Colleague saying she has ASD/ADHD whenever I mention being ND - how to handle?

[Benchbythesea]

First of all, apologies for length of post - trying to provide enough context so it doesn't come across as goady. Also namechanged for this.

Context - I have a colleague who I have quite a lot of interaction with, eg group meetings and discussions. She is junior to me, but I don't manage her - we're on different teams but we work face to face in an open plan office and our teams collaborate a lot.

I've worked alongside them for a while, and for background I would say she's quite 'needy' - always got a drama of some sort that she will share in the office, sounds genuine but perhaps a little bit unaware that other people might also have similar problems but might not be quite as vocal about it. However she's good at her job, well liked, it's not an issue just something I've noticed (eg not to get too drawn in). I'm also aware that she's got an invisible disability and she does seem to seek attention a bit around this too, eg dropping flippant/casual comments about this and behaving like it's no big deal, eg people making small talk about the weekend and she'll say something like 'oh yeah, Saturday wasn't that exciting, spent it having an emergency blood transfusion but y'know....' which can be a bit of a conversation stopper. However I do understand that having an invisible disability is tough and she may be feel the need to remind people of it, it may not even been a conscious thing.

I have ASD. I am open about this at work, partly because I burned out in my last job pre diagnosis, and because I feel it's helpful when managing staff so we understand each other.

Theres been a few times recently when I've mentioned my ASD, eg in the context of finding something difficult, eg travelling for a large conference. I tend to mention things but keep it light, eg laughing about how presenting to a room of two hundred people didn't bother me at all but I'd prepped for days about how to do the small talk at the lunch after. Most people at work are supportive, and I've signposted a couple for support for suspected or diagnosed ND when they've asked me.

Colleague has made a few comments previously about autism being a superpower/we're all on the spectrum etc, which I haven't challenged as I felt it was intended well even if not something I personally agree with.

More recently when it's come up, she's started saying that she's sure she's autistic and has ADHD. She's not seeking a diagnosis, but she's 'sure'. If I've mentioned an example she tends to respond 'oh yeah me too... And goes on to 'trump' it by adding in an ADHD example (eg something like 'oh god yeah small talk, and that's even if I turn up on time because of my adhd')

Now... I respect that a lot of people are ND and don't seek diagnosis for many reasons. I get that masking is a big deal. I don't 'own' being autistic. I aim to create an environment where people feel confident in sharing their differences. But I just can't help feel that she's doing this to compete/bring attention back to her?

One reason why this bothers me I think - is ASD being a social and communication issue primarily - is it's bloody hard. And this colleague happens to be brilliant (genuinely) at many things which I just struggle to believe could be masked ASD. For example - excellent at networking, already made a name for herself in the company with very senior management due to this, despite being quite junior. Great at banter, very popular, loads of friends. Very active social life, has travelled the world, worked abroad etc etc. And I know there are people with ASD who have done all those things, but it just doesn't feel like she has any struggles re social/communication skills, quite the opposite. And re ADHD - the examples she brings up - being energetic, bored easily etc - really seem to be every day examples. Like being bored in a long, dull meeting. She's organised in work, rarely late, great memory, no issues with multiple tasks, finishes things she starts, plans well etc.

I've tried to just ignore it so far, and where I can avoid any reference to ASD around her, but she's mentioning it more and more. I'm worried that if I say nothing that at some point I'll snap and say something I shouldn't (I can be a bit too direct if my mask slips!) But then I've no right to challenge her if she's sure/she believes she's neurodiverse. Any advice on how to handle this?

@mamboshirt the point is ASD can cause severe problems in your life, it can hinder everything and you can burn out and end up suicidal because you feel like a complete and utter failure as a person. Most girls 10/20/30/40 years ago were never diagnosed, we seek diagnosis as an adult so we can finally make adjustments to our lives to accommodate our disabilities - which most workplaces and the vast majority of society will refuse to allow you to do without you proving that you actually do have a disability.

I'd probably avoid engaging with her about neurodovergence. Or, if she forces the point, turn it back on her and ask her if she feels it impacts her life to such an extent that she might consider a diagnosis could be helpful. Engaging in one-upmanship won't achieve anything for either of you.

On the issue of all the things she's brilliant at, sometimes the combination of ASD and ADHD can lessen or worsen the impact of each condition on the other. You never know what impact the combination might have. So, for example, the disorganisation/ lack of planning involved in ADHD, might be evened out by the need for control by ASD and the executive function weakness might therefore manifest differently. Her visual working memory might be off the scale brilliant, but her memory for receiving verbal instruction might be her weakness and depending on her job, she may rely more on the former than the latter so it's not obvious.

