So - discussion. If you are in or looking for employment. Would you disclose your ASC? What, if any benefits do you feel this will have on a job? Is it dependent on the job to disclose your ASC? Or do you feel it will have a negative impact on a job? Or a positive impact
my boss never lost faith in me
Similar story. It was because of my prior manager who started delving into reasons as to what the hell was going on with me that I got my assessment and diagnosis. I'll never be able to repay her for what she did. I took the decision then to disclose to the rest of the people I work with - although I could have kept it under wraps.
Every other place where I expected support pre-diagnosis, it didn't come through for me - and that includes family.
I'm waiting for an assessment and have got to this point because my medical phobias and the sensory issues were causing debilitating anxiety and some pretty dramatic meltdowns now that of an age where frequent medical treatment is required. It has made me very ill over the past couple of years.
I work with in an education department in our local council. My boss is an ex teacher and is great. He's very much a people person who cares about his staff. I've kept him in the loop throughout and he's been so supportive.
As soon as I said: "I think I've finally worked out what's happening to me and why, and I need an assessment for autism", he recognised it straight away and he thinks so too. He said: "we often pick up on boys in the classroom, and so often miss the girls" and then sent me a battery of links to resources on recognising girls in education.
As soon as I described what goes on for me in medical settings and the other problems I had as a kid, he recognised it, when every MH professional had failed to and written me off as ...well, I don't know what they think; just a naughty little girl throwing a tantrum possibly.
I'll give him sight of the report when I get it and I know that whether the diagnosis is ASD or some other sub-spectrum SPD, I'll get the support I need. I just want to be better so I can go back to crunching data and telling him how his plans need to be more specific, lol. I have a lot of loyalty to him.
I think what I am saying is a lot depends on the boss and the trust they engender. I've lucked out big time. I have a boss who values me, is a lovely human being and has the professional experience to know what ASD is when he sees it.
MH services put me in the bin as worthless, my boss never lost faith in me. It means a lot.
In full-time employment and have disclosed my diagnosis. Several reasons.
The first is that (where possible) I need things a certain way in communications and clear instructions otherwise I get "slightly" stressed. It also helps that sometimes I need "time out" at work to wind down from interacting with people and time to recharge - I'm in a ton of meetings at the moment because I work remotely and covering some management duties which I find absolutely exhausting. So with people aware that I can get run down it does help me negotiate cover for things if I get overloaded.
With disclosure I've got scope to request reasonable adjustments. I've worked on a remote team for years now and although there's no move back to the office just yet I can request to be a permanent home worker (otherwise I'm commuting to spend time on the phone/MS Teams which, if I've had a difficult day, can reduce me to a wreck). Legally it also means I'm protected - all my managers have an edited copy of my assessment report so I've something to fall back on if things get silly.
It also helps, to an extent, with peoples understanding. If I'm stressed my communication style can be a little too direct (I've been told) and I'm rubbish with social cues. On those occasions I'm a bit "off" folk know not to take it personally and that there's probably something else going on that's distracting me. I am very fortunate where I work at the moment that the people I work with are generally supportive, although the work environment hasn't really changed (too many meetings, no agendas, not enough prep time or clear asks) so that is an on-going thing.
I do feel slightly stuffed from a career point of view as there are definitely situations where I'm simply not as able as others. People still put me to shame when they summarise meetings because I can miss a lot of verbal information if it's in general discussion. I need as much info up front as possible to prep for meetings because I can struggle to generate ideas on the fly. Where I am at the moment the next step up is all people management and having tried it out for the last month to cover for someone else, I have found it pretty exhausting. There's the greater emphasis on social networking which I'm ok with if there's a clear goal in mind (talk to X to get Y), I'm not so good with the politics though.
I've also got regular meetings with my manager to keep tabs on where I'm finding things more difficult. There's a lot of empathy in the sense that people say they experience frustration over the same things, although the understanding that I process things differently isn't always there. That's really tough to get across, but then I can be told about a social cue or one of those "hidden rules" and I'm equally as mystified.
Don't regret disclosure - my diagnosis is part of who I am in the sense it impacts how I see the world and relate to others which I need folk to understand - so in a pragmatic sense I'd struggle to find reasons to keep it from people.
