The autistic stereotype is that we're unemotional. We have blank facial expressions (well I do when you try to explain IT to me), flat modes of speaking and are thought of as lacking in empathy. But actually many of us have the opposite problem, particularly in the workplace. I've noticed from myself, and from lots of autistic colleagues I talk to, that we can get passionately involved in things and then emotionally overwhelmed.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year with friends, family, food, presents, lights, music and togetherness. It's a chance to step outside the normal day to day routine and do something different - from bank holidays when you don't have to go to work, to special events, to small things like changes to the TV schedules. Sounds great? Yes - obviously. But also it's worth remembering that a lot of the good things about Christmas can also be autistic nightmares.

Lots of people are getting autism diagnoses in adulthood, and while some friends and family see it coming, for others it can be quite a surprise. They may have thought You don’t look autistic, for example. So here's my reflections on how to respond when your friend, colleague or family member comes out as autistic to you. As always, please note the caveat that what I think has no particular authority, I may be wrong, your mileage may vary, and if in doubt ignore me and do what the person you're talking to would like you to do.

If you're autistic it's likely one of your struggles in life is small talk. You go up to someone and you need a piece of information from them - but can you just ask for it? No - you have to go through a sort of vocal dance first. There's a code you have to follow - words have to be exchanged - like spies in a movie uttering meaningless content to establish that they're talking to the right person - before anything substantive can happen.

Talking to other autistic people in the workplace, I've tended to find that they prefer to look facts in the face like I do, but others may differ. Sometimes just knowing that actually the world is hard, that life isn't fair can be very empowering to me because it means that I can acknowledge that those things aren't my fault. If I believe that autism is a superpower, then all the things that make life difficult are my failure to deploy my superpower effectively. If I recognise though that autism puts a lot of hurdles in my path, then I'm less surprised and angry with myself when I fall over them. So that's why I pig headedly look the worst facts in the face - to know the worst and be able to deal with it. But I'm aware that it's a potentially high-risk strategy that might not work for everyone.

You say something. The person you're talking to's face changes. They go very silent and walk away. Much MUCH later, you find out what they took your words to mean, which wasn't what you meant at all. In the mean time you've been at cross purposes with them, and probably everything you've said has made the situation worse. Sound bad? Well that is the reality of life for autistic people when we get over-interpreted. I've had it happen at work a number of times and it can cause so much harm. Once someone reads a message into your tone, words or body language that you didn't mean to be there, it's almost impossible to unpick the misunderstanding even if you're neurotypical, and if you're autistic it's harder still. Everything you say makes the situation worse, and ultimately if it happens with your manager they can conclude you're a poor performer and it can even end your career.

There's plenty of things in a world not designed for autistics that can make our lives difficult. But we autistics can also work against ourselves with over-conscientiousness - going not just the extra mile but the extra million miles and then wondering why our shoes are worn out. Figuratively.

Picture the stereotype you have in your head of an autistic person. It's probably a geek or a nerd - maybe wearing loose, scruffy clothes and trainers, possibly with thick glasses, hair probably a bit messy or very short. Probably not much makeup. Now picture the stereotype you have of a "professional" person. Suit and tie/heels, well turned out, smart clothes, impeccably groomed, not a hair out of place. There's not a lot in common between the two is there? Appearance isn't everything but it sets the tone of a business relationship, and your clients, stakeholders and politicians want to see you've made an effort. So if autistic people are to succeed in the workplace they should probably stop looking such a mess and start looking professional. Everyone else makes an effort - why shouldn't they?

For me, like many autistic people, precise language is important. But unfortunately not all autistic people agree on the language that’s best to use about autism. This is an attempt to summar…

One of my most important reasonable adjustments for autism is having a fixed desk. Like most workplaces, mine operates a hot-desking policy and colleagues have to book in advance where they will sit on a given day. I realised several years ago that that system really didn't work for my autistic brain - the sheer level of stress at having to sit in different places every day - or worse still being uncertain about where I could sit - took up all my processing power. My brain is quite capable of spending a whole day going over and over "this is the wrong place, this doesn't feel right, I'm in the wrong place" and failing to get anything useful done at all. So, I know I need a fixed desk, so much is clear. And yet...

If we call someone "mad" or "crazy" or any number of other words meaning "mentally ill" then we often mean we can discount what they're saying. That's really bad for people who are mentally ill, and who deserve to be listened to as much as anyone else, but pretending the unfair stigma isn't there in those words won't make it go away. When an autistic person is called "mentally ill" it's a coded way of saying that they're wrong, they don't know what they're talking about, that their differences are unacceptable.

