I’m the kind of person who becomes consumed by my identity, whether that be the personality traits I hold dearest, the way medicine defines me, how I define myself or most recently the job I have. Balancing work and life is something I’m not very good at, something I readily confess. I have always chosen jobs that consume me and fulfil me rather than a traditional ‘9 to 5’. Unlike the great Dolly Parton, I’m someone for who a job isn’t just a way to make a living but a space where I derive a fair amount of what might be called happiness. For me a job has to have a positive impact on others. This is why I’ve always chosen (as much as choice allows) jobs that are causes I think are important, why I’ve worked in co-producing research, widening participation and involving people in decisions that are impactful to them. Having ‘skin in the game’ makes me better at what I do but also means that things hurt more when there is negativity and the wins are so much richer. I can’t imagine a job I would enjoy that doesn’t symbolise extending a hand to those who face disadvantage.

In my current role I have been supporting autistic young people to have their voices heard and amplifying these voices in policy, campaigns and the work of the organisation. Fortunately, this means I get to see the wins that autistic young people get to achieve when someone removes the barriers that often ostracise them from society, or the hand I would have liked to have been offered growing up. This has been a role that I’ve been able to shape as my own, within the reasonable limits of projects that we’ve worked on, it has enabled me to seek out the opportunities that I had been told would not be open to me as an autistic person - even being in employment itself bucks a trend of overwhelming underemployment of autistic people. Being able to have a positive impact on the lives of autistic young people, watching them grow and supporting them when things don’t go as planned has been a joy. Ultimately I’ve gotten to work on so many projects with them and see the impact collective voice can have, something I don’t think would have happened if I worked elsewhere.

The positives have always outweighed the long days and the projects that test my limits. I’ve had a team alongside me that have made what could have been an awkward first step into full time employment a confident stride into a place where I could explore what interested me most. I got to work on the most exceptional projects and prove that small passionate teams that lean into lived experience are the strongest, when you hold people at the centre of what you do you create the things that work for everyone. Whenever I was asked to explain what I do my answer was generally ‘I help create the good news stories for autistic young people who then lead projects and campaigns important to them’, there is something special about working on something you’re passionate about and to hear about when things go well. Every bit of positivity that has been infused in the happiness I get from work is saved as a memory for when the imposter syndrome kicks in. Which even now it often does, but who doesn’t feel like an imposter when you’re told you’re meant to accelerate through life and if you don’t, well you aren’t doing it right.

Being the person that autistic young people get to ‘look up to’, if it isn’t too bold to say, has been something I didn’t expect when I began looking for jobs whilst completing my masters. What wasn’t written into my job description but became clear was just how much an impact being an autistic person would have on this role. Things that others would learn about autism just come innately, or mainly innately, I have my personal experience of being autistic, I’ve studied and researched autism and I’ve also worked with diverse groups of autistic people previously. Being someone in a job, showing that there are opportunities that fit and mould to the different needs of autistic people. Clarifying as the autistic professional in the room the ways we should discuss autism, how we should present information and what is the way to work that is inclusive and engaging. Offering advice that comes from similar experiences and understanding someone before they have to say over and over why a situation is upsetting. All of these little things I didn’t think about before going into a role that has ended up having a direct positive effect for autistic people (including and not including me).

Being an autistic person working with autistic people just makes sense. I am not only an expert by experience but also through extensive learning and research. Where another employee would finish up their work day and switch to the other aspects of their life, being autistic and working for a charity that supports autistic people means I don’t switch off. The decisions I make in the workplace ultimately impact the lives of people just like me and the life of me. Being able to take my knowledge of what is impacting people and who to reach out to is beneficial, if at the cost of a work-life balance. Working on causes that directly impact you doesn’t really allow for much of a black and white definition between work and life as everything lives in a hazy grey.

In my time I’ve worked on projects, directly and indirectly, that have showed me what I want to focus on and what has the most impact on autistic people. When young people said they wanted to be included in youth groups we supported them to create Include Autism - a toolkit created and written by them packed with resources to support inclusion. When we saw the health inequalities that autistic young people face just for the simple fact of being autistic often means being misunderstood we worked with Whittington Health NHS Trust to ensure that pockets of brilliant practice and resources for support could be co-created. Not every project makes it online, but every project is meaningful, not just to me but to all of the autistic young people involved.

But it’s time to move on and try on some new challenges.

In two years of being at Ambitious about Autism I’ve worked on so many different projects and I’ve learned so much about myself. I have a passion for working on things that are meaningful, that involve those impacted by decision making and most importantly supporting those that society excludes. After two years here I’ve made the bold decision (in a pandemic no less) to change jobs, I’m moving on from Ambitious to a new role where I hope to still hold the things that are important to be in the ways that I work.

Onwards to new adventures and learning even more about myself in a different place, albeit still working from my living room for the foreseeable future.