Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi There,
I am in my late 40's and have discovered I have autism a couple of years ago, I started working for a new employer who does lots of team building and what I call forced social events about a year ago and am really finding it hard. I had my first meltdown since I was a child this week when I walked into a room for one of these events.
I am trying to work out what reasonable adjustments I can request and wondered if anyone had some tips to help me. I like the job and like the people I work closely with and my manage is very supportive but I can't seem to get them to understand me and how it effects me.
Any help would be great.
Thank you
Mark
I am still working out how my autism affects me and one recent 'discovery' may be a good way to describe it to your colleagues...
I do not process faces and body language subconsciously as everyone else does, I have to see everything and try and piece together what is happening around me through conscious effort.
I dont see 'someone happy to see me', I see a person looking at me, maybe a smile on their face and a wave ... and I know it is the first time I have seen them that day ... I have to collate all the factors and infer they are happy to see me.
I can do this with one, or maybe a small number, but if there are many people, or i am tired, there is simply to much to have to work through for me to be able to interact. The phrase I believe is 'task saturation'. The brain cannot handle the amount of input that is required for the task. The workload of having to consciously pay attention to anyone who may be interacting with me, then having to think through all the factors and to try and understand what the situation is, is utterly exhausting.
You’ve described it very well. I think what confuses other people sometimes is that at times (and especially when first meeting someone or starting a job / being interviewed) we can mask quite effectively. That then makes people think that we can deal with these social situations and they do not realise at all how much effort this is taking. It can be so draining… i am becoming more concious now of the impact …
I have been trying to describe the mask also ... I don't know if this is the best way but ....
As autistic people are not able to understand the expressions and body-language in the way that others do, that we cannot simply react to what others are expressing, because we do not see what they are expressing, we learn a basic set of almost rote interactions ... we watch other people and note, 'person 'A' does this, then person 'B' does that' ... we build up a library of pieces of script, scenes from a play if you will, about how we are supposed to interact with other people.
As long as the social interaction falls into one of the scenes we have practiced before, we can act in a manner that others expect. But picking up the signals for which scene we are playing can be very taxing (see my other answer in this thread). When we get tired or there are too many people, or the situation is one we have not learned the script for, we are lost, overwhelmed.