but there are also very many kind people that are able and willing, sometimes even quite eager to help, and perhaps be yourself. it s very, very difficult. difficult to ask of autistic people, since it s very difficult to know yourself. but, at least don t try to be someone who you are not which is called masking, which is very common among autistic people. the simplest advice is just do your best. that s all anyone can ask of you, as long as you do your best. wonderful advice, lars. lars backstrom, i can t tell you how much we appreciate you sharing your story, and isabel, sharing your story with us. look, good luck with everything. and i really appreciate your time. 0k. lars was placed in hisjob through a company called auti con. it s an international information technology firm that exclusively
spectrum and that s when we started the process rolling. isabel, i m going to ask you to put lars back in front of the camera. a real pleasure. thank you for your time. thank you very much. thank you. there you go. welcome back, lars. so, lars, once you got the diagnosis, i want to ask you, how did you feel when you realised it? it was a bit of a mixed feeling. i mean, first of all, and the biggest of all was that i was relieved because now i had answers to my feelings of alienation and why so much had gone wrong in my life despite my utmost effort. when you know the cause, then you can start thinking, what can we do about this? now i had something to work on, so i started studying and researching about autism. lars, did you have problems at work before your diagnosis? work. school. family life as we know it.
and she started thinking, that does very much look like my husband. lars, i m going to do something i never, never usually do. isabel, your wife, she s next to you, isn t she? yeah. can i have a quick word with her? well, yes, by all means. yeah, come on in, isabel. hi, isabel. hello. hello, isabel. lovely to have you and to see you. thank you. let me just ask you this. so you were doing this internet search and then you sort of put the pieces together. but isabel, did you have any thoughts prior to finding that online site, that maybe there was something different about lars? i had always known that there was something different about lars, but i couldn t quite put my finger on it. when we first started dating, i used to think that my boyfriend was quirky. but, you know, ithought, well, there are lots of people that
also, coming from a neurodiverse perspective, i can sometimes look at problems in a different way, but what am i good at? yeah, working hard and being very loyal and one thing is that i have, i have quite a developed empathy, that is another erratic stereotype of autistic people. that we don t have empathy. it s actually, quite often, it s quite the opposite. we have overdeveloped empathy. we don t have a filter. we can t filter out all the emotions around us. and that causes a bit of stress, actually. lars, what would you say to other neurodivergent people about going into the workplace? the advice i have, it sounds sort of in general, but i think we have to remember that a lot of autistic people come into the work force or attempt
yes, everywhere. yes, idid. with alienation, isolation, even bullying and harassment. lars, what s the biggest challenge that you find in the workplace? oh, that s an easy answer. social aspects. i like to consider myself actually quite social, but i don t understand social interaction and i send conflicting signals to the people around me. so it is a kind of a mutual misunderstanding. and also ijust have extreme difficulties with office politics. i m just curious, what is it that you excel at? problem solving. there are a couple of things. i mean, there are some stereotypes about autistic people that are true. we are good at seeing patterns and picking out anomalies.