I'm erring on the side of saying yanbu op. But I also have a 7yo dd who is going through assessment for asd and adhd and she's been an absolute quandary for us for as long as I can remember. She's apparently brilliant socially, but struggles with understanding/ identifying her own emotions and why she responds in certain ways and can become disregulated, but this only really shows up at home and not school. She's energetic, engaging, popular and socially motivated, but she's also controlling, struggles with understanding other perspectives and is easily wounded and very sensitive to criticism. Her visual memory is off the scale amazing (98th percentile), but her verbal comprehension is below average. She is super well organised and prepares for things way in advance, but she struggles with time management when hyperfocused on a task or activity she enjoys. I never probably would have considered neurodivergence had her sensory differences not been so obvious and had she never had a period of clothing, seatlbelt and school avoidance.

I think what you're saying is, "A woman at work is a faker and it's doing my head in that I've got to go along with it. I just want to tell the truth, but that won't be polite".

I get it and I'd feel the same way. Last week I had to listen to a parent talking about her "severely" autistic adult child who could speak, was very academic and had friends. I told her I had an eleven year old at home who was non-verbal, intellectually disabled and would need life-long care, possibly in an institution. Apparently, they're the same, though, according to her.

What can we do? I think, probably nothing. Just breath and walk away.

How do you expect individual people to accommodate?

I ask as I work in a similar environment but my expectations are that people do certain things as there is an expectation that I do certain things - that's the job.

How things are done are a side issue (mostly anyway, there's procedure for every thing else).

It seems like you want to be allowed to talk about your disability , but she isn't.

As someone who had to fight to even get to the start of the diagnostic process with my children, and then sit through hours of form filling with various people, completing medical and family histories etc and then multiple sessions with qualified psychologists and psychiatrists - having someone rock up and "self declare" that they know they have the same issue because they read about it on the Internet would be ... annoying. It's not unlike someone declaring their headache is definitely cancer before having an MRI, is it?

I'd encourage her to get a proper, qualified medical diagnosis 😁

You sound like a hypocrite.

@whatevss but she has no proof she's a faker. It can take years to get a diagnosis for ASD and ADHD, especially into adulthood.

Stop engaging with her about autism if you consistently dislike her reaction to it. Your work colleagues don't necessarily want to be stuck listening to a long-term health competition either.

Stop talking about your problems at work unless when you are in need of support and need to raise it in 1:1 conversation with your manager. If you need to talk about your own issues and adaptations beyond that speak to a counsellor or the employers assistance scheme if you have this.
Your workplace sounds like a competition about who is more disadvantaged or neurodivergent.
This colleague sounds like a proper pain and not much you can do about that except to ignore, but definitely stop fuelling it. As Carl Jung said "everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves".

Just want to mention that wait times for Adult adhd assessments in my area are 10 years! It's really depressing.

What's different about this person is - only bringing it up if I am talking about myself, and giving very ordinary examples (I like to use the same parking space, that's how I know I'm autistic) type of thing. It doesn't feel genuine. I feel like a cow for saying that but it really does feel like it's to change the conversation back to her and to get me to shut up.

The thing is, it probably isn't actually 'to change the conversation back to her' or 'to get you to shut up'.

What she's doing is trying to establish common ground between you and to show empathy. She might not be going about it the right way, and you might not believe her. But I think you are misreading her motive for mentioning ASD etc.

You have mentioned ASD to her. She is trying to show you understanding by saying 'Yeah, I can identify with that because I have some of the same traits/issues'.

Maybe she has ASD/ADHD, maybe she doesn't. We don't know. But I don't think you can be territorial over the subject.

I think you’re being unfair to her. She may be socially awkward and trying to relate, even if she gets it wrong. I wonder if she is coming to terms with her neurodivergence and considering a diagnosis too. YABU - she really doesn’t sound like she is doing anything wrong but it’s fine not to like her. I’d avoid talking about my needs around her if I were you.

I think you both sound quite alike in the casually mentioning your disability department (which is fine for people to do?) and youre in no position to try to prove/disprove her thoughts on whether she might have some asd/adhd traits.

Mind your own! You're not even friends with this person

Her apparent lack of social awareness shows she might be on the spectrum I guess

So I'm on my lunch break and just thought I'd see, and yes of course there are posters saying that I've left the thread because I disagree.

Curious about the correlation between posters who are indignantly telling me I should stop talking about myself, and that I should also be wasting work time on social media.

In fact the assumption that I must be always talking about myself at work and should shut up and get on with my work is interesting because the most common reason I mention it is to explain why I'm not talking at work. For example, I have an agreement I can wear noise cancelling headphones when the office is busy. I don't tend to join in banter/group chat. I give off 'don't talk to me vibes' without realising. I have to tell people that it's not personal, there's a reason I'm quiet or might sit on my own at lunch, it's fine to approach me and that they're not interrupting me by doing so. I have to let them know it's an exception that I wear headphones at times because they wouldn't ordinarily be allowed.

