Handhold needed, failed adult college situation

[JobhuntingDespair]

Trying to work out how to write this so I don't drip feed...
Context is my life hasn't gone very well due to undiagnosed until my 30s autism/trauma. Healed from trauma and started living approx early-mid 30s (ok so I did get some good times in before then, some meaningful things, but no career, didn't work for a long time). Got myself a degree and dragged myself back to work a few years ago. Currently unemployed and finding it tough to find anything.

Did a level 2 college course I'd always been interested in. Loved it and thought I'd found my "thing" at points. Moved on to level 3 and have just failed the course.

The actual situation is - its a vocational course but has a big "academic" essay at the end. I put academic in quotes because the way we have been taught and the expectations/guidance for the essay have been nothing like uni. Which I have found unexpectedly, wildly, hard.

The issues I have had with this final assignment are all echoed by my classmates (who I get on well with) - one shared privately they are thinking about putting a complaint in about how this has been done. From my tutors last email, I don't think I'm the only one who hasn't passed.

Anwyay this has meant the essay has been so ludicrously time consuming. I gave myself way more time than any uni essay, and have crawled through it spending hours per day on it for the past few weeks, working on it all day every day for the past fortnight. I've basically ignored anything else in my life and made myself ill trying to get it done, and still missed the deadline. (This seems mad for an approx 2500 word essay.)

I contacted the college to see if there's a way I can bank my previous assignment passes and do the final assessment with the next cohort - nothing confirmed yet. Unfortunately I think it might rest on the tutor's decision and she seems pretty annoyed with me.

I'm asking for a handhold because I'm trying not to feel like a total hopeless failure. In the greater context of my life this is pretty hard. Things feel really bleak (I might have a bit of autistic burnout happening, given the past few weeks). I'm finding it particularly hard that I've tried so hard, given it so much time. Way more time, several multiples of the time I put into uni essays (where I got good grades). It's so hard to know I've done my best and it wasn't good enough - but on top of that the tutor isn't happy at all and seems to think I haven't tried and just didn't know academic work was hard.

Its worse because I had some areas I needed to catch up on/revise as I'd got behind after bouts of illness, a job that broke me (left after two months) etc before the new year. So I set myself a timetable to catch up before this essay and haven't been jobhunting or other important stuff this year, focused on college stuff - but now nothing to show for it.

We still have a couple of lessons left, with some work that is part of the course but not graded, so if I can have my final assignment graded with the next cohort I should still go in to college to complete the actual lessons for the course, iyswim. I am dreading facing the tutor though.

Oh dear OP, you have been through it, really sorry to read about your struggles with the course. The first thing I would suggest is that your neuro-divergence should be recognised as a challenge to your completion, which means that some leeway should be made for you in the areas where you struggle because of it. There should be someone at the college who handles issues relating to disability and you should contact them without delay.
Ask for an extension to re-submit the essay and get some help with it from either another student or someone who knows the subject well.
Then concentrate on the other areas of the course where work is still outstanding. You've made a work plan which is very useful - do try to stick to this even if you're feeling down about everything else.
Do go to the lectures if you can face it - maybe ask some of the students you like for a bit of moral support.
I don't know if it would be helpful to talk to the lecturer - possibly with another person present (for example, the disability co-ordinator at college) to try to sort things out. I would suggest it, as they do have obligations to their students.
Very best of luck.

What does the feedback say about why your essay didn't pass? Or am I misunderstanding and you failed because you didn't submit it on time, and the late penalty took your pass mark down below pass level?

To clarify - when I said I'd got behind I meant work to catch up on before this essay. I did catch up, but that is why I haven't given attention to any other pressing matters like jobhunting since the new year. (I had completed college assignments just had some other bits of the work to catch up on.)

I can't get an extension on this assignment because it was the absolute final deadline.

I'm not sure if disability is an issue - given everyone else had has similar difficulties with the assignment (especially noticed others with higher level qualifications found the same aspects of this hard).

In terms of why I didn't pass - the essay is simply pass or fail, so an incomplete essay is a fail. I did try to get more clarification on this from the tutor as it has made things harder - in uni an incomplete assignment or one that wasn't my best would still get a grade, hopefully above the pass mark (and on the few occasions this was the case I still got reasonable/good grades!). So you could cut corners but still pass. With this essay it's so unclear, feels like if you miss something out or make a mistake or an unclear point it'd be a fail.

There are aspects of how we have been expected to write it that were not the case for uni work, these have been what has made it so time consuming and difficult. These don't sit well with me and seem frankly non/anti-academic, which makes it more frustrating having the tutor talk to me as if I just don't get academic work. It's so frustrating as any help or guidance is aimed at the academic side, which I'm fine on. It's the other aspects that are difficult - but seeking clarification from the tutor is so difficult, because she seems to get frustrated and keep going over the easy bits and not understanding what I'm actually asking.

Ps. The neurodivergence is known to the college but I haven't needed nor asked for reasonable adjustments.
The only adjustments I needed for my degree were around sitting exams. My tutors communicated in a clear way, understood questions, were encouraging, and expectations were clear. This is not the case with this course.

I was in a very similar situation a couple of years ago, but with my university course. I honestly felt exactly how you felt at the time and can remember wondering what I would do next.
In my case, I did have to repeat the year. I felt awful listening to my cohort talking excitedly about how they had passed when the time came (i stupidly remained in the group chat) while I was having to start all over again.
Fortunately, I managed to get some help from a good friend who proof read my essays (they didn't write them for me, but would give suggestions as to where I could expand, simplify, etc) and this made a massive difference. I could then see where I was lacking and what I needed to improve on. I did eventually pass.
Try to see if you can do something similar. It sounds like you have been doing really well up to now, don't give up no matter how bleak it seems at the moment. I wish you the very best.