lecture theatre to watch. It was like going to the cinema for free

[EmotionalPumpkin]

Ah that's awesome! Yes we had screenings each week, usually just about 5 of us for the whole lecture theatre! Only downside was that DVDs don't look so good when they're projected on a big screen.