Published on 12, July, 2020
I am an undiagnosed adult with a strong suspicion that I have a demand avoidant autism profile. Around 18 month ago I applied for and, to my surprise, was offered a promotion at work. At the time I was facing an increase to the cost of living and I needed the extra money.
Long story short the job turned out to be a lot more taxing than I had anticipated. It is a role that involves heavy social skills and involves navigating body language, tone of voice, whether someone is telling the truth or not. All things I struggle with. After 3 months my sciatica flared up and I was off work for 2 months. I returned and my line manager left, and a new department lead brought in (chaos). Shortly after this I had a severe bout of what can only be described as autistic burnout - I ended up signed off work and on depressants.
I went back again and within 4 months my sciatica flared up. A pattern was beginning to emerge - when the demands of my job increased my mental health and physical health all nosedived. I am now actively avoiding the portion of the work that causes me the anxiety, but this is leading to issues with work as I am falling behind. I know by how much, and I know what I need to do to resolve it but I am physically unable to do so. My whole body shuts down and then I am unable to complete the portion of the job that plays to my strengths.
Work has offered me a more suitable role, but I am expected to continue with my current responsibilities. I have tried to explain exactly what I am going through but I am seemingly unable to articulate to my line managers precisely what they can do to support. Has anyone else been in a similar situation and able to offer advice? How can I negotiate the part of the job that I lack the inertia to engage with?
My referral is in, 12 months in to a waiting list an now trying the right to chose option.
Hi,
I'm not sure I can offer any good advice but I can somewhat relate. I had a promotion around 18 months ago and am expected to do a lot more networking, negotiating, persuading, people management, that sort of thing. All these things are exhausting to me and very stress-inducing. I've always accepted any promotions suggested to me and I do sometimes feel like I want a new challenge so it's not entirely like I don't want them. I have discussed possible autism (I'm on a 2 year waiting list currently) confidentially with the disability and neurodivergence team at work but not with my line manager.
They have given me a list of potential 'reasonable adjustments' that I could request regardless of a diagnosis. If I do want anything, at this point I would just say that it would be beneficial for my mental health which I'm quite open about rather than autism which I don't feel ready to discuss with my manager or team.
I don't know your work set up and I know I'm lucky as I work for a huge employer which is extremely focused on staff wellbeing but if you can ask for help like mentoring without having to go into too much detail about your medical history etc then I would recommend that.
One specific suggestion was that I self-refer to 'access to work' which is a government scheme set up to support people with physical or mental health conditions or disabilities to stay in work. I haven't done it and I don't know if I will but it's an option.
I hope things get better soon.
Jay