Asperger's on the Inside

“So what happened? What went wrong when you entered the workforce?” you might ask. And isn’t that the million-dollar question? Even with the blessing of hindsight and an understanding of my Asperger’s, I still find it hard to describe exactly what the feeling was that I experienced when put behind a desk. But whatever it was, it was very wrong.

I think the crux of it was that suddenly I wasn’t able to do things my way any longer. I couldn’t come and go as I pleased, I wasn’t in control of managing my own time, and when I really just needed to walk away, there was no avenue for me to escape. All the systems and methods I’d come up with for coping with life’s frustrations that had worked in the freedom of a study environment weren’t accessible to me here. Socialize at work and get the work done at home? Not an option. Yet the mental exhaustion of trying to do both is insufferable to me! Too bad, suck it up. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., I was trapped.

And so, those five years that I worked, I fell into the heaviest depression I’ve ever encountered, which could have easily killed my spirit irreparably had I never found a way to get out. And the obvious question here is, why didn’t I just stop? You think I would have just refused and walked away from it so many years earlier. Believe me, I wanted to, but socially, it was hard.

How do you explain to the people around you that what you need now is to just crash and do nothing for a while until your head feels normal again, when you don’t even know what’s wrong yourself? It always felt like a depression of completely unknown origin that I couldn’t make sense of myself, let alone justify to others. “Think positive,” people tell you, “and you can pull yourself out of it with an upbeat attitude.” I worked so hard to fight it.

I remember when I first went in for my formal Asperger’s diagnosis a year and a half ago now. Dr. Loveland, who diagnosed me, explained that these workplace experiences I describe weren’t uncommon for people with Asperger’s and that she’d heard stories like mine before. She explained to me that that “sick” feeling I talked of was the result of bottling up frustration and anxiety all day, every day. Built up over time, I suppose it manifests physiologically, causing me stomach upset, low weight, and a general feeling of being unwell.

Some others with Asperger’s are known to have “outbursts,” where the frustrations get too much and they yell or snap at those around them. Many Aspies have trouble holding jobs for that reason. I can’t decide which is better: suppress it and feel unwell, or act out and lose jobs. If you act out, I guess at least it’s out of your system and you don’t have to feel the way I felt. I don’t ever want to feel those feelings again.

But back to the beginning…

At the time when I graduated university, the economy was at a slow point, and graduate jobs were scarce. Robert, whom I was soon to marry, had graduated the year before me and had gone to work in Sale, a town a two-hour drive from the city, so I was looking for a job that would allow me to see him. The options were a little limited. In fact, pre-graduation, I was only able to find two local chemical engineering roles to apply for.

One of these companies was Worley, a consulting company that, among other things, provided engineering services to the oil and gas industry. Worley had jobs in several “site” facilities (including Sale) as well as their main city office, so I thought they’d be an ideal place to apply.

When I went in for the interview, I immediately had a gut feeling that I wouldn’t like the city office environment much. Something about the cubicle setup, the lights, the noise, crowds, lack of privacy or sanctuary… But, being one who suffers from social anxiety ^[26], I put any negative feelings I had at the time down to that. I smiled, put on my confident act, and set about making a good impression at the interview.

Two interviews later, after receiving a lot of positive feedback, it had been established that there were no site roles available, and I was offered a job as a process engineer in the city office. I remember that moment quite well even now, all these years later. One of the interviewers said, “Congratulations,” and we all smiled. But my smile was an act. Inside, I had a sinking feeling that was completely foreign and unexplainable to me. We shook hands exchanged pleasantries, and I said I would get back to them soon. And then I went home.

The job seemed a good one. The role was solid and on a promising career track. It was a foot in the door to the process engineering world. The company had a pleasant culture, and it was the only such offer I was likely to get before graduating. I rang back the next day and told them how happy I would be to take the job.

Once working, I certainly didn’t hate everything about the job. There were a few key tasks that really suited me, and being a process engineer was quite a good fit. I made HYSYS (computer) simulations of chemical plants and ran flow scenarios. I particularly enjoyed this modeling as if I were playing a computer game. I had a good grasp of constraints and degrees of freedom and had a knack for troubleshooting.

I drew process and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), taking great pride in the details. In one particular job, I was in charge of all P&ID updates and running them through CAD (computer-aided drafting). The plant was several hundreds of pages of detailed A3 drawings. I absolutely loved this responsibility. I took joy in marking up changes on the master copies and checking off changes as they came back from CAD. I guess it was my meticulous nature. Everything had to be perfect, and this task was perfect for me. Within a short time, I knew every detail of that plant backward ^[27].

