How My Autism Trained Me to Accept Abuse at Work
Read about the psychology of abuse in corporate settings, why autistic women can normalize dysfunction, & how to recognize horrible bosses
I think she was a sociopath.
Obviously I can’t diagnose anyone, but when I hear “horrible bosses”, there is a woman I think of immediately, even almost a decade later. Let’s call her “C”.
I was in my first consulting role, and “C” was a newly promoted manager who treated junior employees like servants. And being the only associate on the project, her demands were directed at me. In hindsight, she seemed to enjoy displaying her authority as a manager, & I was too new to the industry to know what was “normal”.
One evening,
as I was leaving the office, “C” called my cellphone and stated that she wanted me to “spend the rest of the evening researching everything about IT infrastructure, and give a presentation about it the next morning”.
Anxiety & dread immediately hit my gut. I was already exhausted from a week of late evenings, and this would’ve been the first night I had to myself. I asked her for more clarity on the requirements, and she wouldn’t provide any — “Just figure it out”, she said.
Her tone implied it was urgent and had to be completed that night, but I asked, “Did the Director or client request this?”. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “No, I just think you should be familiar with the basics”.
So, it wasn’t urgent. No one had requested it, and the information wasn’t relevant to the actual project. As soon as I mentioned the Director, she backed off, and the “assignment” was no longer mandatory. It seemed less about getting necessary work done and more about testing whether I would comply.
TLDR
Workplace abuse can be covert
You’re taught not to trust yourself
Masking relabels abuse as a performance issue
How to spot a horrible boss
What good leadership looks like
1. Workplace abuse can be covert
When we hear “abuse” we often picture screaming, name-calling, or physical aggression. But mistreatment in corporate environments can be much quieter: withheld information, shifting expectations, subtle humiliation, or repeatedly undermining someone’s work. Because the intent is often ambiguous, the pattern can be difficult to identify—especially for autistic people (Andersson & Pearson, 1999; Douglas et al., 2023).
There were other incidences over the course of my time with “C” that felt wrong, but I told myself I was just being “too sensitive” and needed to “work harder”.
Things like:
Changing requirements after I completed the work, then chastising me for not doing something she never communicated.
Giving vague “feedback” about my appearance instead of my work
Expecting me to stay late at the office, even after my work was done, because she hadn’t left yet. (Asking her if there was anything I could help her with was met with “No”).
Performing kindness in front of leadership, & making snide remarks in private.
There wasn’t just one unreasonable request; it was a repeated pattern that Organizational Psychologists define as “workplace bullying and abusive supervision” (Tepper, 2000).
The Sanity Check
I only realized her behavior wasn’t normal because I happened to go to lunch with a colleague (who was on a different project) and shared what I was experiencing. My colleague told me that C’s behavior was “definitely not the cultural norm at the company, that she was known for treating junior employees this way, and that leadership had already addressed it with her several times”.
That conversation was a relief. Because it meant that I wasn’t “too sensitive”. I hadn’t misread the situation. My performance wasn’t the problem. Her leadership was.
2. You’re taught not to trust yourself
At that time in my life, I didn’t know I was autistic or had ADHD. I’d already spent most of adulthood feeling like my needs/reactions were wrong because they were always different from everyone else’s. So when this experience with C came up, I was already primed to doubt myself and my perception of the situation.
Research shows that this isn’t an uncommon experience for late diagnosed autistic women. After years of masking and ignoring our discomfort to fit in, we might stop trusting our own judgment when a situation feels wrong (Bargiela et al., 2016; Wilson et al., 2023). So when a manager mistreats us, our immediate thought isn’t “This person is abusing their authority.”
Instead, we might think:
Did I misunderstand the situation?/Am I overreacting?
Is this just normal corporate politics?
That’s the trap. Sometimes we’re misreading the situation. Sometimes the situation is the problem.
3. Masking relabels abuse as a performance issue
Many late-diagnosed women are high-masking—they study other people, copy expected behavior, hide discomfort, and constantly self-correct to fit in (Cage & Troxell-Whitman, 2019; Cook et al., 2022).
