Do you work?

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?

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  • Hi Emma,

    I'm a designer and work in an office. It's not a huge office, but on a busy day, there can be 12-15 colleagues in at once, so those days for me can raise my anxiety levels because of the constant voices and interaction. I also find it very difficult to concentrate sometimes with all that goes on around me. Some days are more draining than others, so on the those days, I find myself disappearing up to the gents just for a few minutes of calm and quiet. It's a big difference how much more comfortable I feel when I'm by myself. 

    Just so you know, I'm not officially diagnosed as having any form of Autism, but after reading more about the symptoms and discovering this web-site, I'm pretty sure I do fall into the spectrum somewhere.

    Every time I read a post or comment in this community, I relate so much to it.

  • I'm a developer and had the same experiences. I work from home now which is much better, but I struggle finding clients! Once I have contact with a client I rarely lose them (my websites tend to be stable, and I manage the server myself so I'm always on top of it). Swings & roundabouts.

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