Published on 12, July, 2020
Ok I know shutdowns are not great at any time, but yesterday I had one that was particularly embarrassing.
My workload has increased lately and I have been aware my stress levels were rising. It was only after yesterday that I realised this has been building for a while.
I had to be part of a day long meeting consisting of numerous presentations and I had to present as well. I thought there would be 10 people in the room maximum, but this was closer to 30 when I walked in, which I wasn't prepared for. We also started to run behind schedule so there was no real breaks and a working lunch. My breaks and lunch are normally when I focus on resting and keeping myself fueled so this also impacted. The day was also full of masses of information from different people that I was struggling to keep up with/take in. Finally, when I had to present I was ok for the first two thirds of the presentation, then I started to feel unwell. Due to my concentration on the presentation, I hadn't realised a shutdown was creeping up on me. What resulted was me stuttering and stumbling over my words, speaking sentences backwards and generally not making sense. I stopped the presentation to say I needed a drink of water as I was feeling faint. I then tried to carry on, but my hearing went very fuzzy, I could no longer read what I was presenting and finally my vision went to which point I panicked and ran out. I was found by the first aider in a slumped heap outside the building. To make things worse I was non-verbal for 5 minutes, so then people didn't know if I was being hypoglycemic or whether I was having a stroke!
I just wanted some quite in a dark room, but couldn't say that. I finally managed to say I needed some water and something sweet - I find this helps with brain function and getting things kick-started quicker. Finally I was taken to the first aid room to rest, but the lights were awful and the smell of disinfectant was overwhelming. I spent the evening feel terrible at home like I was trying to function whilst wearing a lead suit. My head was banging and I felt incredibly anxious.
Whether this is just the anxiety affecting my judgement, I am not sure, but I am now worrying how people at work will judge me. The only person who knows about my ASD is my boss and he kind of put two and two together. It's my colleagues I worry about as it is a dog eat dog type of place at times, where I woiuldn't want my weaknesses to be made public.
I'm not sure what to do now as work is obviously impacting on me, so need to speak to my boss, but worry they will start to think I am not up to the job anymore.
Sorry for digging this whole thread up again, but I had another shutdown last Friday, which resulted in an ambulance being called and me going to A&E as they thought I was having a stroke.
Cut a long story short, I haven't felt right since the last shutdown and I have seen my GP to see what can be done to help with the situation.
In the meantime though, my boss seems to be supportive, but then I came home to find a letter stating that I need to see Occupational Health again. This is the same Occupational Health that initially said I don't 'look or sound' autistic. I understand that my employer will need some assistance on how to manage me going forward, but I am concerned that the person I spoke to previously didn't know what they were talking about and was quite discriminatory to autistic people in general. If I feel that the person from OH is not understanding of autism, am I in a position to ask my employer to seek assistance from another agency? I appreciate this may seem demanding from their perspective, but I didn't trust the person I spoke to last time.
I would like to think that my company is trying to work with me rather than get rid of me, but do I have any rights in this type of situation? I have been told previously by OH that I don't.
Hello Starbuck. Sorry to hear you are having even more tough times. It’s good that your boss is supportive. I have had a string of OH apt’s over the years. Some work related and some dss related. Of the work related one initially I felt just like you. It was horrible. ( for other reasons I wasn’t diagnosed then). As it happened my employer changed OH and it’s the same building the dss use now too and it was much better. As far as work was concerned I wasn’t in a position to resign ( I did that in another job due to stress and I lost out financially) and if you resign it’s more difficult with benefits etc so I just had to keep going. It was very stressful. So within the place you were sent might have a team and more than one OT/Dr/health assessor which may mean you get someone else and you could ask your employer for support to have a different oh. You can refuse to go it is not compulsory but could be awkward. But if the oh wasn’t listening or accepting anyway then it would probably be less stressful. I’m sorry it’s so difficult and don’t have any legal answers.
When your company (HR) fill in this form that they need to give the OH doctor (OH is not "other half" here, I got quite confused in other threads...) then they will probably show it to you first, at least it should be your right to see it. At that point (if not earlier) it may be worth asking them to request that you are seen by someone with suitable experience. For that they need to be as specific as possible of course, so whoever fills in the form will need to know about this if that isn't your boss. The OH place may not agree and say that the normal OH doctor will do and if that one thinks they need some sort of specialist they will say so after seeing you, but ask HR not to let them get away with this but to make sure you are seen by someone appropriate because if you get sent to someone who doesn't have a clue they won't realise that they need someone else to help out. It may still not work because there must be a reason why OH doctors become OH doctors rather than doctors that try to make people better, but chances are hopefully better that it is at least not someone who is completely ignorant of it. Since this is in the interest of both you and your employer they will hopefully request this and insist in it.
Take care, hope you get calmer and feel a bit more like yourself again and good luck with this OH doctor, whichever they send you to.