Small win today

I work in a medical facility (so apologies for vagueness) that is relatively new. I am a one man department, a man in a profession that is 94% female, the only male on the entire medical staff, and have aspergers. I am conspicuous all the time. I'm good at my job and I know it, but I'm very aware that the way I speak, especially in large meetings, makes me seem nervous and unsure. I'm deadpan, my movements are wooden, I stutter, and if too many people are looking at me I can barely get a thought out. If things get argumentative, my hands shake. Incase I didn't know how I was percieved, my coworkers giving me constant pep talks makes it uncomfortably obvious. Most of my coworkers are nice and I believe genuinely like me and want to help, but my boss absolutely does not like or respect me. Tbh I think she likes the way I shrink when she shuts me down and tries to make a show of it.

A while back, I (rather autistically) noticed we don't have a policy in place that we're legally supposed to have. I want to emphasize that this isn't some pointless red tape thing, but a patient rights thing. I ignored it for a while, but you know how that overactive sense of justice eats at you. I would bring it up occasionally and get firmly shut down, but last week it was relevant in a staff meeting and I stubbornly mentioned this missing policy again. A NT person would have predicted the humiliating chewing out and even mocking that I got in response. It broke me for a few days.

In an Adderall and Guinness fueled rage over the weekend, I drafted from scratch a policy proposal complete with flow charts to show actions and consequences, citations of relevant supreme court cases, excerpts from federal law, even the daggum handbook for the inspectors who could bust is on this. I arrived confidently on Monday only to be told nobody was going to read it.

Today, we had some major administration visiting the facility. I went to speak to a patient, and it just so happened that the exact scenario I had been preparing for started unfolding. We had no procedure in place, so I just did what I would have done according to what I had so carefully written over the weekend. In my documentation, I made clear what the next steps should be for other members of the team. Within a few hours, that was done. Everyone was on board.

Now AFAIK my boss doesn't know any of this happened, and I'm sure she won't be happy with the way we handled things. But now not only do I know things were done in a way that was just and ethical, but having some solidarity was such a big thing. I've gained some trust from my peers, I feel like someone has actually been listening, and I've even managed to informally establish the procedure I've wanted from the beginning. Obviously that's not enough, but it's certainly enough for today. Helps keep that social insecurity at bay.