Why so much hostility toward reasonable adjustments for autistic/ADHD students/workers?

[KeenTaupeDog]

I keep seeing backlash whenever someone with autism/ADHD asks for reasonable adjustments. Things like:
• being accused of cheating or getting “special treatment”
• people assuming you're lying or gaming the system
• resentment for accommodations that simply level the playing field

Why do so many people react this way?
Is it ignorance about what these conditions actually mean?
Envy?
Fear that fairness is “zero-sum”?
Or something deeper around stigma toward invisible disabilities?

Would be interested in honest perspectives — especially from those who’ve witnessed or experienced this dynamic.

If you dont think adhders etc. should be employed if they cant stay in work due to their adhd, then are you happy with them sitting at home and claiming benefits? Or dying of hunger?

Not looking to fight — just trying to understand where this reaction comes from.
Am a apsergers sufferer and people at uni accused me of cheating when they found out i had remote exams

OP, one of the many problems, and you see it frequently on here. Is the general population's total lack of understanding of neurodivergence. You see it frequently on here described as a 'label' or a 'trend' or even 'attention seeking'.

All very dismissive and very very wrong. These are significant diagnoses which come with significant numbers of serious comorbidities. You also only get a diagnosis (at least for ADHD and autism) if you can demonstrate that they have had a major negative impact on your life.

In my case, I have ME/CFS - which is a serious chronic illness and has made me too ill to work. My consultant psychiatrist has told me that she has over 1000 ADHD patients on her books and a surprising number of them have ME/CFs. She is convinced that the stress of living with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD puts you at greater risk of developing ME/CFS (and presumably a few other illnesses too). Doctors have known for a long time that neurodivergent people suffer with anxiety and depression a lot more than the general public.

I am autistic and deaf with some physical mobility and fatigue challenges. In a non-academic direct answer, the issues stem from those using their autism, adhd, dyslexia or other disabilities as reason to demand they do not undertake tasks they dislike rather that it actually be they cannot physically do the task. They need to accept the reasonable adjustments to the situation, on both the employee and employer side.

I dislike the social communication aspects of my job. However, it is part of the job and I accept that with adjustments in place. There are those with a victim mentality and those with a survivor mentality.

I struggle to answer the phone and prefer not too. In my personal life, I just do not answer calls unless they are from those I am very familiar with. I cannot do this in the workplace. However, in the work place there are now accommodations that can assist. A majority of calls can be made via teams. While not perfect it has captions that assist with the call, I still do not like it, however accept I must do it.

Some employers are unfortunately appalling though despite that they maybe a disability based organisation. I am in the process of an ET due to reasonable adjustments not being made, it burned me out emotionally, physically and mentally. I was in a position where I was being forced to undertake aspects of the role. That I physically could not sustain long term without the reasonable adjustments in this case it would not have created any additional work for a colleague.

I do believe that some technological advances e.g., dragon, captions etc… have made positive contributions and adjustments for all individuals disabled/non-disabled, neurodivergent/neurotypical.

That where possible there should be flexibility on working hours etc… However on both sides there individuals who will abuse the systems for thier gains and this impacts everyone especially those with disabilities and neurodivergence.

If other people are struggling because a disabled person needs extra support, that is NOT the fault of the disabled person.

Of course it's not. But reasonable adjustments should never involve taking work off person A and giving it to person B without discussion. The latter part just causes issues. Just an honest conversation about the work that now needs doing and how can we best parcel it up in a fashion that will cause the least amount of issues to all involved would have allayed a lot of the problems our office had.

Did we take it out on the person getting the adjustments, no. It absolutely was a management issue.

Knowing it was a management issue didn't help when my boss pulled stunts like sending the police to collect me for a meeting I shouldn't have been within a mile of though. To be fair, if he hadn't I wouldn't have gone, a fact both he and the police (who were also going) were well aware of (I got an email asking me to attend roughly 20 mins before I was "picked up" to which I had politely replied no). So I was angry/embarrassed, lost the afternoon doing my own admin and ended up with a new case. I ended up staying later than intended to keep my own cases afloat. At one stage I was regularly doing 10 hour days. That's just one example but I have lots of others.

I can't obviously speak for the rest of our team but my issues entirely revolved around the extra work when we didn't have enough time to do our original work to the standard I was happy with and the constant "surprise" approach taken by management.

Then it's on your employers to correct the balance. Not your colleagues' fault.

Reasonable adjustments must be reasonable. And I say this as a physically disabled person.

There are a number of jobs that I'd enjoy doing that just aren't suitable for me. Rather than demanding adjustments so that I can do them, I'd rather have a job that suits my skill/ability set.

By correct the balance, you mean ask those with autism to work the same hours as everybody else?

I’ve made reasonable adjustments for myself by changing my working hours drastically, I was on the brink of burnout and my mental health was shot to shit, and was lucky in my job that I was able to do so, but it has come with a MASSIVE pay cut (around £10k). Yet I have a friend who constantly makes comments about ‘all the time off’ that I have (I work term time only). I do remind her that she is free to seek TT only work as well, for less money. But she never seems to listen to that part.

