Hello

Hi and welcome. I completely understand the desire to fully endorse your autistic identity. It is important for your sense of self. I am openly autistic, but them I am not in a job.

There are recurring discussions on this forum whether to disclose or not . It is always a very personal decision in a  particular set of circumstances.

In the past discussions people felt they were not treated the same, taken less seriously after disclosure both by managers and by colleagues.
If you are completely fine in your job and your health  and are not looking to get immediate reasonable adjustments, there may be little upside in disclosing.
My understanding the research by Noah Sasson has shown that when people disclose, the majority of people treat them better, especially if people have good autism knowledge. But people with prejudices and discriminatory attitudes start treating autistic people less well after disclosure. So the risk is that people at work don't have good autism understanding and some could be prejudiced. On the other hand they know and value you well, so they could just think, OK, if autism is being like you, than autism is OK. It is always a personal gut feeling whether to disclose or not.

One word of caution is that if you disclose you need to be ready to articulate how autism affects you and how this effect makes you qualified for the job with or without reasonable adjustments. For example if your job description requires you to be an excellent communicator, you need to articulate how autism doesn't prevent you from doing this. The key is to explain that autism is a way of doing things differently, in a different way, not a deficiency.

Take a look here https://ndsa.uk/content/employment/

So you need a careful preparation of how you will handle the disclosure.

Hi and welcome. I completely understand the desire to fully endorse your autistic identity. It is important for your sense of self. I am openly autistic, but them I am not in a job.

There are recurring discussions on this forum whether to disclose or not . It is always a very personal decision in a  particular set of circumstances.

In the past discussions people felt they were not treated the same, taken less seriously after disclosure both by managers and by colleagues.
If you are completely fine in your job and your health  and are not looking to get immediate reasonable adjustments, there may be little upside in disclosing.
My understanding the research by Noah Sasson has shown that when people disclose, the majority of people treat them better, especially if people have good autism knowledge. But people with prejudices and discriminatory attitudes start treating autistic people less well after disclosure. So the risk is that people at work don't have good autism understanding and some could be prejudiced. On the other hand they know and value you well, so they could just think, OK, if autism is being like you, than autism is OK. It is always a personal gut feeling whether to disclose or not.

One word of caution is that if you disclose you need to be ready to articulate how autism affects you and how this effect makes you qualified for the job with or without reasonable adjustments. For example if your job description requires you to be an excellent communicator, you need to articulate how autism doesn't prevent you from doing this. The key is to explain that autism is a way of doing things differently, in a different way, not a deficiency.

Take a look here https://ndsa.uk/content/employment/

So you need a careful preparation of how you will handle the disclosure.

Thanks for this, it's very helpful. I have already disclosed to work and, subject to lockdown, we'll be looking at getting a work based needs assessment. There are some adjustments I would hope for, as I find my work and welfare are better in a more self-contained environment. The outbreak has demonstrated that I can easily do my work from home and I will be stressing this as well. Only a small subset of colleagues have been told.

Pre-diagnosis I had given up on being taken particularly seriously or being viewed as suitable for promotion or advanced duties. It is a slow burner but I will be taking the diagnosis and disclosure as an opportunity to challenge them on whether they are adequately taking my circumstances into account on that front. I work in a team where there have been some absolutely chronic absence problems - not me, but teammates who have been off ill for months at a time, several times across several years. I will continue to point out how that would put stress on anyone's abilities, ND or not.

I think one thing I am more widely concerned about it being more open in my work connections and this in turn becoming known to a wider social circle - especially my young kids' parents and friends. Discriminatory comments and taunts are not justified, but at the same time I feel it is too soon for my kids to have to deal with this.