So you think your colleague is autistic – what do you do, and why do you want to do it? You might well be wanting to help them access reasonable adjustments, in which case, that’s great. But you might also be making a number of assumptions. Firstly, that they don’t know they’re autistic, and secondly that if they are it’s somehow your business. Or you might be trying to change them. Being autistic is unhelpful (you think to yourself). So surely there must be something as a manager/colleague you can do get them to tone it down? What can you do to get them – frankly – NOT to be so autistic?
Of course you can’t. Autism isn’t an illness or a mental health condition – it’s a way of having your brain wired, and its there when you’re born and there when you die. Asking an autistic person “not to be so autistic” is asking them to hide it. That just puts pressure on the autistic person to fit in for the convenience of those around them. It’s not fair, and it’s not good for their mental health.
As an illustration of why it’s wrong to expect autistic people to hide that they’re autistic, imagine you had a colleague with any other disability. Would you say: “it’s really inconvenient that you have a sight impairment – I’m going to expect you to pretend that you can see”? Or “please stop being Deaf – it makes my life difficult – I’d rather you could hear.” Asking an autistic person to hide their autism is something similar – it’s asking them to put your needs ahead of their own and also do something really difficult, if not impossible.
My friend who has a hearing impairment is a brilliant lip reader and can usually act as though they can hear. But it’s tiring for them and sometimes – obviously – they have to ask someone to speak more slowly or face towards them or similar. My approach as an autistic professional is also to ask for the minimum adaptions I can get away with. I adapt myself as much as I can to my colleagues because I want to be helpful and I want my communications to be as effective as possible. But sometimes I have to ask for help.
It’s a tricky balance because as a point of principle, we autistics don’t owe it to you to be as like you as we can. But the choice to act as “normal” as possible in order to make our own lives easier or persuade stakeholders of something is often very necessary. I’d like to live in a world where I could be authentically me all the time and not experience any adverse effects but I’m also keenly aware that I don’t live in that world. Yet.
Being pragmatic, autism isn’t something we should feel obliged to hide all the time. Until we live in a neurodiversity-friendly world some sort of adaptation by us is going to be a practical necessity. But some adaption to us would be nice as well. And above all, if having an autistic colleague makes you uncomfortable, please remember that’s your issue. It’s not on the autistic colleague to hide their disability for you any more than it would be up to a blind colleague to pretend they could see. Sure, an autistic leader has some responsibility to adapt to their staff so as to lead effectively (in the same way any leader does), but no autistic is morally obliged to pretend not to be autistic. If you’re trying to “change” your autistic colleague, you may well be asking them to do just that.
Autistic Civil Servant 