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One day, while tidying up the office, I came across my manager’s notes from my job interview. At the top, she’d scribbled, “Overqualified?”

It turned out that I was. On my first day in post, my manager sat with me and went through my job description, stripping out everything that had attracted me to the role.

Apparently, between applying and arriving, office politics had conspired to convert the role from interesting project support and intranet management into glorified personal assistant.

I should have gone back to my old job then, realising this new one was a clear downgrade. But instead, I remained, hating every minute of it. It felt like a three-year sentence I couldn’t get out of.

Why not aspire to something greater? Well, as my grandmother would have said, “Beggars can’t be choosers!”

I was never able to access a graduate-level job back then, and only have now through very slow internal career progression. Indeed, on paper, I’m more qualified than most of my superiors.

My first degree should have carried me into a role in the civil service or an international NGO. My second degree might have transported me into a fruitful publishing career.

By now, on the right career trajectory, I might expect to be a head of service, director, or mid-tier diplomat. But it was never meant to be, for I couldn’t get my foot in the door.

Why exactly? Because I simply couldn’t sell myself at interview, nor had the confidence to pursue more ambitious roles. That has a lot to do with my neurological profile, but also with how I am perceived by others.

I suppose that remains true to this day, as organisational politics conspire to curtail and limit opportunities. For someone like me, it feels like there is nowhere to go from here: that I have reached my plateau.

Some of this may be psychological, borne of self-doubt. When deriding myself for a small error earlier this week, a colleague told me they had always secretly been intimidated by my genius.

It seems others see my potential far more than I do in myself. Perhaps that’s why I let others take credit for my work, or let others undermine me as collateral damage in their own great ascendancy.

Some people were always destined to be the rising stars of their workplace, enjoying stellar careers. Not me, though. To this day, I remain stifled by my cognitive limitations, current and historical.

But alhamdulilah in all circumstances. Despite all that, we have reached a state of stability and comfort through frugal living. We have achieved much more than we could have done — and than my old teachers expected me to.

There is evidence to suggest that men with my condition are more likely to experience underemployment or unemployment compared to the general population. Perhaps I’ve been more fortunate than most in this regard.

The early days seeking employment were hard, and the later days tiresome and slow. But in the intervening years, I’ve come to a better understanding of who I am and what I am capable of. I don’t expect much more than this.