Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone I’m looking for a bit of advice or moral support. I’m going into my 2nd year of my course/employment, but haven’t told any colleagues or employers that I’m currently waiting for assessments for an autism and ADHD diagnosis. Without the official diagnosis, I feel very anxious about talking to people about (very likely!) being autistic/having adhd. I think it feels more overwhelming because I almost have to explain myself and give my life story, rather than just disclosing a diagnosis. However, the nature of my course/job means we will now have teaching and placements in the area of neurodevelopmental conditions, and really want to be able to speak from a personal perspective. It’s my special interest area too, so I’m really passionate about speaking up during discussions! I’ve also struggled a lot through 1st year and would really like to be able to assert my needs better with supervisors. I’m wondering what are others experiences of disclosing their neurodivergence with work, particularly those self-diagnosed/waiting for an official diagnosis? And any advice on how I go about broaching the subject with peers and/or supervisors? TIA
It depends on the Company or in my case Service, I raised a Self Referral form to the Learning and Development Team who had a meeting with me, they can't diagnose, they asked me to do a few of the tests and took the results with a request that I contact my GP to go for a formal diagnosis, but they put a work place needs assessment in place and gave me extra time on work assessments.
I hate that I got through School, College and University and not one of them picked up anything but my workplace and colleagues did