Describe your personal experiences of being in a classroom

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How does it make you feel? Is it similar to my experience?

No matter how many times I walk into a classroom, I always get a huge spike of anxiety. I get this illogical paranoia that everyone is watching me. Either that or my brain is overstimulated by all the faces in the room..no way to tell

When I sit down, I rarely talk to people. Even if they are seated right next to me, I'm terribly anxious about making natural eye contact. I don't even want to turn my head someone elses way (klonopon helps with that). Also, I'm horrible at small talk. Sometimes I force myself to talk to someone, but it never feels natural. I always doubt myself and what I said, and never feel comfortable in my own skin. Also, even when I have emotions I tend to suppress them. I know this is a bad thing, but I've been used to it due to my unstable home environment.

Also, depending on the professor, sometimes it takes me like fifteen minutes to "settle down" before my anxiety goes away and I can actually begin paying attention. Also, as long as a professor stays on topic and knows their information well, I have no problems paying attention. But if I come across a teacher that goes a little too fast, doesn't know the material well, or seems.."off" then my mind always drifts off. It's like I have no control over it. The less tolerance I have for a professors teaching style, the more this anxiety and lack of ability to pay attention flares up.

Also, I feel like I process things slower than most people. A teacher will say something funny, everyone will laugh, and then when I hear everyone else laughing it's like it triggers me to think about what the teacher just said. Then I laugh too. It's like a delay that I never would have caught unless other students triggered it. Maybe that's just part of spacing out.

I think my experience is from a combination of biological and environmental factors (e.g. my dysfunctional family, poor enough to be on welfare, being raised by a mother diagnosed with schizophrenia, etc.)

I always liked the back row, for all the reasons you mention. I am considering going back to college in the future and online courses seem to hold the most promise for me.

Class with nice people/ good subject= happy mood

Class with rude people/ boring/ bad subject = bad/ anxious mood

Also, I live in unstable home enviroment right now. There is fighting all the time and plus my IBS doesn't improve my mood at all. The only way to get to uni/college is by an hour long train trip into the city, I really hate trains However if there is a good class on or I've had a very productive day I'm going to be in a better mood than usual. I think the enviroment does affect your mood for sure

I can definitely relate to not being able to “settle down” before a class. I would always get there early and read or listen to music, anything that I could use to tune out and clear my head before class started.

All that sounds exceedingly similar to my own experiences, except that I've trained myself to scan every word/sentence/inflection for where laughter is supposed to be placed so it won't seem out of place.

I've found, like wanderinggrl above, that reading something or listening to music I like before class helps settle me down a fair amount before-hand.

Adding to Ashauhhe a class with good teachers who can make a boring/bad subject interesting make the entire class worth it for me.

I don't approach or interact with anyone without reason either, but I've sort of trained myself to react to other people's input. I'm afraid I'm not sure how I've done this, perhaps just experience?

In the end I left the course temporarily and traveled for 6 months, which I've found very helpful. Unfortunately I'm now dealing with the stress and anxiety of returning to a place I haven't been for over a year, so I'm not sure how much good it's done in the long run. This is very specified to my own experiences, so I can't recommend either way if you should do this.

I agree Nebulo, a good teacher does make a difference too. I've had some dedicated, wonderful teachers who have made bad subjects worth staying for ^^

High school in general was basically a matter of survival...and eventually I didn't survive, so I left.
There were some good teachers and classes, though not that many.

Those experiences are pretty similar to my own. I also try not to make eye contact with anyone and I don't like to talk to the people seated next to me either. The laughter thing, for me it's not laughing too late, its laughing at something that no one else thinks is funny...Then everyone turns and looks at me and the professor stops talking and it is really really awful.

Somebody said something about sitting in the back of the room? I do that too...mostly because I don't like anyone behind me (or professors standing over my shoulder during exams)...You never know what the people behind you will do. Actually, it's just highly irritating. If I feel like someone is watching me then I can't think at all, it's really strange.