If that is a genuine job requirement, yes.

In a lot of places it isn’t, though. As I said, in my current workplace (and most I’ve worked in for the last 20 years) there haven’t been people working set hours unless they’re call centre / reception type jobs. People work different hours depending on their own circumstances, including childcare commitments.

Of course not but I'm assuming she wouldn't be applying for a job that required her to answer phones when she is clearly unable to.

i commented about redirecting your frustration to your employer because you seem to be blaming your colleague in your OP although to be fair on you, it does sound like tbeir attitude is poor, to say the least. I am now too ill to work but when you was working, my reasonable adjust was to take regular 5-minute breaks. Personally, I was very aware that this could cause resentment so in the other 55 minutes of each hour, I was very careful to keep busy and not stop foe a chat. I needed these breaks to avoid becoming ill.

Reasonable adjustments are a legal right under the Equality Act, in the same way that maternity pay is a legal right.

The government has been complaining about the cost of the benefits bill for disabled people. This is only going to reduce if as a society we decide to leave disabled people in the lurch or if more employers start employing disabled people.

The most infuriating thing about this is you wouldn't expect someone who relies on a wheelchair to get about the office without it, so why is it ok to expect someone autistic/with ADHD to suffer because of something they can't do.
Whilst the extreme as an example, it's to prove a point. It can be akin to physical pain for some. Why's is it ok for others to think that's an acceptable way to live.

And if adjustments shouldn't be made, they need to be ok with those people being unemployed and claiming benefits because that's the only other alternative.

The wheelchair analogies, and they’re all over these threads, are just stupid. Because the entire point is the people we’re talking about, CAN actually do the stuff, they just really really hate it.

I would never talk about it to a coworker but I do understand why people are feed up.

A lot of wheelchair users CAN actually walk a bit, it’s just really, really painful for them.

Wheelchair analogies are daft. We could all play at that metaphor (what if the rest of the staff had to carry the wheelchair user around all day? what if they had to build the ramps after they finished their own work?) but it doesn't help.

And a lot can't at all, but the analogy still doesn't help. The metaphor fails because the concept of 'pain' is completely different for each instance.

This is naive. Of course there will be adverse impacts on other workers if reasonable adjustments shorten hours, lengthen breaks or avoid parts of work that others have to pick up.

An employer can't employ someone to fill in half an hour, that missed work just gets added to other people's workload.

Anyone will be paid lessfor working less. It has absolutely nothing to do with their disability
But most people hate certain aspects of a job (eg phone calls) and resentment is going to build if they have to do more of that unpleasant work sothat someone else doesn’t have to do it at all. Reasonable or not, that’s human nature

That's a very simplistic and unrealistic way of looking at it. If an adjustment has to be made, there's not always going to be a fair or affordable mitigation.

I think reasonable adjustments for those that genuinely need it should absolutely be supported.

I honestly believe though that in recent years , so many people are self diagnosing ND or ADHD that people are desensitized to it to the real detriment of genuine sufferers. The rise of people coming into the workplace claiming neurodiversity is really surprising to me - the numbers are extraordinary compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Yes, diagnosis is more easily available now but for some people it is just convenient to claim something that they think they can get an easier time for.

A colleague I used to work with became well known for excusing every mistake/ issue at work with ‘I’m ADHD so it’s not my fault’. When HR asked him for more info on his diagnosis to help them make adjustments he hadn’t been officially diagnosed at all, he could ‘just tell’ that he was. He was requesting not to work weekends because he found them ‘overwhelming’. We were a small team which meant more weekends on rota for the rest of us if he didn’t work those days - which felt unfair and was very frustrating.

Also regarding the example you gave @KeenTaupeDog about someone requesting a day off mid week to rest - I can totally see how that would be difficult for management to implement because yes, it would be a lot more difficult to find someone to work one day in the middle of the week. Not the fault or responsibility of the person making the request, obviously, but I would argue that just because it’s what they have requested it doesn’t make it ‘reasonable’ if it’s not feasible for the business? The reasonable-ness needs to work both ways.

You clearly are unable to take in what people are saying. Lots of very valid points on this post and you dont seem to be able to even try to relate to any of them.

This is wrong. Plenty of autistic people cannot make small talk without someone coaching them. Or make eye contact without someone forcing them into it.

I agree it’s not particularly helpful as an analogy, but the poster I was replying to seemed to be inferring that it was reasonable to expect someone with autism who said they can’t answer phones to do so because they physically can. Which is about as stupid as expecting someone in a wheelchair to walk even if they technically could.

The discussion about the D/deaf student who wanted to be a Doctor is interesting, although it sounds as though she struggles academically in addition to being D/dear. Are previous posters aware of Alexandra Adams who is training to be a doctor and is also Deaf and blind. There's very strong feelings about her online both for and against.

The reasonable-ness needs to work both ways.

I think this is where the issue is - a lot of the adjustments don't feel reasonable eg they affect others significantly or are things everyone would prefer. And the person requesting them often (not always) doesn't want to make any adjustments of their own so it can feel very one-sided.

Surely we all need to have some personal responsibility for managing health conditions whether they're mental or physical.