Yes, I think this is true. The writer can stand aside from experience and look at it, watch it happening. There is this " detachment" and I realize that there are obviously experiences which would overwhelm everyone.
A team of physicists claimed its rudimentary quantum computer performed a calculation in 200 seconds, that would overwhelm a conventional supercomputer.
Hard water, for example, has higher mineral and deposit content that can overwhelm a surfactant, so other chemicals have to be added to the shampoo to counteract the ions that make the surfactants ineffective.
What's more, as one of the few survivors of a system stacked against her, she'll feel isolated and overwhelmed by all of the expectations of how her education will somehow change everything.