An autism diagnosis is one of those weird things that can range from a profoundly important, life changing thing, to a borderline irrelevant piece of trivia about yourself, depending on where you are in life, what coping mechanisms you’ve developed on your own, etc.
For me, realizing I had autistic traits was kinda life changing, even though I didn’t get a diagnosis.
Also undiagnosed, also have autistic traits. I kinda just roll with them. A diagnosis wouldnt change anything.
It would change how employers have to treat you.
No diagnosis: “Oh, you can’t focus when people are talking around you? Boo hoo for you.”
vs
Diagnosis: “Oh, you can´t focus when people are talking around you and the tags on the shirt bother you? Well, let’s do something about that right away!”
Oh for sure, if you have a lot of power because your expertise is in very high demand, or your accommodations aren’t “too much”, this is exactly how it works.
On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s the best idea these days to have this fact known to a government. Unless the current rightward shift reverts very soon, we’ll be properly fucked once climate change really hits - difficult times nudge people towards extremes, and the far right mostly despises autistic people.
Even as someone living in Europe, I’m honestly too scared.
Man that hits hard, I was able to make some career moves during Covid, but those opportunities seem to be drying up the last couple years, it’s a scary time
Yeah, I have a feeling it won’t take long before it all goes down the drain…
Wait are there people that don’t take the tags off their shirt?
Yeah, why would I?
How about “I cant do repetitive or mundane tasks or I risk zoning out and causing an accident”
I don’t know that the ADA would help you there, unless there’s a modification that would make repetitive and mundane tasks doable for you OR those repetitive and mundane tasks are not a core job function. (US Context)
You think you’re being funny, but i had a friend who was a nurse and kept saying this about me.
I’m a senior, I couldn’t care less at this point.
If only she’d spoken up when you were a sophomore
