Breaking Barriers: Promoting Inclusivity and Support for Autistic Professionals

Logan Thompson, a microbiologist at Organon, spoke to myGwork about their personal experience navigating life as an autistic individual. Logan highlights how autism affects their daily life, including sensory processing issues, difficulties with eye contact, and challenges in verbal communication. They also emphasize the importance of workplaces accepting and accommodating the varying needs and capabilities of individuals with disabilities, urging for understanding and flexibility.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your role at your organization. 

Hello, my name is Logan, I’m nonbinary aromantic and asexual, my pronouns are they/them. I teach and train in karate 3 times a week and love Lord of the Rings! I am a newby microbiologist at Organon and am looking forward to having fun in the micro lab.

Can you share a bit about your story with us?

I am 27 and have had an interesting journey finding myself and navigating life with autism, and some mental health conditions.

I’m autistic… so what does that really mean? Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts the way the brain process information, situations and stimuli, as well as communication and behaviour. Autism is the operating system that runs my brain, I can’t separate autism from me, it’s literally who I am – and I’m proud to be autistic!

For me, autism shows up in several ways and impacts everything that I do. One way that autism affects my everyday life is the way that my brain processes auditory stimuli; noises that are loud or complex cause me physical pain, this is the same with visual stimuli which are too bright or cluttered. To help with these things I can wear ear defenders and sunglasses. My body also interoperates touch in a similar way – physical touch that is too light can be painful to me, this also means that some textures can make me incredibly uneasy and uncomfortable, while other textures make me super happy or calm. These sensory issues, alongside low latent inhibition, can often cause me to become overwhelmed at situations that others don’t have problems in, this can lead to meltdowns, shutdowns or burnout.

Eye contact for a lot of autistic people can be hard. It can be distracting, uncomfortable and even painful to look at eyes – I personally find that if I look at someone when they’re