The other calculations I worked on weren’t as exciting for me. I think I would’ve been happy enough to do them had I been able to take them home and work in peace and quiet, but in the overstimulation of the cubicles, they required mental energy that I didn’t have, and I got frequent headaches from trying to concentrate.

I struggled to focus on the work and yet remain aware enough of the people and conversations around me to maintain an illusion of normality. When someone suddenly laughed loudly or spoke to me, it would snap me out of what I was focusing on, and I would have urges to yell at them. (I made sure that it didn’t show.) The computer gave me serious eye strain.

As someone who enjoys planning, I had a little more motivation when I was in control of a larger job from start to finish and could organize my time to suit me. But for the most part, the work was one random calculation after another. I was exhausted and struggled to keep going and going. I needed to escape.

Within a month of starting, I began to dread going to work. On the train heading in, I would have dreams about the train crashing and sending me to hospital or the city being bombed (preferably overnight while empty of people!). I became depressed and numb Monday to Friday and spent most of Sunday crying, feeling ill because I had to go to work again the next day. I was in no way “okay.”

When I mentioned it to people, I frequently got nonchalant replies such as, “Yeah, nobody likes working, but we all have to do it.” So after a while, I learnt to stop complaining. At the time, I had no idea that I had Asperger’s. And while I always had the sense that it must be worse for me than for other people, I couldn’t justify that feeling.

Some months into the job, I started talking to my boss about not being happy in the role. I was trying to approach the issue with solutions, so I focused mainly on what it was about the work I wanted to change. I hadn’t yet figured out that the environment was moreso the cause of those feelings. The feelings confused me, and I couldn’t rationalize them. My boss seemed to want to be helpful, but he couldn’t come up with much. I suspect he didn’t understand the problem. Heavens, how could he? I didn’t even understand the problem, so this went on for a long time.

During this job, I remember one particular incident that had a big impact on me. I think I was being myself a bit too freely one day and happened to make a childish, silly, and perhaps (unintentionally) inconsiderate remark among colleagues. My boss had a word to me privately. He told me—in a kind way—that I needed to think before I spoke. While he knew that I was capable and intelligent, others who didn’t know me might form opinions that perhaps I was silly or odd, which would reduce their confidence in my work. I needed to present a professional image.

I took the criticism seriously. It was yet another reinforcement that being myself wasn’t acceptable and that changing my behavior was going to be necessary for my success in life. How I wish I could go back now to undo these lessons and choose happiness instead.

At one point during this time, I suggested to my boss that I might like a transfer to a role in document control (managing P&IDs and other engineering drawings). He laughed and told me I was far too qualified for such a position. I still genuinely think it could’ve been a good place for me!

About a year and a half in, my boss suggested that maybe a transfer to safety and risk might suit me better. I was skeptical but felt pressured to take the role. I noticed about this time that I wasn’t included in one of the usual training courses that I’d expected to go on. I think my discontentedness was making my boss nervous.

I asked if I could perhaps work part time. I had a feeling that I might be able to handle work better with some more time in between to rest and relax and do my own things. I was told no. If I was given that, then others might want it too. The company couldn’t afford that. After all, what made me any different from anyone else? I think back now, if only I had known that I had Asperger’s at the time, perhaps they could’ve made an exception.

As expected, the role in safety and risk didn’t sit well with me at all, as it wasn’t black and white like the usual engineering but grey and open ended with many possible answers to each problem. The group was also a bit short on work, and, for periods, my new boss, Trevor, asked me to just wait and “act busy” sometimes for days at a time. I had no idea how to make myself look busy when I wasn’t. It was torturous trying to, and I’m not really good at acting and faking my way through things.

I remember one particular day walking into Trevor’s office to ask what I could do for the fifty millionth time. It was hard on me to just sit there and keep my numbing mind contented while looking busy. I guess it must’ve been hard on him too to be repeatedly pressured to come up with work, because as I got near the door, I caught a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision. He’d ducked down behind the cubicle walls and was running away.

If I wasn’t feeling down, I would’ve said it was quite a laughable thing to see a senior manager looking fancy in his formal suit scooting along the ground. After that, I just resigned myself to sitting at my desk and trying not to ask him what to do quite so much.

Eventually, when I could no longer stand it, I quit. I’d been trying to make it two years in the role, thinking that was approximately how much experience I would need to be generally “employable” should I ever want to come back. But at nineteen months, I decided that was close enough. Trevor accepted my resignation, as I think he didn’t know what else to do with me. I was told that the company was happy with my quality of work and I was most welcome to come back if I ever wanted to. Of course, I never did. And so that ends the first chapter of my time as a full-time employee.