Who am I ? What am I?

Who am I?

I am a 28-year-old white male. I speak with a generic English accent and have no visual impairments. I started in the civil service in BEIS as part of a generic recruitment. Since joining the civil service, I’ve had around 6 jobs. Roughly a job every 10 months. I assume most people who look at me think, privately educated from the southeast. No stresses in the world.

What am I?

I am someone who has multiple disabilities. Since the age of five, I was diagnosed as autistic and spent my entire life trying to understand exactly what that means. Since I began my journey through the education system, I was diagnosed dyslexic. I spent my life trying to understand my condition and how to make first, the education, and then, the civil service, work for me. At the age of 21, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Since then, I have continued to live with the looming possibility of my cancer diagnosis relapsing.

Working out how to be comfortable with that as an adult

I joined the civil service at the age of 22. Before joining the world of work, I had hoped the “adult” world would be so much more accommodating than the experiences I had in the education system.

Unfortunately, what I found was that if I was going to survive in this world then it would be off my own back. What I hoped to find were systems to support me, and “adults” who understood me, and ultimately, to find people like me. I didn’t find that. Naivety of youth you might say.

What I was able to find at BEIS and when I put my head above the parapet in DFID now FCDO is other people like me. I am proud of the small part I was able to play in starting the FCDO Cancer Support network, by being open about our hidden experiences we have been able to come together to hopefully provide a platform to make others experience better. It does take a certain amount of bravery to let people know who you are, but there are others out there and they will be them to be your network, so you know how to not just survive but thrive at work. ​​​​​​​

Being more visible

If you are someone who manages someone with one of these conditions stated above, or something similar. I think the first thing to say, is don’t expect me to have all the answers about me. I have always found it a weird assumption people make, that because you are autistic, you must have found time whilst growing up, whilst going to school, whilst going to get a job, whilst becoming an adult, to do a degree on the side, to know everything to do with autism or dyslexia etc.

If you know someone, or are someone with an invisible disability, the one thing you could do to help make the civil service a truly inclusive place to work is to be seen. Let people know the real you. It is not fair, that just because of something we had no say over, we must become ambassadors for it. But how can we make a system more inclusive, if it doesn’t realise the barriers, it has now.

If you are looking for support, information, or people that face similar challenges like you, I have suggested a few resources below.