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Do you work?

Emma

I work in a office building. I'm one of three women and a man. My job is to answer the phone and use a computer, my day consists of me typing, speaking on the phone and engaging in conversation (help!) with my work colleagues. My friend April who works next to me is really nice and I think she knows there's something different about me because she seems to give me a sort of comforting smile a lot of the time. Work is hard, every day I spend ages making sure I look right for work and change my clothes and redo my hair about fifty times before I finally leave. When I get to work I spend the day feeling anxious because I know I'll have to engage in workplace communication, either work banter or one of my colleagues will ask me if I have a file or if someone called. This sends me in to a massive brain shutdown moment where I spend the next ten minutes trying to think and communicate at the same time, which results in me not finding the right words and just sort of babbling like a baby.

Working is difficult, mostly because of the amount of things I have to do. Focusing, communicating, being out of my safe zone and *shudders* office meetings where I sometimes have to stand up and talk to my colleagues as well as our boss... Usually after a meeting I end up throwing up in the bathroom and have a mini panic attack.

Does anyone else here work and have similar problems to me?

Parents

  • 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.  :(   

  • in reply to Jenny Butterfly

    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.

  • in reply to Robert124

    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!

  • in reply to Jenny Butterfly

    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.

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  • in reply to Jenny Butterfly

    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.

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