Published on 12, July, 2020
The real world is not what you see online. You can talk all the exclusivity neurodivergent talk you can imagine. But in the real world, you will get singled out and it will be used against you. People can just not help themselves, they have to push your buttons, it's instinctual. If you announce you're different, that's just giving them ammo.
Telling somebody you're autistic is an invite for abuse and exploitation.Unless, you're real tough and can handle yourself, and dont break down very easily. Then disregard the advice. tell everybody. If you want. But i think most would be better served keeping it under wraps.
There is value on what you say here - around the time that I was having my diagnosis in 2021 between setting up an interview and waiting for the results, having not being in a position to reveal the diagnosis to employer or anyone else, a girl I was working with had an older brother with the condition and her mother also worked in the area of mental health, so she basically “twigged” that I had the condition (there were cultural and other “differences” involved as well) and although not being “bullied” in the strictest sense (but feeling very vulnerable after being made redundant from another job in 2019 after 17 years of severe and sustained bullying, my resilience was very low, especially with other issues around Covid and being separated from family in Ireland here in the U.K.) this girl took a very unsympathetic and uncaring attitude and encouraged everyone else to take the same zero tolerance and zero patience approach, as she believed that the only way to manage my condition was via ultra strict discipline and overbearing supervision, where nothing I ever did was ever good enough, as she believed that it was “for my own good” and she knew how to “play” it, gossiping every chance she got, plus I was under a lot of pressure from family in Ireland about my diagnosis, where the management structure at that employer was very poor and she never got “put in her place” at the very start, so she consistently got away with her bad behaviour, the management had no idea what they were doing, they had no training in disability nor ASD issues nor any real understanding of same, a lot of people left within a year at the same area of the business (possibly because of her) - her attitude never changed after she had a personal incident outside of work, in fact it made her worse, she “pulled sickies” every time she wanted time off rather than requesting holidays properly and this became more frequent over time - I honestly believe that had I had a post-diagnostic assessment, I would have been better equipped to deal with this situation, as I would have a clearer understanding of my support needs and of my condition, information that I would have been able to share with my employer and my family in Ireland