It is known that 85% of autistic adults that are college educated autistic adults are unemployed. While this does not also consider the non-college educated autistic adults, most autistic adults are unemployed and oftentimes those that are struggle immensely with employment retention and other barriers to employment.

Nearly daily when browsing social media, I see many individuals that I indeed know are autistic working their darndest to try to find their place in the workforce. It is a very rigorous battle to fight among the many barriers to even get a foot in the door to secure the interview spot. The interview can be one of the most tedious parts of what is required of the entire hiring process. Once those hurdles are climbed and then they are successful comes the point of navigating the work climate, which at time can also be quite cumbersome, thus continually pinning them at all odds towards their ability to retain a job.

One of the biggest issues in the workplace is the fact that autistic individuals are stigmatized for their differences, despite proper education and training by the workplace. While there can be immense intellect within the autistic brain, there are many other facets of their live that is just not completely up to par, thus making their employment situation more difficult. As autism is a spectrum disorder, requiring many support needs, there are often negative portrayals where stigma is one of the biggest barriers that are seen by management and coworkers, thus being very disadvantaging for them.

Most Autistics in the workforce fall through this “crack” between too-low expectations and too-high demands and either get turned away from employment or offered underemployment positions that do not pay enough money to support us. If we do not disclose our autism, we are viewed as “weird” or even “creepy” by potential employers and co-workers who can see our differences but can’t understand what is behind them. If we do disclose our autism, we face the strangely shaped stigma that comes from not being well understood by a population flooded with “autism awareness” campaigns that deliver little useful content that could lead to genuine autism acceptance.

I am truly grateful for being employed as long as II have. It has had some bumps in the road, but thankfully, I have bounced back from those adverse moments. I understand what is to be expected of me and how I am to act within the workplace. For me it was people who knew my potential and worked to meet what I needed by seeing that talent. Honestly, when talk was happening about going back into the workforce, I was very hesitant to do something that I had no idea about or just never felt comfortable in something that is the opposite of what would suit many autistic adults.

However, my employer took the chance and nearly 14 years later, through many good moments and some learning experiences, I continue to love what I do. There were times about the factors that surrounded the situation because they created volatility and hostility at times and made me uneasy many times where my anxiety would often come into play and produce adrenaline and cortisol causing me to want to run away from the situation not because I did not enjoy my job, it was the factors that surrounded access and support by creating continuous anxiety.

Recently, a change was made to how I access my workplace and it will be much better soon. When I was initially told this in the beginning, the looping thoughts occurred with some pretty drastic thoughts of wanting to again run away from everything and even live like a beggar and desolate because I my sense of what I thought made me comfortable was going to be replaces with something that was sort of new and had some past negative history, but as with anything that I do, I do fine once I get to experience it.

Now that I can see even more potential for me to be more independent that I was previously, there is a part of me where I see that what I had been doing for all the time that it just doesn’t fit for me anymore and I have felt too comfortable for way too long. There is a part of me that is eager to move on to the next step because I know that it would make me happier in the future.

All that being said, I know that it can be hard firsthand for autistic individuals to obtain and retain employment, but for me, I know that I have scored the jackpot of jobs and know what needed for me to continue to be successful at being the 15 percent and being proud of it!