Deciding whether to let your workplace know you’re autistic should be easy. Sadly, there’s still a huge amount of ignorance and discrimination out there. This is what happened to me, and why I’m so open about being autistic now.
I once told a manager that I’m autistic. It didn’t end well.
Said manager had mastered the art of corporate speak. Hidden within the buzzwords and vagueness were things I was supposed to do.
Codebreaking is said to be an autistic skill, and the things I was supposed to do were encrypted messages. But I was (and am) no cryptanalyst of subtext.
The only way I ever understood the oracular ambiguity was to have a neurotypical comrade alongside to interpret it for me. But even I knew that approach was, as they say, a career-limiting move.
Why I decided to out myself at work as autistic
After many misunderstandings and not a few clashes, I decided to tell my manager about being autistic. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but I guessed it couldn’t hurt to be direct. The workplace I was in made a big deal out of diversity. Asking for some understanding and clarity would, I hoped, give me a second chance to show that I was actually very good at my job.
Well, it did put me on the fast track. The fast track into a more junior role where I could be safely quarantined from interacting with a team, or anybody remotely important to my manager’s career progression. In other words, the purgatory for the unmanageable called special projects.
At least I didn’t have to waste any more hours of my life that I would never get back on pointless meetings and irrelevant emails.
But it did hurt. A lot. In fact, it completely fucked up my mental health for almost a year. When there’s a whole lot of things neurotypicals value that you struggle with or just can’t do, you’re already in the high-risk zone when one of your autistic strengths is completely invalidated.
How I made sure I never had to do it again
In the end, being isolated from my colleagues, and watching them in turn shun me, had the opposite effect to the one that was no doubt intended. Instead of making me ashamed of the way my brain is wired, it made me even more unconcerned about just owning it.
You don’t have to look too far now to find out my neurodivergence is part of what I bring to my work. It’s not like I greet everyone by saying ‘Hi, I’m Meaghan and I’m autistic’. But, if it wasn’t a secret before, I’ve made it much more straightforward now. (And writing a blog doesn’t exactly make it private).
Now, there are no surprises on my part, so there can be no excuses on yours about not knowing. That means you can’t retrofit your views about my competence onto your opinions about autism.
Why disclosure is complicated
I don’t like the word ‘disclosure’. It has connotations of secrets and legalities. I’m also deeply conscious that having the choice to disclose is so often a privileged one.
But figuring out the complexities of disclosure is part of what it means to navigate a world where you don’t make the rules, much less understand many of them. Disclosure can lead to acceptance and workplace adjustments, or active discrimination[1]. Unsurprisingly, my experience of feeling compelled to disclose after a negative experience is not exceptional[2]. As an autistic worker, it can be hard to know whether a workplace’s ‘commitment to diversity’ extends to anything more than nice posters on the wall.
Don’t follow my example
This story ends well for me. I now have the extreme good fortune of working in a place that accepts me for who I am and is interested in my strengths, not my weaknesses. But getting there was hard and I know many people like me are never offered that opportunity.
If you’re neurodivergent and thinking about letting your employer know, don’t take my experience as an example of what you should do. I badly misjudged my situation and was lucky to have support to get through the consequences. Talk with someone who understands you. Understand the downside and have a back-up plan in case it doesn’t work out well. And find some information written by people who know what they’re talking about. These links might be a good start:
Disclosing your autism – a guide for autistic adults
What to consider when thinking about disclosing your diagnosis to your employer
Image credit: Gerry Zambonini on Flickr licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
[1] Romualdez, A., Walker, Z. & Remington, A. (2021) Autistic adults’ experiences of diagnostic disclosure in the workplace: Decision-making and factors associated with outcomes. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments. doi:10.1177/23969415211022955
The current study identified positive organisational changes as one outcome of disclosure, but these changes were often brought on by the autistic individuals themselves. The organisations in these situations were forced to define their disclosure and adjustment protocols because their autistic employees either took legal action or demanded change. While making these changes is a step in the right direction, we recommend that organisations take a more proactive approach to embracing and supporting diversity, rather than relying on their disabled employees to show them where they can improve.
[2] Romualdez, A., Heasman, B., Walker, Z., Davies, J. & Remington, A. (2021). “People might understand me better”: Diagnostic disclosure experiences of autistic individuals in the workplace. Autism in Adulthood. Jun 2021.157-167. doi:10.1089/aut.2020.0063
Many participants made statements that reflected the necessity of disclosure rather than disclosure as a choice. The fact that many participants in our study felt forced to disclose may indicate a breakdown in the organisational processes that failed to show support for autistic employees. It may also show a lack of trust toward their organisations if autistic employees only disclosed after encountering issues at work. To avoid this, one recommendation is that employers have clear proactive protocols for disclosure.