The following blog was sent to us by a serving police Sergeant – the officer’s identity has been withheld due to family confidentiality.

My wife and I have always joked about my quirkiness. “I’m sure you have some form of autism”, she would say to me. Although it was said in jest, deep down we both knew it was a distinct possibility that I was on the autism spectrum.

After my daughter was born my wife and I started to see some distinct similarities between her social interactions and mine, so we continued to wonder.

In 2016 I was successful in getting an interview for promotion, but unfortunately missed out by a small margin. When I received my interview feedback I was convinced that I had been wronged in the marking of my answers. In fact, it turned out that I had interpreted some of the questions too literally and so didn’t answer what was actually being asked of me. It took me several months of deconstructing my interview in my mind to realise that I had fallen foul of a common trait of the autism spectrum – literal translation. Was this my fault or a process design flaw I wondered?

I began reading up on autism, searching the internet for more information to gain a greater understanding. The more I looked, the more boxes I began to tick. I came across an online questionnaire, often used as an early diagnostic tool. I was really pleased with my high score on the questionnaire, as I always enjoyed a good exam result, however the score was an indicator of a high likelihood of autism spectrum condition (ASC).

All evidence indicated a likely ASC diagnosis, but I questioned what good it would be in my thirties to have such a diagnosis? After all, ASC cannot be treated, it is merely a ‘different’ or ‘non-typical’ way of interacting with and processing the world around you; something I have lived with all of my life, though few people have ever known.

A diagnosis now at this stage in life would not change anything.

However, I read a few articles explaining diagnosis in adulthood can be a good thing, helping to provide self-acceptance for who you are and for those around you to begin to understand your quirks. It could also help to seek reasonable adjustments at work.

I went to my GP, who had to seek funding for an adult assessment, but within around 10 weeks I had my diagnosis. It was confirmed that I was autistic, following several questionnaires and a full day assessment with two psychologists.

The assessment process was uncomfortable, reliving uncomfortable parts of my childhood and teens in some detail; my difficulties forming friendships, spending large periods of time on my own and the challenges I encountered in suppressing my quirks to the people around me.

Now, I am not so much coming to terms with my diagnosis, but more like coming to terms with being ‘me’. I am now making less excuses for the way I am, embracing my quirks and being true to who I really am – rather than what I think everyone else expects me to be.

It isn’t easy being, thinking and doing things in ways that are unfamiliar to most other people, but with acceptance also comes the realisation that my differences are the root of my strengths.

Diagnosis hasn’t ‘fixed’ me, but it has released me to finally be myself.

By Claire Masterton
NPAA Vice-Chair

I’m a Sergeant in Police Scotland. I have nine and a half years’ service. A couple of months ago I moved into a departmental role, however until that point I had been in frontline operational policing for my entire career. I’m currently waiting for an Inspector promotion interview, having been supported by line managers and my Senior Management Team for promotion, as – well – competent. I’m a qualified Police Incident Officer. A response driver. I’m public order trained. I do all the things you do every day.

I’m also autistic.

I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome in 2015, aged 33. I was a Response Sergeant at the time at a very busy station with a team of 13. I’d self-diagnosed a few years before that after happening across an article on Asperger’s and recognising myself in every single aspect described. It was a lightbulb moment – where everything I’d found hard, everything I’d struggled with suddenly made sense. I did some reading and found out more about Asperger’s – that it is is a form of autism – and was happy to leave it at that, just knowing a little bit more about myself, knowing there was an explanation.

Did you know that more than 1 in 100 people in the UK are autistic? That’s over 700,000. There are a lot more males than females diagnosed, although the number of women is rising. There are many reasons bandied about for this, including the argument that girls/women can hide their problems better and are therefore missed or not diagnosed. The National Autistic Society (NAS) describes autism as: “a lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them”. Some people don’t like the term ‘disability’ and prefer ‘condition’, but that’s a blog in itself… To illustrate this for you, I went through my childhood sincerely believing that I must have missed the class at school that taught you how to make friends! Communication issues can be verbal or non-verbal, autistic people famously often struggle with body language or facial expressions – including their own. My Chief Inspector recently spent a day thinking she’d gravely offended me because I didn’t get my facial expression ‘right’ during our conversation – I thought I was portraying ‘interest’ which apparently came across as ‘deadpan angry’!

Autism is regarded as a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. It’s a lifelong condition: we were born this way, it’s not a disease, there’s no cause and no cure. We’re also all different. I might find things hard that another autistic person has no issue with (albeit we do share some common traits). Autism is often described as a spectrum. It’s meant to indicate that there are many different parts to the condition, however it can leave people with the impression that there’s a straight line between ‘mild’ and ‘severe’ autism. This really isn’t the case, as some people who may not have many problems with one aspect of the condition might be really struggling in another area or might be ‘masking’.

Masking is what we do to appear ‘normal’ – changing our natural behaviours to fit into the neurotypical (non-autistic) world. I do this a lot, and if anecdote is to be believed, so do many on the spectrum (particularly women). I’ve gathered 36 years of experience in the world and I have learned how to behave in social situations. I’ve learned scripts and rules to help me to fit in. I’ve stood quietly at the back of the room until I worked out what to do. I’ve learned that if I smile and laugh a lot it disarms people and they like you. I’ve learned that it’s polite to look at people when you’re speaking to them even though it makes my eyes water and it’s all I end up thinking about, losing focus on the conversation and probably missing important information.

