TerdFerguson

Let me preface this by saying, I am extremely fortunate to be working a fully remote job where I am able to manage my environment and generally be as I am without too much trouble from that.

It's, of course subject to changes and the whims of my 'leaders' but its pretty great for now, and has been for five years.

I have been to the office exactly twice. Once to pick up my equipment, and once for a two-day all staff social that took me a week to recover from.

My new boss wants to have quarterly in-office strategic cheerleading sessions. I cannot imagine many scenarios where I will feel my disability more, and do not want to go. Not just because of the discomfort, but because I understand the setback that will come from my team seeing me spaced out and weird. Because I know I will not be able to participate the way my new boss desires, and I need to figure out how to regain the standing that I am sure to lose from this 'day of connecting with others'

Every article I read about the common social struggles of autism, talks about the need to build a supportive and inclusive environment.

They never go into what is needed in order to do that effectively, because the correct answer means changing how all the normal people behave to become more supportive and inclusive.

Lately, I need to be attending more meetings at work. Longer meetings as well.

I use an icepack to recover from the forebrain exhaustion I feel, but I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on improving my social stamina.

Prep techniques? Supplements?

Thanks fam

Looking after yourself is important, at least as important as attending to your responsibilities.

My work has had so much pressure lately: persistent threat of mass layoffs, a massive reorganization, a new boss, a change in team dynamics that has seen some of the shittiness in others rise to the surface, new duties, needing to prove my worth at work all over again, make new relationships.

I haven't been sleeping properly, my other latent health issues are acting up.

Screw work for today. Nobody will die if I don't go. I'm just gonna chill.

I just want to remind everyone who needs to take a break to do it if they can. I realize its not an option available to everyone.. I've lived most of my life in that mode but I'm able to do it for now.

I'm planning on trying out some FL-41 coated glasses for my next pair. They are meant to help migraine sufferers manage their light sensitivity, but I wonder if they might be effective for managing my own light-related sensory issues.

Anyone here try them?

So, I'm a job-having asperger-type autistic man. L1ASD, I guess is the way to refer to it currently.

Shout out to all the non-job havers and everything in between, I get that I'm fortunate enough to have been able to manage to navigate through life and somehow sustain a career (in tech ofc).

OK - here's my thing. My boss was fired last week due to corpo doing what corpo does, not because he did anything wrong, and he was a good dude that was supportive and wasn't bothered by the fact that I am autistic and that I have certain communication-related differences than the rest of the team. He was kind of stablizing presence too for others on my team that are less understanding.

I have to tolerate teammates that lowkey openly mock me for my communiction challenges. Some of them know I'm autistic and are just ableist dicks that are mad they can't throw around the r-word like they used to, others in the extended team don't know but follow the lead of someonw who does. Whatever, not the point its just life.

Now I will have a new boss in about a week, I expect I will disclose to them to at least make an attempt for them to try to not judge my autistic persona in the arenas where it is most debilitated. You know I want them to suspend that surface-level jusdment and hold off for a character judgement instead, where I'm pretty solid and would prefer to have my value judged. Of course this isn't how people work and sadly we see today the cultural tides pushing back against diversity, and that includes the neuro kind.

I know I can't control this but I hate having to figure out somoene new, especially a boss. I know that things change, and like many of you I like consistency. I at least like to be in the driver's seat when change is required.

I am just feeling so drained. Thanks for reading.

I know that’s a problem a lot of us share. I need some guidance from someone who has it figured out.

Someone here has gotta be a self-study in gastroenterology. Well I hope so anyway.