Do you work?

Keep reflecting on this subject because it's really dogged me over the years.  Since my diagnosis in October, memories keep coming back.  One in particular.  I was once pushed straight to the top of the redundancy list on the back of an informal reference from someone at board level with whom I'd hardly ever worked.  I was the systems accountant and she was in a more strategic, decision-making role.  Her damning comment was that I "keep myself to myself".  And the employer seemed to favour extroverts, as usual.  No matter that my role actually required me to mostly stay within the finance department and act as technical support.  I wonder whether, if I'd been diagnosed at the time, this might have given me some protection?  Certainly the accountancy qualification only seemed to help very little and I felt judged on my personality.  :(   

Personality counts for a lot.

Many years ago after I left university, I attended a graduate recruitment full day assessment at the Barclays Bank computer centre, I passed all the technical and psychometric tests.  Finally an interview with the HR department, and we were warned this was separate from all the previous tests and we had to show that we were the RIGHT type of people for the bank.  I failed it of course.

Plus overall I always knew that I wasn't going to fit their idea of the "right" type person for the job.  I could see other graduates who I thought fitted the bill and I eventually started getting through interviews by imagining what they would say, how they might hold themselves and how they'd dress.  Then I simply stepped into that persona.

Of course, once "Pretend Jenny" actually got the job, there were consequences.  The employers wondered how on earth they'd managed to get someone who was basically very nervous on the phone, reluctant and often silent in meetings and phobic about driving or doing presentations!

I haven’t been diagnosed yet, my GP is arranging that for me, but it is so obvious that I am autistic, especially since my symptoms greatly increased with the stress when I changed my job. I spoke to my brother about it on the phone the other night, and he revealed that he thinks he is autistic too. I have noticed different symptoms over the years, but it was nothing like it is now, causing depression and anxiety.

Ah, I wasn't diagnosed but to me that exacerbated things.  I didn't know what the limiting factor was called, but I did know that I behaved and thought differently from others and that my strengths lay in entirely different areas.  Meanwhile many of the things I found excruciatingly difficult, they took in their stride.  So I felt out of kilter.  I also felt that it was in my own best interests in the job market to hide that fact.  And this generally meant feigning confidence, assertiveness, decisiveness and an all round "credible stance."  

Behind the scenes, though, I had a longstanding interest in psychology, beginning with self help books, which I started reading from around the age of 14, and culminating in doing a counselling degree in my mid forties.  I also had a kind of split existence whilst working as an accountant but doing counselling courses in the evening (much to the mystification of my colleagues).  This, of course, corresponded to the persona and the "real me".

Overall I'd say that the counselling courses helped to provide what had been missing in my education and development and my greatest regret is that I wasn't able to realise all of this in time to help my sons.  And certainly if I'd been able to put a name to our type of neurology I think I'd have been in a much better position to head off some of the disastrous experiences in the next generation.  

The qualifications are one thing and yes, I do come across a certain amount of naivety in the younger generation as to what is really expected in the world of work.  For me and mine, though, it went way beyond that.  Our academic ability led to major assumptions and expectations from others that, once thwarted and unfulfilled, were liable to cause breakdowns and serious mental health problems.  A certain amount of puzzlement too, as in, "If I'm so clever, why is this happening?"   

I really wish i'd known much earlier on.  The signs were there in my dad and my uncles but I thought their troubles were largely to do with random circumstances and setbacks.  I was monumentally wrong and utterly devastated when, several decades later, my son started behaving in ways that strongly reminded me of my dad when (way back inthe 70s) everything in his workplace seemed to turn against him and he seemed to completely dissolve as a person.  :(

Plastic said:

Should autistic people be told about the risks of certain environments so they are able to make informed choices about careers?

And:

Jenny Butterfly said:

For me the difficulties lay in the discovery that my qualifications meant very little and my interpersonal skills were woefully underdeveloped.  My emotional regulation was very poor too.  Help with these at a much earlier stage could have headed off some of the quite serious problems I faced

Since I didn't know I was autistic, that wasn't a limiting factor in what I tried to do.  But on the other hand not knowing means, like quite a few people, I'm probably fairly heavily traumatised by my experiences.  Would knowing have limited where I've gotten to?  I don't know.  Potentially with better guidance and coping strategies I might actually have gotten further, by not wasting time going down alleys which turned out to be a bad idea.

Or had I been diagnosed at a young age, could low expectations have been placed on me and I just got nowhere?

The qualifications thing is interesting.  In general, educational/vocational qualifications don't mean you can actually do a job.  The terminology I've heard is a bit confusing here, but having a ed/voc qualification means you are qualifiable for a role that requires that ed/voc qualification.  If you can actually do the job, then you become qualified for it.  You can also become qualified to do a job by evidence of the fact that you can do the job.  That's often a harder route to follow though.

I'm also frequently amused by younglings with the ink barely dry on their undergraduate degree who think they know everything their subject, not knowing that actually you now the bare minimum you need to start applying and making a contribution in that area.  Usually they're fairly easy to put back in their box though :-D.

Yes - I ended up with millions of bits of paper because it was the correct thing to do.

Yes - I ended up with millions of bits of paper because it was the correct thing to do.