I am a woman who is married with 5 kids. I was diagnosed in the last year with high functioning ASD and felt very positive about the whole thing as it answers a lot of questions I had about why I behaved the way I did when I was young and how I behave now.
I got myself through university and trained as a health care professional. I worked in a very busy and sometimes daunting environment. I was very unhappy there. I didn’t fit in, got comments made to me about taking longer to organise myself etc etc. But I was very good at my job as I could connect with clients and families. Sometimes getting too emotional in the process and taking on their worries as my own. This again was exhausting.
I have moved settings now and work with younger clients who may have ASD among other problems. I disclosed to my supervisor and to my surprise was met with questions like why I arrived at thinking I have ASD and how they thought I was normal. This got into a very awkward discussion of how socially awkward I feel.
I explained that I am professional and can connect with people in the structured environment of work and am very focused. Basically justifying how I have been able to work in my profession for the last 9 years. I feel like she was asking me how I can do my job and see traits and problems that ASD clients have when traditionally ASD in itself is associated with poor communication.
I have been trained over the years to learn how to make people like me. It is exhausting but I can do it. Also I am very analytical and can focus on what is going on and can project the problems I see into what problems the client can have in the future. This is insight I have learned over he years through experience and learning.
I guess what I am getting at is that, with my diagnoses, I feel now that my ability to do my job is being questioned by my new manager. This upsets me greatly. I worked very hard, and struggled to navigate the social gauntlet of university and the work place, now to be faced with this.
In turn, will health professionals like the GP and health visitors automatically assume I am a terrible parent as well. I just feel lost. I’ve never felt like I fitted in, have learned to not speak at times when I would like to for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Sometimes when I do let people see glimpses of the real me, I get funny looks as my humour doesn’t match theirs or I can seem a bit immature in my silliness. This is something I have learned from even primary school where my class mates made nasty comments when I made up little songs or acted ‘uncool,’
My family and friends for the most part get me. As u can imagine, they are a very select few. My husband has a similar sense of humour and we get on great but my ‘organised chaos’ approach does sometimes cause conflict from time to time.
Has anyone any idea what I can do or any similar experience? I wish I hadn’t disclosed this to my boss as I now am in a state of panic.
