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Job-related challenges

belles12345

I have autistic traits (possibly enough to be autistic- currently undergoing assessment), and I am now very much aware of the difficulties that I have in my work due to my research on autism.  Aside from the social and communication difficulties (which I know are big challenges for me), I also feel that I struggle in other areas in job-related organising/communicating etc.  However I am a perfectionnist and am unable to understand if these challenges are also fairly normal for neurotypical people too and within the 'normal' (if it exists!) range of daily challenges... these are the following:

- difficulty remembering to do a task that I am aked to do after a minute unless I write it down

- asking something that I have already been told or that is obvious, only to realise that I already knew the answer before but completely forgot

- not realising something seemingly obvious, such as that a schedule can change (I tend to view it as fixed and work around it, then feel stupid when I realise that there was no reason to be so rigid)

- difficulty reading 'inbetween the lines'- I think this is fairly standard for those on the spectrum as far as I can gather

- feeling irritated when interrupted doing a task, and struggle to do so unless directly asked

- looking through piles of work repeatedly if they're not clearly organised (due to lack of space to organise properly), to check that there is nothing I should have done in the pile

- forgetting to take some essential equipment (some of which it is dangerous to be without)

It would be great to gain some perspective on these struggles, as I am aware that I may be getting these out of proportion in my head and that actually I am coping ok when sometimes I feel like I am not.  I suppose it also depends on the frequency that this happens, which I am not sure, and again compared to what.

Parents

  • Hi again, Belles,

    Whether to disclose or not is indeed very difficult to judge - particularly when diagnosis is not yet certain.

    In my case, I actually suspect that not disclosing much earlier than I did led to the loss of my most recent job.  My fear of speaking up led me to conceal my poor performance from managers who implicitly trusted my reassurances that nothing was wrong, and my promises that I would soon make good on projects that were slipping behind.

    As I got further and further behind my targets, the extra stress led to my performance declining even further - to the point that I was spending a huge amount of time locked into a kind of "analysis paralysis", bewildered as to what I should do to get back on track.

    One of the ways that I deal with stress is by using "thought blocking" behaviour.  This can be a good coping strategy if used in moderation, at an appropriate time, and in an appropriate setting.  However, daydreaming and obsessing about my AS "special interests" is obviously not what my employer expected in return for my paycheck!

    The saddest part is that I did actually have a very understanding employer, who probably would have been amenable to planning a way out of the situation if only I had spoken up before things got so bad - regardless of my diagnosis only being informal at the time.

    So, as you can see, non-disclosure can have as many risks as disclosure, and there is no single "right" answer that any of us could point you to.  Unless there is a crisis though, I would suggest doing nothing at least until you have a formal diagnosis - at least then, you have some legal redress if the worst comes to the worst.

Reply

  • Hi again, Belles,

    Whether to disclose or not is indeed very difficult to judge - particularly when diagnosis is not yet certain.

    In my case, I actually suspect that not disclosing much earlier than I did led to the loss of my most recent job.  My fear of speaking up led me to conceal my poor performance from managers who implicitly trusted my reassurances that nothing was wrong, and my promises that I would soon make good on projects that were slipping behind.

    As I got further and further behind my targets, the extra stress led to my performance declining even further - to the point that I was spending a huge amount of time locked into a kind of "analysis paralysis", bewildered as to what I should do to get back on track.

    One of the ways that I deal with stress is by using "thought blocking" behaviour.  This can be a good coping strategy if used in moderation, at an appropriate time, and in an appropriate setting.  However, daydreaming and obsessing about my AS "special interests" is obviously not what my employer expected in return for my paycheck!

    The saddest part is that I did actually have a very understanding employer, who probably would have been amenable to planning a way out of the situation if only I had spoken up before things got so bad - regardless of my diagnosis only being informal at the time.

    So, as you can see, non-disclosure can have as many risks as disclosure, and there is no single "right" answer that any of us could point you to.  Unless there is a crisis though, I would suggest doing nothing at least until you have a formal diagnosis - at least then, you have some legal redress if the worst comes to the worst.

Children
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