Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi!
I am currently waiting for an autism and ADHD diagnosis but it’s looking very likely that I have both conditions.
I am struggling with employment and wondered if anyone could give any advice. I always did well at school, have a maths degree and ended up in the career that I had always dreamed of. Unfortunately, the career that I thought would be fairly numbers based is very heavy on written work, specifically explanations. I have always struggled with explaining things, so unfortunately am really struggling at work, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by my team. People I work with are often frustrated as I don’t pull my weight, despite me putting in a lot of effort. The writing and explanations just isn’t clicking with me.
I am at a complete loss as I always wanted to be in this career but it obviously isn’t suited to me. I feel like I would be better suited to a problem solving/analytical (non-writing) role, but just have no idea what is out there and am very scared of choosing the wrong career again.
I had a similar role at a different company but found that far easier since the work had a template format, making it far easier to know what I needed to write about.
Has anyone been through something similar? Or do you know of possible career paths forwards? What do you do for work?
Hi, I can relate to this. I also am pursuing my dream career (i’m a neurobiologist) and finally started a PhD but I am also really struggling- with meeting expectations, I find writing very hard too, and I am currently overwhelmed socially and with the pressure being put on me. It might be an idea to reach out at work to see if you can get some adjustments that might help. Also, Iike you have pointed out, it really depends on the environment you are working on - if you can’t manage to make it work at your current company, could you maybe try to find a job at another? I have realised how well I cope is also dependent on the environment I work in, whether there is support, how understanding the supervisor is, number of people at work, how things are organised etc.