Plenty of posters have indignantly suggested that I left the thread because people disagree with me. I never posed a question to agree or disagree with. I explained why I was struggling with it, I asked for advice how handle it. That I had tried to ignore and she seemed to react by ramping up the comments, hence thinking what I'm doing isn't working. I was clear I have a disability that affects communication and was worried about saying the wrong thing under pressure, or by making things worse by noticeably avoiding or ignoring her, given that we have to work together. I can't and don't expect to choose who I work with.

I do genuinely appreciate the posters who have taken the time to suggest other ways of looking at things, to understand her better, that has been helpful and I will take that on board.

There are a few posters making unpleasant comments about over diagnosis of ASD. I'm not going to justify/explain myself any further other than to say lack diagnoses can be life saving. Lack of diagnosis or support can be life threatening. If you don't believe that because it doesn't fit with your experience, then I'll just say be thankful that you've not had to learn that the hard way. I hope you never have to.

For the posters who have shared about difficulties in getting assessments for themselves or their family, Im sorry it's so shit. I can't pretend it was affordable to go private but I'm aware I was lucky it was an option, I'm aware for many it isn't at all.

Anyone else I've missed, apologies. I need to eat and get back to work. We arent banned from having phones on at work but any more than a quick text or urgent call isn't really acceptable outside of actual breaks.

I'm autistic and when I was at Uni I never came across anyone who didn't mind getting up in front of the class. I was the only one who didn't care. The same with friends. It does seem to me autistic people find it easier to get up in front of an audience. Just anecdata, of course.

Completely agree with this.

It's because they didn't get diagnosed as DC. Once you have a diagnosis you can:

Understand yourself better and find strategies that help
Get appropriate psychological therapies
Sometimes get drugs
Get reasonable adjustments at work

And there's probably other things.

I feel empathy for the colleague. It sounds like she is trying, but failing, to have some common ground and empathise with the OP.

Some people seem to exclude others without a diagnosis which is unfair. There is a myriad of reasons why people have yet to pursue a formal diagnosis. I have a friend who is on a 6 year waiting for ADHD assessment. She is struggling and some people act like it’s an exclusive club when all she wants is to chat to others who understand and get some helpful strategies.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to 'handle this'.Just carry on as you are doing. She may well be autistic or have ADHD or certainly traits or she could have watched one too many TilTok videos.
She's good at her job and she's well liked. I think you need to fathom out precisely what and why it bothers you so much

@Teder I agree. I said in my op I am not against self diagnosis, though it is the type of examples that this person brings up that have bothered me as they have given very ordinary, every day examples - a bit like when someone says they have a diagnosis of OCD and half the internet responds with how they can't stand their house being messy too, when that's not really what OCD is.

As I mentioned I had to go private as the area that I live, at the time, didn't provide adult autism assessments at all. The assumption being if you had reached adulthood without being diagnosed then you didn't need a diagnosis I guess. That and cost, of course.

In my current company we are lucky that there is access to assessments through a health benefit. That said I can still understand that some people may not want to go this route because they may not trust the process or would be worried about what information will be shared with the employer. Information that is shared is intended to be too inform them of any need to support the employee, but even if this option had been open to me at the time I don't know if I would have taken it. It took a good while before I felt ready to share the information with my partner, let alone my boss. And this thread has shown me that many people unfortunately would still think that I am wrong to consider it relevant to share the information at all.

@NaughtybutNice77 if you read my posts you'll see that I have been trying to ignore it, and trying to avoid the colleague a bit. Colleague has been increasing the amount she mentions this and it has been making me feel uncomfortable for the reasons I've already shared. Having autism means when I'm stressed, I can blurt things out without meaning to and I was seeking advice about what else I could to avoid it building up to that happening.

I mean, it's literally 'i struggle with social interaction because I have a disability about social interaction. I would like advice from people who perhaps don't have this same disability, about how I could better handle this social interaction'

The fact that you don't think there's any reason to 'handle' anything suggests you are unable or unwilling to accept that having autism means that I or any other person with autism might find mundane, every day situations extremely difficult. The whole reason that it's a disability is because of the profound impact on every day life, however subtle it can appear to others.

Its ok to feel uncomfortable and find things difficult

We all do and sometimes there is nothing to be changed about it, its still uncomfortable and difficult

You asked for advice but dont like the advice.

@soupfiend presumably you skipped the posts where I thanked the posters who gave me different ways of looking at the situation? And the ones where I explained how I react (disproportionately to someone who doesn't have autism) to certain situations and I'm trying to avoid that happening?

I swear some people on Mumsnet could start an argument in an empty room. That or the reading comprehension of the adult population is really slipping.