DISCLOSURE in the workplace

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Hello everyone - I have a rather contentious issue to raise, having recently gone thru it (last month) myself. I disclosed to my boss that I had Aspergers. Some background: I am a professional in my 30s, diagnosed with Aspergers in 2001, and have had the blessing of being employed in a promising career path since the late 90s and having gotten communication & cognitive behavioural counselling. It's still a struggle though.

So, I have been employed at this company since last spring - it's in a technical/analytical role, but my current boss (in her 50s) is very sensory-perceptive, always talking about smoothness and picking up on cues etc etc like it's a religion to her. I came under constant and frequent criticism from her for not "looking beyond what's being said" or "try to listen to what people are REALLY telling you" in a condescending (not agressive, just patronizing) tone. So I finally disclosed, following a year-end review where the principal criticism was related to AS manifestations. She had never heard of it (Baby Boomers don't seem to know, but the majority of us Gen-X's do), and asked me a very naive and offensive question:

"Oh...is there a cure for it??"

That is wrong in so many ways...not only is it naive (if there was a cure, I would've gotten it already, it would be like polio, eradicated.) but also insinuates that Aspergers is BAD and should be done away with, which is a huge ethical dilemma for the Western World (I am against "curing" it.)

She more or less had an "oh well, la di da" kind of response to it - except she suggested that maybe she should be present in more meetings with me to gauge people's reactions (although I've participated in many meetings in this job and my past one w/o one of my team or supervisor present, no problems). Since then, she has still nit-picked me on several matters, and acts in a passive-agressive way (such as asking me to change something on a file I sent her, that she put in as a change to my original, just in an arbitrary way).

So, my disclosure didn't make it any better or worse. I'm not sure among you out there whether you disclosed, and what the outcome was - I know that for us Aspies, we tend to take things people say at face value so even if somebody said something like "oh...I see, well, that's OK, I mean we're all different, imagine how boring the world would be if we were all the same, so don't worry you're a good guy and I'm glad you told me about this bla bla..." it doesn't mean that's what they're thinking.

If you want a good resource, check out Barbara Bissonnette's page - her advice on disclosure is golden!! But I'd like to hear from you guys what your experiences were (and what you thought of mine).

I think you are correct. She is condescending and ignorant and she will probably not change.
A lot of people don't want to understand others, they just wonder what is wrong with them.
I give you a lot of credit for understanding your actions. I wonder if she understands hers. She seems so clueless.

Disclosure in the workplace (Asperger's / Autism) - What you share is common (my view). Am aware of a number of instances involving simple items such as taking off work for a doctor's appointment or leaving work to serve on required jury duty which have caused the most ungodly kind of comments to come from the mouths of management.

I have applied very selective disclosure within my work environment. So far, they results are not negative, maybe slightly positive.

I think the reactions of people have often very little to do with autism or Asperger's specifically and a lot more with the fact that people are in general just not very flexible. A disclosure of ANY disability means that people's perceptions and expectations are misaligned and need adjusting. But such adjustments require change and people resist change.

I have been a teacher in a public high school for the past 23 years. After my diagnosis of AS, I never kept it a secret. If an opportune time comes up to mention AS, I do. Many of my colleagues and students know I have AS, and everything goes on as normal. I haven't been treated differently by those that know.

I brought mine out as soon as it was given to me. My review went in for all the signatures before my dx and came back out after. When I got my review and my boss and I read the "areas for improvement" (or the reasons why you are being held back), they read straight out of the DSM.

1. Does not network appropriately for grade leve (AKA socialize)
2. Does not abstract (too literal) and misses conversations sometimes
3. Sometimes fails to see the big picture (gets lost in details)

My boss said I was protected under the disabilities act and had HR remove all of these. These 3 things have plagued me my entire 20 + year career. Now I can work on things that I really can fix.

Your boss is neither allowed to make comments to you nor to suggest you to fix things that are a direct result of your dx.

My psychologist was ready to go to bat for me if I needed it. (I did not) You may explain some simple legal concepts to your boss as a next resort.

I am fortunate to work in the grocery business, which is known for its prolific hiring of mentally unique individuals.

A few people know that I have suspicions (to be confirmed later this month by a neuropsychologist) of Asperger's.

There is no way I can disguise myself. I am as flamboyant of an aspie as you could probably get. I say inappropriate things, play my version of Tetris with peoples grocery's on the conveyor belt, stand aloof, stim constantly, sway.

As soon as I am able to get that 'official', not just a therapist opinion, diagnosis, I will be protected (we are union and ADA) in the event I should ever accidentally say or do something so totally inappropriate.

Example:
What if a women fell and hurt herself? I would not know what to do. I just might stand there and stare in shock. Under normal circumstances I might get fired for not assisting her because it is assumed I have the capacity to help. But with disclosure my job would be protected.

They didn't do much here when I disclosed my DX - they just cut me a bit of slack on the work that was causing me the most trouble. They don't really protect me from stressful situations because they're not proactive or specific enough in making adjustments, though it's hard to know what they could reasonably do. They had a meeting with me about it, I'm still waiting for the minutes, after 18 months. Can't remember a word of what was said now. I've given them copies of all the stuff in my DX that's relevent to my role.

But I don't regret disclosing. These days I feel safer, because if I make an Aspie-type mistake, I know they're on shaky ground if they try to threaten me into performing better, and I think they know that too. Before the DX, some of them did seem to be gunning for me behind my back....I got the impression that they were exasperated with some aspects of my behaviour, and were hoping to rehabilitate me by pushing me into the deep end - giving me piles of weird work that I can't do. I'm afraid they hardly ever tackle personnel issues directly or intelligently. The place is run by academics and workaholics who have no management skills.

You guys have some interesting stories. I'm glad they turned out well for you. However, I wonder if anyone has experienced any kind of backlash to diagnosing in the form of passive-agressive reactions - I have dealt with these, I remember years ago that I was kept out of the loop on certain things (numerous instances w/in a certain time span, suggesting it was intentional), gossiped about (including a "rain man" moniker back in 2001), and more recently I dealt with false criticisms such as sending a report for review and certain petty changes such as adding line breaks or removing bullet points by the recipient were blamed on me, even though I had the submitted version showing such improper changes were not made. Just a covert way of saying, what was the old redneck expression? oh yeah: "I don't like your kind."

When/if you get certain behaviours that appear condescending, such as people speaking slowly or saying the same thing verbatim 3 times, it might be b/c they don't understand how to approach your condition and/or they never read a page on AS despite you having disclosed to them. You know that you are not a moron and do not have ADHD, you are very bright and focused, giving your undivided attention and commitment to the matter at hand - as those are the positive traits of AS - you just have clicnical difficulty reading nuances and subtext in speech. This is where you just have to be patient and realize that people are likely not acting that way on purpose. However you should be wary of any harmful gestures that make you feel like there is something wrong with you when you know it's the other person's problem, such as I've mentioned at the top.

If your boss is not allowed to make such comments, is this stated anywhere in law (code, article number)?? I'd like to see that...