Consider this: I assume many of you learned a language in school. Imagine being told you had to speak that language all day every day at work. You know some words, you can string a few sentences together, and as time goes on you’d get better at it. But it’s tiring, all that concentrating. You miss quite a lot of the conversation and you feel stupid sometimes when all the other people just seem to understand so easily. And when you get home at the end of the day you just want to relax, right? Just go back to your own language, not have to pretend you understand, not have to worry about missing stuff or focus so hard all the time. That’s what masking is like.

Masking got me my diagnosis. As a Response Sergeant I went in every day, dealt with whatever incidents were thrown our way and looked after my team to the very best of my ability. Then I went home and spent rest days totally burnt out, anxious, trying to recover enough to go back for the next set of shifts and do it all again. I got my diagnosis so that I could take it to the Force and ask for help as I recognised that I could not go on like that. At first it was slow going, but my immediate line managers were excellent and gave me a lot of support. There wasn’t a lot I could do on Response in terms of reasonable adjustments, but in my next role as a Community Sergeant I was able to put things into place that helped me greatly, like a flexible working pattern to give me a ‘recovery day’ and minimising my use of the telephone (many autistic people hate the phone).

A diagnosis led me to understand myself, which is the first step to getting other people to understand and accept differences. I know, for example, that I prefer written instructions, and that I’ll follow a conversation much better if I can relax and focus on the words, not worry about how long I’ve been staring at someone to make eye contact. I can explain to people now that I might not look at them, and they know that I’m not rude, or bored. I know that if I have a few different meetings during the day that it’ll tire me out, and that I might speak a bit more slowly sometimes when I’m trying to put complex thoughts into words. I also know that I have many strengths alongside the things I find hard, just like everyone else does. I’ve been able to speak out and help others experiencing similar circumstances.

Contrary to first impressions, policing can be an ideal career for an autistic person. We love rules and routine. I wear the same thing every day and work a shift pattern that doesn’t change. Yes, you need ‘people skills’, but these can be learned, and if you think about it, in almost every interaction an officer has they’re in charge of the conversation. They decide which questions need asked, what information is required. They’re in control (we love to be in control!). Autistic people are often good at taking in vast amounts of information, remembering details, cutting through the superfluous stuff and recognising what’s important. I’ve often amazed (frightened) my team by remembering instructions for an obscure task I read on an email years ago! Getting autistic people into the organisation and progressing them is where we fall down – but that’s a whole other blog…

2017 has been an exciting and at times difficult year for all of us in the NPAA. To start with, our initial goal of embedding a coordinator in every UK Force came to pass, which for a young organisation like us is a massive achievement. We move into 2018 with the firm goal of increasing our awareness further, both nationally and now internationally. Some of our early coordinators have stepped down for various reasons. They leave us with our best wishes and we hope they remain close friends.

2017 also saw the inaugural NPAA national coordinators meeting at BTP headquarters in London. (On a personal note, it also contained what I think was the best use of a word this year – ‘inveigled’ – thanks Mai!) The fact that Deputy (now Acting) Chief Constable Janette McCormick took time out of her incredibly busy schedule to join us for the day speaks volumes as to how seriously many Chief Officers take our work. One of the challenges we all face in 2018 is to continue to keep ourselves in the forefront of their minds.

Che Donald (Police Federation) and Janette McCormick (NPCC Disability Lead) with NPAA Coordinators at
British Transport Police HQ, London, June 2017

There have been pockets of outstanding practice all over the UK, of which there is too much to mention here. However special mention has to go to Cheshire Constabulary, West Midlands Police and West Yorkshire Police, which all made it into the top 20 inclusive UK employers for 2017 – no small achievement. Many of the best and most forward-thinking employers are waking up to the fact that people on the neurodiversity spectrum have very specific skills which can be exploited. Let’s hope policing isn’t far behind.

Our web forum has also continued to grow, now up to over 600 members at time of writing. If you work for a police force, a charity or in the public sector, you are probably eligible to join – take a moment to register, the breadth of topics makes it an essential resource for anyone needing support or information on our work.

2017 was perhaps the year that autism finally made into mainstream consciousness. It was almost impossible to turn the TV on without seeing a programme specifically about the topic such as Atypical or the wonderful A Word, or find characters who would almost certainly get a diagnosis in real life in other programmes. Chris Packham’s documentary was one of the braver things I’ve watched, uncomfortable viewing as it was at times. My only concern is that while it’s great from an entertainment perspective to watch characters with a very specific skill set, it’s perhaps the case that the difficulties we all face are glossed over. Many companies and businesses have started to offer autism-friendly services, such as Asda and the Glasgow ice rink which is a very welcome step in the right direction.

Moving into 2018, many of us will be involved in either creating or delivering awareness training to our colleagues, which is no small task considering we all have day jobs. Training shared is training halved in our view, so if you do create any training materials, do please share them with us. We work closely with the Disabled Police Association which continues to go from strength to strength, and we share their goal of disability being treated equally alongside visible diversity by the Home Office and College of Policing. It will be interesting to see what happens next year.

In the meantime, we wish you a happy, safe and most importantly quiet Christmas, whether you’re working or at home.

Adam O’Loughlin
Communications Officer