Imagine.
You make what seems like an innocent remark, and suddenly the person you were having a drink with stands up and starts punching you. To this day, you have no idea what happened in that conversation, or what you could have said, to trigger that.
At work, you wave and greet someone. The next day, you get called into HR for “disruptive behavior,” and don't get a chance to speak in your defense. When you tell someone why their network setup isn't working, you get warned that you're “unprofessional” and get threatened with firing, which eventually they all do anyway.
You fell through the cracks in childhood, since you lived at a time when nobody talked about autism. Your teachers were angry at you. Your classmates trailed behind you and made fun of you. Sometimes they quoted from the movie Rain Man. Sometimes they exagerattedly mimicked your unusual movements.
You somehow manage to survive and make it to adulthood. You poured yourself into your studies, got impressive grades, awards, and scholarships. Later, you poured yourself into your job. But you have no professional network since your college classmates made fun of you the same way your middle and high school classmates did.
At work, people talk about how they're placing their children into therapy for autism. But when they report you, you're an “adult” and should have “outgrown” your problem. Although you never had any autism therapy sessions until you were officially diagnosed as an adult.
You work hard to suppress yourself, but no matter how hard you try, you slip every so often. And then there goes another friend, or another job. At work, you're informed by Legal that there's no protection for you, and HR can do as they will.
You get constantly told by therapists to “put yourself in others’ shoes.” But nobody tries to put themselves in your shoes.
How do you think you feel about other people? About society? Friendship? Your life in general?
Yeah. I thought so.
No comments:
Post a Comment