Casen

‘It makes me feel dehumanised. It makes me feel like having autism’s a curse.’

Casen is in his 40s. He is autistic and has an adjustment disorder with anxiety.

Casen told the Royal Commission he wasn’t diagnosed until after he completed a degree, more than a decade ago.

‘I’ve always had anxiety … When I first started to work out what was going on [it] ultimately led to getting an autism diagnosis, which was about two months before I started [a new job] … I didn’t know anything about autism before that at all.’

Before starting his degree, Casen worked as a labourer. After finishing his degree, he found a job in the public service.

‘So, this is the first time I’ve ever stepped into an office and worked in that sort of environment.’

Because of his diagnosis, he was placed in a government disability employment program.

‘And that’s when the problems started because … I was given all these forms, and I had to tick that my job was [at risk]. And that’s when I first started to get worried at work.’

Casen said it made him feel unsafe at work.

‘I just sent an email to the inclusion guy saying, “Why am I, you know, is this the appropriate support?” … And then he called me saying, “No, your job’s not [at risk], but it probably will be because you’ve got a disability.”’

Casen said he was assigned a support worker who began advocating for him.

‘The inclusion manager basically berated her and said that, you know, “Your job is just to listen to him in these sessions and, you know, leave the rest to me.” … and [he] asked me to tell him any information in our sessions where she [said] anything about the government. And that’s when I had my first breakdown at work.’

Casen said the workplace disability program didn’t provide any support ‘other than having a place where you can go debrief and talk to someone’.

‘I needed something from a cognitive perspective that could, you know, help explain the issues I was having, to help develop strategies and also to help the workplace to better understand my autism.’

Casen struggled with his workload, working long hours without appropriate support.

‘And the distress just got worse over time.’

He had to stop work. That’s when a psychologist diagnosed Casen with adjustment disorder with anxiety. ‘It came from the trauma of doing that work,’ he said.

‘Everything is all related around the support I didn’t get and the adjustments that weren’t put in place and the lack of autism awareness.’

When Casen returned to work, his employer didn’t want to talk about autism.

‘There’s nothing in this process that recognises neurodiversity. You are put through the same process that neurotypical people are … so, for me, things like the massages, float tanks and dealing with the trauma and the stress and the body is a really important part of recovery.’

Casen said the system ‘seems to just hope’ that counselling for anxiety and depression will help someone living with autism deal with stress.

‘The process doesn’t even recognise the disability to start with, because there’s nothing in the documentation that talks about my disability. Nothing, you know, about the lack of support, about the conditions that led to my breakdown. So, I’m basically screwed.’