Published on 12, July, 2020
A question to the round of readers in the UK with an official diagnosis/self-diagnosis/waiting diagnosis for Autism/ASD/HFA/Aspergers (I have after a very long wait been diagnosed as having ASD).
Do you feel that for you personally formal support has become better, worse, easier or harder to access? By support I mean understanding, tolerance, acceptance by colleagues, direct supervisors, managers, HR, job interviewers, PIP assessors, benefits deciders. I do not include informal support from friends, family, charities or your local community.
Hi
I had no formal support for the first 5 decades of my life, mainly because I wasn't diagnosed due to most people having no idea what autism was. I trained as one of the first SEN teaching assistants 30 years ago and it didn't even come up in my training.
Over the last 7 or 8 years, I've made my managers aware that I'm on the spectrum, and gradually revealed it to my colleagues too. Everyone has been tolerant and accepting, and my managers made accommodations to my needs when required.
Some of my colleagues have family or friends who are on the spectrum or suspected to be. Some of them are also very interested in autism and how our minds are different to those of neurotypical people. As a woman who doesn't stim, can do eye contact pretty well most of the time, and has some interests common with other women (I'm quite interested in clothes, hair and romantic comedy fiction) I don't present as the stereotype that some people have regarding autism. So I hope I have helped them to learn more about it, which they will pass onto other people they know, meaning that others on the spectrum will be able to get better support.