The last time I dropped out of college, I was studying massage therapy. Initially, I had been doing OK but not brilliant. I had some issues with some of the classes, but I was coping. I didn’t like the fact that I was having to study for some subjects that were going to have no relevance to my own personal future career prospects, though. There was a reflexology class, for example. I knew that as soon as I finished the course, I was never going to voluntarily work on another person’s foot ever again – but I was still going to have to pass this particular module if I wanted to pass the course. That frustrated me. I could be perfect in every class that was relevant to me, but if I failed one that wasn’t I would fail the course.
I tolerated this, though. I had initially started the course, because I just wanted something to do, but I had become fascinated by it and really wanted to progress. I had two posters on my living room wall – one for muscular anatomy and one for skeletal anatomy – and I had post-it notes all round them. I was really getting into it. But while I was doing OK with some classes, I was falling behind on others. In short, I wasn’t doing OK at all.
More classes were introduced that I had no interest in. Suddenly, I needed to learn about skin types and how to make up face-masks out of fruit and muesli. Again, this was something I was never going to need to know and would never put into practice when I completed the course. In fact, I couldn’t (and still can’t) comprehend a time when knowing the best way to mash up a banana and slap it onto someone’s face would come in even remotely useful. I approached the head tutor and managed to drop that class in favour of remedial work in another one, but by then the rot was already setting in.
Then there were all the guided meditation sessions that some tutors set a lot of store by. Now, I know I’m not the only massage therapist out there who can’t be bothered with all that “happy place” stuff, but it’s fair to say that we’re in the minority. These guided meditation sessions simply seemed pointless, irritating and intrusive – and I found myself wondering why I was submitting to someone else’s voodoo nonsense when I could be learning something valuable instead. It felt patronising and offensive. Throw in a CD full of whale song, Buddhist chanting, harps, pan-pipes and somebody whoring up a grotesque parody of native -American culture and it becomes intolerable.
The final straw came about when one tutor described how to colour-code the names on some case-study forms with highlighter pens. Now, I’m not going to go into the specifics here, because I barely comprehended it the first time round and there’s no way I can replicate the details right now. But we were told how to do this by one tutor. I thought I got the basics and I figured I could work the rest out as it became relevant. Then, in a different class, it was explained to us again – in a different way – by a different tutor. And I started to have doubts about whether I understood it after all. In a different class again, one of the other students told the new tutor that she wasn’t sure she understood how this worked, so it was explained again. And again. And again. And I knew I was starting to have some real problems. Then we got back to the first tutor and someone asked what happened if we ran out of colours with our highlighter pens. We were told to take two different highlighter pens and start highlighting names in stripes of different colours. At that point, I quietly gave up.
I quit the course and then hit a bout of depression because I started wondering whether I was stupid, lazy or both. Perhaps neither of those. Perhaps I was just running from responsibility. Perhaps I just wanted the comfort of the dole queue.
The thing is… too many things changed at once and I couldn’t cope with that. I suddenly felt out of my depth and I’ve never handled that sort of thing well. This is one of the things I’ve since discovered is common to people on the autistic spectrum. I can handle changes better than a lot of people with the condition, but I still struggle – and when there are a lot of changes in a very short space of time, then they tend to overwhelm me.
Anyway, I had made a friend on the course. Nicola – the person I later worked with at the clinic in Glasgow – recommended I study privately instead. She gave me the contact details of a class in Glasgow. It was expensive, though… more than I could afford on a giro. So I tried to secure some funding. And failed.
I went to three separate sources for the money for this class, and was turned down by all of them. Eventually I got so frustrated, that I decided that whether I had funding or not, I would find a way to get through this course. So, for nine months, I forked out two thirds of my monthly giro, ate beans on toast and studied privately.
The course covered Swedish massage and nothing else. No reflexology, no face packs and no fucking highlighter pens. It was also made clear exactly what was being taught at every stage, so I always knew what I needed to know. There were constant tests and updates on muscular and skeletal anatomy and there were weekends devoted to the cardio-vascular system, the integumentary system, the digestive system. There was still – frustratingly – the occasional guided meditation session, but they were much rarer. I still didn’t like them, but I tolerated them.
I passed. And then I spent a further three months learning Seated Acupressure Therapy, and then I got a job at Glasgow airport. Then I started working with Nicola at the clinic in Glasgow. And I would probably still be there if it wasn’t for the car accident.
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