It's asking a lot of parents, but I really think it would be better for an autistic person if they were allowed to be who and what they are, rather than trained to fit in. Or, I should say, it probably helps to be trained to fit in if that's what you want to do - to have that option - but not to pretend that the autism can go away. Accepting that your family member is autistic not neurotypical can mean great sacrifices - giving up the life you thought you'd have, taking on caring responsibilities that you hoped you wouldn't have, dealing with someone you maybe don't understand very well or who hurts and frustrates you. It's asking the family and friends to adapt and change and they may not like that. But hopefully as more do, as autism is better understood, and with more successful autistic people in work and the public eye it will come to seem less imperative to "cure" rather than accept autistics.

Most autistics are men or boys, right? It makes sense that women and girls who are more naturally people-focussed and communicative wouldn't be autistic doesn't it? Well no. That's a whacking great stereotype about females but also there is no particular reason to think most autistics are male. What IS the case though is that autism is much more likely to have been diagnosed in boys in the past. As Caroline Criado Perez has pointed out, the world (regarding diagnostic criteria and many other things) has tended to treat males as the "default" or the "norm" and females as the exception. So if the way we think about autism is based on the male experience of autism, what does that mean for people like me?

If there are any people aged about 4 to about 18 in your family, you might have been confronting "back to school" for a few weeks now. For many children school is something to be looked forward to (I'm told!) but for this autistic it was a total nightmare. And sadly there are still plenty of autistic children having to confront that nightmare every September. Why is it so bad? Well for me at least it wasn't about the teaching and learning so much as the other children.

Everyone's on the spectrum, right? We all have some of the traits of autism ranging from being a little bit quirky occasionally to being non verbal and unable to function? Well no. The "spectrum" doesn't work like that and saying everyone's "on the spectrum" isn't helpful. You don't have to minimise someone's disability for them to be valid as a person. You don't have to tell them they're (nearly) normal for them to be valid as a person. And you definitely shouldn't be dividing autistic people into two categories, one of which should just stop complaining and fake normal like everyone else while the other is consigned to institutional care. We can do better than that.

If about 1 in 100 people is autistic, and if the UK civil service reflects the population it serves, then there may be enough autistic civil servants to make up a medium-sized department. But what jobs are they doing? They're probably all doing the filing and/or data entry, right? Well no, some of us are doing leadership roles, but autistic leaders may tend to keep quiet about their autism because of the fear of stigma. Part of the role of a senior civil servant is to be able to advise Ministers and speak authoritatively about government policy with people outside government. To do that we need to be able to have credibility, and many of us fear that if our stakeholders knew about our autism, they might not trust us.

I got my autism diagnosis when I was half way to my goal and working as a middle manager, and already things were a struggle. So while the diagnosis was brilliant in explaining a lot of things about me that I'd blamed myself for, it also made me feel that leadership was now out of reach. I still struggle with whether that's the case because of my attacks of self doubt, but I'm hoping that by being open I'll encourage more autistic leaders to come forward and go for the top.

I've been doing an occasional series of observations about how neurotypical attempts to support autistic people can fail because of lack of understanding about how are brains are different. Here's a few extra pitfalls and aggravations for autistic and neurotypical colleagues. I mentor a lot of autistic civil servants so these reflections are derived from their (and my) experiences but each is composed of multiple people and not supposed to represent anyone in particular.

I've been writing this blog for a while now and some days it really feels like things are changing for the better. There are more openly autistic people in the public eye, more TV documentaries (such as Chris Packham's and Christine McGuinness's) more fiction about and by autistic people and better understanding in the workplace. On other days it feels like there's no progress at all.

Proms season has just begun so heat, light and cameras are very much in my mind (I sing in the BBC Symphony Chorus). But more generally in our culture light is generally better than dark - dark is something to be feared, but light is safety and positivity. With the spring, the days get longer and everything seems brighter and more cheerful - and that has to be good thing. But as with so many things that are good for neurotypical people, too much light can be an autistic nightmare. Many of us have hypersensitive eyes which means strong sunlight can be actively painful, as can some kinds of artificial light. You may long for those bright summer days, but for some of us it's not always a blessing.

People putting emotional demands on me on purpose is something I struggle with. I think that's why the colleague who sits opposite me and simpers all day in order to make other people respond positively to him/her is so maddening (to me - not to other people!) It's not that I'm not empathic - I certainly am - and if someone just expresses their emotion, I am very likely to respond to it. What makes me autistic skin crawl is when someone demands a particular emotional response from me and won't stop figuratively poking at me until I've provided that response.

I've started collecting an occasional series of observations about how neurotypical people can attempt to support autistic people can fail because of lack of understanding about how are brains are different. Here's a few more pitfalls for autistic and neurotypical colleagues. I mentor a lot of autistic civil servants so these reflections are derived from their (and my) experiences but each is composed of multiple people and not supposed to represent anyone in particular.

I've written about how attempts by neurotypical people to support autistic people can fail because of lack of understanding about how are brains are different. There are some specific ways that happens in the work place that I'd like to say a bit more about, in the hope of building better common understanding, and avoiding a great deal of unhappiness and frustration all round.