Along with mistrusting my own perception, I treated her actions as evidence that I needed to self-correct. I thought: “I just need to work harder & prove I can handle pressure”, and “Maybe all new associates figure it out without training and I’m just not cut out for consulting?”
She faced no pressure to change her treatment towards me, until my colleague told the project Director what was happening. My “performance issues” then magically disappeared and her power-play demands decreased.
4. How do you spot a horrible boss?
Workplace bullying is identified by repeated harmful behavior—not whether you can prove intent (Einarsen et al., 2009). Instead of asking yourself whether you’re “too sensitive”, look at the pattern:
Are expectations specific, actionable, and documented?
Is feedback tied to observable work outcomes?
Are comparable employees treated comparably?
Are you given the information, tools, and authority needed to succeed?
Can you ask for clarification without ridicule or retaliation?
Does your boss address problems directly—or keep you anxious and guessing?
Are you constantly adapting while your boss remains unaccountable?
If the rules keep changing, the goals keep moving, and asking for clarity gets you punished/ridiculed, stop assuming you’re the problem. (Note: These questions don’t prove abuse. They just help expose a pattern).
5. What good leadership looks like?
According to organizational psychology, a leader’s job is to create the conditions for people to succeed. A good leader makes success possible
Good leaders:
Set clear expectations & provide clarity
Make competent decisions
Provide the tools & info people need
Remove barriers
Give direct, actionable feedback
Develop and recognize employees
Give people autonomy
Take responsibility when they get it wrong
(Yukl, 2012)
What was the outcome?
“C” wasn’t my first horrible boss. I luckily had a colleague who taught me how to “manage up”—strategies for establishing boundaries & polite ways of forcing her to provide clear instructions, under the framework of being a “high performer”.
As a result of “C”, I was able to identify red flags to look out for, and incorporate the lessons learns into methods that made it more difficult for bad managers to make unreasonable demands (without looking like complete A-holes and having leadership above them see it). Luckily that project was only a few months, so I was able to work under new people who showed me what good leadership actually looked like.
When you spend years assuming your autistic needs and reactions are the problem, you may also blame yourself when someone mistreats you. The goal isn’t to become better at tolerating mistreatment. It’s to recognize the pattern sooner and stop automatically assuming you’re the problem.
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Note: This is my personal experience, not legal, HR or medical advice. Consider talking to a qualified professional who can help you with your specific situation.
References
Andersson, L. M., & Pearson, C. M. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace. Academy of Management Review, 24(3), 452–471. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1999.2202131
Bargiela, S., Steward, R., & Mandy, W. (2016). The experiences of late-diagnosed women with autism spectrum conditions: An investigation of the female autism phenotype. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(10), 3281–3294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2872-8
Cage, E., & Troxell-Whitman, Z. (2019). Understanding the reasons, contexts and costs of camouflaging for autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49(5), 1899–1911. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-03878-x
Cook, J., Crane, L., Hull, L., Bourne, L., & Mandy, W. (2022). Self-reported camouflaging behaviours used by autistic adults during everyday social interactions. Autism, 26(2), 406–421. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211026754
Douglas, S., & Sedgewick, F. (2024). Experiences of interpersonal victimization and abuse among autistic people. Autism, 28(7), 1732–1745. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231205630
Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., & Notelaers, G. (2009). Measuring exposure to bullying and harassment at work: Validity, factor structure and psychometric properties of the Negative Acts Questionnaire–Revised. Work & Stress, 23(1), 24–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370902815673
Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43(2), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.2307/1556375
Wilson, R. B., Thompson, A. R., Rowse, G., Smith, R., Dugdale, A.-S., & Freeth, M. (2023). Autistic women’s experiences of self-compassion after receiving their diagnosis in adulthood. Autism, 27(5), 1336–1347. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613221136752
Yukl, G. (2012). Effective leadership behavior: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 66–85. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088