Is it okay to feel this way?

Have you considered that a 'miraculously normalised' you, would not be you? Many autistic people would like their more distressing traits, for example heightened anxiety, neutralised or blunted, but would like to keep their good traits, for example joy in very focused interests, and therefore retain their autistic identity.

I suppose. I’m just due to start a new job next week. Full of anxiety and sure it’ll be obvious miles off that I’m not normal. I work in healthcare where there are lives on the line. I need to look capable and I can’t even make eye-contact.

I suppose. I’m just due to start a new job next week. Full of anxiety and sure it’ll be obvious miles off that I’m not normal. I work in healthcare where there are lives on the line. I need to look capable and I can’t even make eye-contact.

Good luck.

That’s true Martin, thank you. And I really relate - I work in emergency healthcare so maybe I do need to focus on how being neurodiverse can be a strength. It’ll have probably helped you save that man’s life. I think for me it’s being able to think systematically in these moments. It’s kind of when it switches. Maybe all the experience of masking I suppose!

Have you tried the 'cheating' methods of making eye contact? Looking in someone's general direction, looking above their head, at their ear, at their shoulder...

Everyone is scared to some extent when they start a new job, all that change, new location, new people, new routines, new social groups to form.

Whether to disclose or not - that is a big decision. Only you will know how they might feel a couple of years down the line 'discovering' or 'noticing' your differences. To some it might seem lacking self-awareness (NT thinking), to others it might appear lacking in trust (NT - of course it takes time to build up trust!), etc. etc.

Good luck in your new job, and stick to the thought that you must be great as you were selected for the post above the other candidates!

I know that all the times in my past when I thought it was 'make or break', it was not and all the anxiety that I built about the event was misplaced. I know that in real crises I am relatively calm and effective, I once saved a man who had had an epileptic fit in the sea, I hauled him out and organised an ambulance to be called, it is the more minor things that work me up to an unbearable pitch of anxiety.