Published on 12, July, 2020
I've not been diagnosed with Asperger's, but recently I had a long chat with someone with whom I shared so many traits/viewpoints and it turned out he'd been diagnosed.
My problem is that I start off well at every job, but within a year or two things go incredibly wrong, I feel that people gang up on me and I end up walking out. I can't cope with meetings: I can't think of anything to say, if I do say something it's ignored and I get told I project a 'negative attitude'. At breaks no-one talks to me. I feel like a caged bird, desperate to escape, and if anything overruns beyond the time it was supposed to finish, I get very angry and resentful.
I excel at time management, organisation and anything that requires loads of detail, but no matter how hard I try people accuse me of being unapproachable or I get criticised for things that others get away with. I help others as much as I can, but I get told I don't! I give praise and support, but am told I don't! I go out of my way to be friendly to people, but I'm told I don't! It's like it doesn't matter what I do I get picked on for it. My cards are marked, so to speak, because I am incredibly honest all the time and believe in justice, and people don't like the challenge. I find it almost impossible to manage my emotions and become either a blubbering wreck or 'aggressive' because I will defend myself if I feel something is unfair.
I'm getting to the point where I'm likely to walk out of another job because I can't stand what I perceive to be victimisation. Clearly the issue must be me, or the pattern wouldn't have repeated itself three times now. I just can't work with people; they have agendas that I really cannot understand.
Does anyone else experience these kinds of problems at work?
Poorlittlefish, this topic of conversation is so, so, so pertinent to me in recent weeks. I relate to nearly every issue you have mentioned coming up against, and truly thought it was just me.I sit on the sidelines and feel so excluded from conversation or humour, never knowing what to say, when to say it or who to say it to. No matter how hard I try, I never seem to advance like those around me do, and seem to have a whispered reputation of being "difficult", "whingy" or "over-emotional" - simply because I, like you, defend what I think is just and burn up at some of the incompetence and unfairness I must stand by and endure.Truthfully it is getting me down, and I am seeking a way out, but it is not forthcoming. My Manager knows of my condition, but not the first thing about what it mean for me or how they can support me.I recognise this has become a slightly self-pitying rant, sorry! Just please... Know you are definitely, DEFINITELY not alone!