I would recommend online classes too. I've chosen to do my summer courses online this time. No irritating people chatting around me, no stupid fluorescent bulbs killing my eyes, and I can do the work whenever I want! The only thing with that is if I don't think the coursework is interesting enough, it's too easy to ignore it and go do something else.

I always sit at the front of the classroom. It makes it easier for me to see the blackboard/presentation, I like being near the teacher, and whenever I'm sitting at or near the back, it makes me feel a little claustrophobic.

Anyway, I tend to like smaller classes, for obvious reasons. I like having a little space between me and the people next to me. Rarely do I initiate conversation with others, but I find that the more others talk to me, the easier it gets for me to converse with people.

I usually got there late because I used to go out of my way to avoid the bell ringing (I had a phobia - don't ask why). It took over my whole school life. But after it went, I then rushed to the classroom I needed to be in, but I wasn't late enough to be noticable. If I was lucky the rest of the class was usually still waiting outside the classroom or lining up or something.

Being in lessons wasn't too bad. But I hated it when the teacher let us sit where we wanted, because usually nobody sat next to me, so I was on a table all on my own, while everyone else was chattering away happily to eachother and helping eachother with their work. Occasionally I had somebody sit next to me. I remember once a girl sat next to me, and her best friend (who was in another class) came to the door of our classroom to tell something to another girl who was in our class (everybody was talking and so the room wasn't silent or anything), then this girl saw the girl who was sitting next to me, and asked, ''why are you sitting next to Jo?'' in a critical voice, and the girl next to me got embarrassed and quickly said, ''the teacher put her next to me.''

I did feel quite hurt. People liked me deep inside, but felt ashamed of liking me.

I hated it. I mean I loved being with friends and fooling around but... there was so much distraction that I was constantly overloaded. To make things worse, I wasn't 'autistic' enough to get noise block headphones or even have it so I had to listen to music to be focused. I hardly ever did my work because of distractions. I mean even the tiniest little sound can throw me off from doing any kind of work.

I was glad when I graduated. I'm done dealing with the lack of autistic awareness for HFA/AS that I've dealt with. It's like teachers actually WANT me to suffer and fail. They hardly ever helped me when I really needed it. I would always cry to my parents to come get me at the nurse's office and had meltdowns. My mom couldn't even wake me up in the morning to go. She'd have to scream at me five or six times just to get ready and go to school.

No one listened to me and most of the time, my teachers thought I was just making up excuses. I wasn't because I was struggling greatly and yet they treated me like I was a normal functioning person; regardless of being in resource classes.

While I've also been very introverted in my social life, I always found that I was an active participant in my classes. I nearly always say near the front and I was sometimes a little too eager to raise my hand for something.

Given that next semester will be my seventh year in college, I guess I'm a career student, by now. Ok, fine. I'm getting a Masters, too, but still.

I've always loved going to classes. The idea of missing one used to terrify me. It doesn't anymore, but I still like being in class.

To be honest, I never had any problems with being in class. I've always treated the experience as being a sort of optional cultural enrichment. Paying attention is rarely necessary to me, as I tend to absorb the information discussed somehow, as long as I'm not unconscious.

The same goes for grades. They don't really matter in the long run. It's the knowledge that one builds up that matters.

Really, there's no need to stress, at all. Mind you, I'm a math guy and it's plenty hard. Still, again, stressing one's self makes everything much more difficult than it really is. Adopting a carefree attitude is the best idea, methinks.

People talking around me while I attempt to ignore them and focus on getting my work done.

Sit as near the exit as possible.

Sit in the back of the room unless the only exit is at the front OR you cannot folloow what is going on.

Ignore the people next to you, conceal your paper at all times.

Learn to look impenetrable and imperturbable.

Do not volunteer.

Come in prepared.

It gets easier when you are teacher IF you can wear a persona.

I sit in the second to front row, it lets me gauge the reaction of the first row students to various questions and ideas put out by the instructor, but still puts me close enough to catch everything the instructor says. Of course I've had circular seating arrangments, but the same idea holds, if you don't sit close to the instructor, you might get distracted.