I'm Autistic and Have ADHD: I Can’t Imagine Working in an Office Again

One day in early 2020, I asked the husky-voiced human resources manager at my final temp job if I could use the relaxation room, the one available to employees when they needed a break or to stop looking outside every 20 minutes.“Of course,” she told me before pulling the key out of a drawer in her desk. I followed her to a small, very empty room. She unlocked it and toggled the plastic light switch, illuminating the yellow and blue that decorated the space, along with a modest station to make tea, a small, cheap sofa and a recliner wrapped in plastic. A tissue box sat conspicuously by the recliner. The woman told me to take my time as she closed the door. I wondered for the tenth time how much older she was than me, how much farther she’d gotten in life despite only being maybe five years older, before I turned my attention to the chair.I sat down inside the plastic and almost immediately crumpled. I began to sob uncontrollably, the anxiety and despair overpowering my stomach, my body temperature, my senses. My grandmother had just died. My body was betraying me. Thanks to sleep apnea and racing thoughts, I hadn’t slept—or really rested—in weeks, if not months. I was often vomiting in the morning from the aftereffects of poor REM, and I still had no idea how to make any income beyond an endless string of temporary jobs since graduating in 2014. This nonprofit gig was more suited to my skills than a lot of assignments. Yet I couldn’t stand the tension and masking that came with any position in a cubicle: Doing bullshit busywork that made me feel like I was wasting my life, constantly modulating myself, masking to fit neurotypical standards.

I couldn’t stand the tension and masking that came with any position in a cubicle.

Many Work Environments Are Downright Hostile to People Who Are Neurodivergent

Neurodivergent individuals often have trouble with under- or unemployment and really with job satisfaction overall. It can be difficult to track the exact numbers, but one piece of data suggests 85 percent of autistic adults with degrees pre-pandemic were unemployed. Another from the University of Connecticut says the number of unemployed neurodivergent adults is 30 to 40 percent, which is incredibly high compared to neurotypicals. Neurodivergent and/or disabled people also tend to have trouble with job stability, good pay and work environments that are often unwittingly (or very intentionally) hostile and aren’t exactly accommodating. We often need more rest and time to recover from labor, conditions and spaces that are kind to our bodies and sensory inputs and time alone when we can’t really talk with other people. But most jobs are not exactly built to provide these needs.I can’t speak to the experience of all disabled humans. But as an autistic/ADHD person who was basically a factotum, constantly moving to various corporate skyscrapers, factories and warehouses just so I could grab a quick paycheck, I hated working in offices. I hated being away from my apartment and my comfort objects, hated pretending to work eight hours a day even when there was nothing to do (and hated actually working that much when it happened). I hated the dull, eerie drone of air conditioners and fluorescent lights hovering over beige walls and ceilings while I looked outside longingly. And I hated having to constantly mask around my co-workers, repressing anything controversial or weird in myself so I wouldn’t get strange looks or (gulp) get fired.None of the jobs I took required my English major, even as I wrote essays on the side. I knew I was smart, and secretly, arrogantly, I felt sometimes that I was too intelligent to be a temp forever. My interests meant I’d never care much about data entry or the more stressful administrative work I often picked up. I worked full time as an admin assistant at a prestigious dental school for a bit, but my then-undiagnosed ADHD meant I couldn’t get the exhaustive everyday tasks right, couldn’t stay organized. I quit after 10 months when I started having anxiety attacks at 6:30 a.m. and returned to temping.

I Was Able to Transition From an Office to Freelance Work

I didn’t know what to do. I felt I’d always be underpaid, always be dissatisfied, but I had no clue how to shift into a different career. When I turned 27, after years going back and forth between desperate inactivity and nine-to-five gigs, I began to feel a clock ticking inside of my chest cavity. It moved closer to some unknown due date with every new temp assignment, every job I didn’t fit into (I still have bitter feelings about the agency worker who sent me, an autistic with no experience in dealing with addicts, to a poorly managed rehab clinic), every panicky period of unemployment where I’d watch any money I’d made quickly dry up. I gained weight from an impulsive, poorly managed diet, which of course made the sleep apnea worse.Later, it felt as if my mind and body were trying to tell me something when I kept calling in sick at my final temporary role at a nonprofit. I’d puke uncontrollably in the morning, then go back to sleep, terrified about what was happening to me until my step-father’s sister, a nurse, suggested apnea. Sometimes, I’d just throw up and come into work anyway. I just knew something had to change.I can’t say the transition I made was exactly from hard work and gumption. Much of it was privilege. After years when my bank account was a joke, my grandfather sent my family and me some money, enough that I was able to quit my temp job and transition into freelance writing and editing full time. I got equipment to deal with sleep apnea, as well. I had to spend much of my savings to get through the pandemic, but I haven’t stepped into a cubicle since.

The pandemic revealed that working remotely from home was always an option, even when employers pretended it wasn’t.

Post-Pandemic, Working From Home Should Remain an Option for All Employees

Frankly, I don’t have words of wisdom to give other individuals on how to get out of the office. I was just lucky. But I can say from personal experience that working from home, for whatever disadvantages it has, simply suits my autistic/ADHD mind better than a nine-to-five office job. I can take breaks that don’t involve awkward chats with co-workers. I don’t have to pretend that I’m productive. I’m surrounded by a familiar space and can sit with my cat, and I can take a quick walk when I feel like I’m trapped inside. Best of all, I’m not in an environment that doesn’t stimulate me, and I can work according to my own limits. The pandemic revealed that working remotely from home was always an option, even when employers pretended it wasn’t, and this desperately needs to be part of our work habits from now on. Ultimately, the American office and American productivity standards don’t really fit with the needs of neurodivergent people, let alone disabled people. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to pay my bills or keep up my freelancing without another office gig, but I know I’m going to try and continue to work from a place where I feel safe, comfortable and uninhibited: home.