Cornered, Confronted, and Convulsing

The Autistic Stress-Induced Motor Tic

My biggest confrontation at work involved no shouting. In fact, I did not speak at all.

I was led into the boardroom by two directors and HR. They were finally discovering corporate formalities, and I was deeply depressed and withdrawn. I had no time for more performative nonsense, but this was the very thing they believed I lacked.

I sat on one side of the boardroom table. The three of them sat on the other. The positioning said everything. I was already cornered by their expectations. All three had shorter careers than mine, but today they were in charge.

The MD began to read from his script and I shut down any response. I said nothing. I revealed nothing.

Inside, I was enraged. The arrogance. The assertions. The insult.

They painted a picture of reluctant concern, insisting they did not want to put me on a performance improvement plan, while warning that another meeting would force their hand. Apparently it was a serious offence to arrive at my desk and not join in the good morning roll call, a ritual I avoided so I could clear the stream of internal GIFs.

The other issue was a supposed mistake that had embarrassed them. Only it was not mine. I had used the files from a colleague who had already upset the client with an incorrect version. They never fixed it. Somehow I became accountable for their oversight.

I was being confronted with claims that were unjustified, incorrect and idiotic, but they needed something to steer me towards what they really wanted. Fake niceties. A tone they had mastered.

I have a history of refusing to justify myself. My moral compass is so steady that to stoop to explanation feels like a threat to my own clarity about the accuser’s ignorance. If someone cannot see what is obvious, they do not deserve an explanation.

It has never served me well. So as I sat silent under this assault on my character, they were bemused by my outward apathy.

But the fight inside was starting to leak out. The emotional intensity burning beneath my mask of calm was overloading my nervous system. I was unwillingly nailed to my chair. Others stormed out of meetings like this. I stayed. I felt the pressure to react, but I refused.

I was in the freeze state of fight or flight until a myoclonic jerk threatened to expose me. I was in a straitjacket of unwanted sensations when my shoulder suddenly tried to leap from its socket. I shifted in my chair to disguise it as intention. Then it happened again, pulsing as if wired directly to my heart.

It was an unacceptable betrayal of my body. The adrenaline and cortisol had taken over. I was no longer listening. I was trapped in a private war to regain control. I pinched myself. I altered my breathing. I tried to interrupt the stress discharge.

I felt mortified that it might be noticed. I could hide shaking hands under the table, but not a shoulder on full display. I did not yet know I was autistic, where stress-induced motor tics are far more common.

When the script ended, they asked if I had any questions or comments. I said no. We filed out. They would no doubt continue the conversation privately. I knew this because I had so often sat on the other side of the table, playing a role I had no interest in, witnessing the aftermath.

The whole debacle festered in me far longer than it deserved. The unresolved injustice kept orbiting my growing distaste for the business.

I wish I could say I have since learned to prevent this kind of rupture. I wish I could list techniques to master a sensitive nervous system. I could not stop the masking, the sense of attack, and the sensory cascade that flooded my executive functioning. It was psychological, physiological and biological. An autonomic response I could not bend into submission.

A lifetime of suppressed emotion does not suddenly translate into sleeve tattoos for others to observe in real time. Especially when under threat.

I realise now that I could have downregulated my nervous system. Many do not know they are within their rights to stand up and walk away. Yet it felt like a moral obligation to take whatever was coming, losing agency to an unacceptable verdict.

I have experienced worse. I have been verbally pinned to the wall by shouting bosses whom I insulted with reflective facts. I have been threatened with dismissal for not playing by their rules. As a younger person, autistic righteousness outran my fear of confrontation. I grew older and softer, and a simple meeting about communication was a road to breakdown.

We could live far better lives if insight arrived sooner and revealed the patterns hindsight draws with perfect accuracy.