What a wonderful and heartfelt piece Jennifer Muldoon !!! It’s so relatable because I was just diagnosed as on the autism spectrum at age 31.

I was actually diagnosed at age 5, which I just learned from my mom. No one thought to tell me, because my high IQ caused me to skip grades, not be held back in special education. How’s that for a lack of awareness?

Like you, I’ve internalized a narrative of failure when people fail to act logically at jobs, being unable to explain company policy to me in an explicit way. When I can’t follow the policy, because reality differs from what I’ve been told previously, I find myself being told I’m being willfully insubordinate.

Thank you for sharing your experience, and I look forward to reading more about it.