Employer told I have asperger DISEASE!

Hello, 

I've been off work for 2 months and i recently saw occupational health. Yesterday I received a copy of the report from my initial occupational health appointment which has been sent to my manager. I was really dismayed to read that the nurse had written that I had been diagnosed with Asperger Disease. This has really annoyed me as I did try to explain to the nurse that Aspergers is a part of me and has shaped my personality so the suggestion that that part of me is diseased I find very offensive. I felt I needed to write a letter to occupational health and my manager to explain that its not a disease but my husband said I should let it go as Im wanting occ health to help me but I find it hard to see how telling my manager that I have a disease is helping me.

Would you write a letter to correct their mistake or am I over reacting? 

Parents
  • Definitely not, I’ve got better things to do with my life than to get all hot and bothered and upset over a word written on a piece of paper. I’m sure your boss already knows it’s not a disease. Are you sure it wasn’t a typo error? 

    Have a great weekend, and when you speak to your boss about it, I’m sure it won’t take more than 60 seconds or so to confirm that it’s not a disease, it’s just a way of describing some of the traits you have that are causing you some difficulties. 

    Go out and have a lovely weekend. You know you haven’t got a disease and most people on the planet know that. What would be more useful to you would be to ask yourself why you got so annoyed over a word that doesn’t even relate to you in any way? 

    It’s easy for us aspies to get all hot and bothered by things but we can break that habit. It’s up to you though, the choice is yours. You can have a lovely weekend with your husband, family, friends, yourself or whatever or you can get more and more annoyed as you simply devour and chew and eat some more of this word, that was written on a piece of paper that is probably at this very minute sat in a draw doing no harm to anyone. You can choose to obsess over it, get annoyed, get inflamed, ask why people are so incompetent that they don’t get every word exact and correct, or you could chose to be happy and address it when you speak to your boss or simply ask the nurse, calmly and politely, to change the word, it will probably take less than a minute to ask her to do that but you could spend the whole of this weekend being annoyed about it. It’s up to you, the choice is yours. 

  • BlueRay, you said this:

    ‘You can...ask the nurse, calmly and politely, to change the word, it will probably take less than a minute to ask her to do that but you could spend the whole of this weekend being annoyed about it.’

    But, whilst PurpleFeathers mentioned being annoyed, this does not lead me to immediately assume that they wouldn’t write a letter in exactly the manner you describe above. This is certainly how I ask for changes to documents when there are mistakes - I am not ‘hot and bothered’ by them, I just request them to please be corrected and explain why. It certainly wouldn’t ruin my weekend to quickly write a polite letter and then do whatever I was doing.

    So when you say ‘definitely not’ to writing a letter I don’t quite understand why. Perhaps, ‘definitely not in an angry mood or tone’ would be better advice. I understand you could think that writing a letter is a bit over the top when you could ask verbally, but for some of us (myself included), written communications are simply much easier than verbal. 

  • ...probably because I really would not be bothered to even get involved with something like that. I wasn’t giving advice though, that would take more communication between me and the original poster and it would have nothing to do with letters or what the nurse said. 

    Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, written communication would be way easier for me also, most of the time, but honestly, I would not give a s***t what a word on a piece of paper says. I would be more concerned with why it annoyed me. I would spend my time  doing inquiry into that rather than stressing about whether I should write a letter or not. How I feel is more important to me than some word on a document so I would uncover the root cause of my annoyance and after that, if I still felt it was important to me then yes, I would agree with you, I would write it in a letter or email, for several reasons, not least because you then have clear evidence of you asking etc. 

    I don’t think writing a letter or the person’s reaction was over the top, it’s just not something I would be concerned with but the reason why I felt annoyed would be something that I would most definitely be interested in at that is where I would place my attention. 

  • . I understand you could think that writing a letter is a bit over the top when you could ask verbally, but for some of us (myself included), written communications are simply much easier than verbal. 

    This exactly. I'm always better at writing when it comes to things like this. I did write a letter but did not send it... Yet as I have a meeting with my manager soon hopefully. The wording bothered me because the reason why I am off work is due to aspergers and struggling to keep up in work. Words and their meaning are very important to me and also quite important in my profession (I'm a midwife). I consider myself to be quite healthy and not diseased at all. I very much want to go back to work and if my manager is misinformed over what my problems are then I feel it makes it harder for me to negotiate my return to work. That said it did not spoil my weekend but I do have a strong desire to educate the misinformed. Incidentally the nurse also seemed to think Aspergers was a mental health problem. 

  • Thumbsup tone3 yeah, if people give me a chance, they usually find I’m on the same page as them and visa versa, I also have to flesh out conversations to get to a mutual understanding Blush

    My support worker pointed out to me as well that most  people don’t understand what I’m saying and she said something else which I haven’t worked out what she means yet, but ultimately, I am only responsible for what I say, not for what other people hear. 

    But yeah, definitely, we’re on the same page and I love it when we come to the point of mutual understanding Relaxed

Reply
  • Thumbsup tone3 yeah, if people give me a chance, they usually find I’m on the same page as them and visa versa, I also have to flesh out conversations to get to a mutual understanding Blush

    My support worker pointed out to me as well that most  people don’t understand what I’m saying and she said something else which I haven’t worked out what she means yet, but ultimately, I am only responsible for what I say, not for what other people hear. 

    But yeah, definitely, we’re on the same page and I love it when we come to the point of mutual understanding Relaxed

Children
No Data