The BBC has been granted rare access to the headquarters of Britain's counter-intelligence and security agency MI5 in London to meet a senior intelligence officer who talks about what it was like to learn he was neurodivergent.
Liam was chairing a top-level national security meeting when he suddenly realized something was wrong.
He felt a severe pain in his head and began to lose concentration.
With his phone flashing from the official messages he was getting, he tried to keep talking and focus on the documents his colleagues were discussing.
As the pain grew worse, Liam rushed out of the room.
"I experienced sensory overload and started to lose my sight," Liam told BBC podcast 'Pristup vemu' (Access All).
"Colleagues rushed to save me".
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Liam, not his real name, worked for the British intelligence and security service MI5 for years.
He went abroad and worked on complex investigations, some of which involved removing threats that could endanger British citizens.
He has always prided himself on being a reliable man to complete the task, which is crucial for any intelligence officer.
However, performing the tasks entailed enormous stress.
"I would listen to the conversation in the meeting, and at the same time I would read the e-mail and think about what I wanted to write in the report," he says.
Liam had a hard time prioritizing and often didn't understand details the way he wanted them to.
After the meeting, Liam took a leave of absence from work and spoke with several specialists.
He learned that it was due to chronic physical and mental fatigue and exhaustion and increased stress that had accumulated over the years.
There were days when he was relieved to know what had happened, and there were days when he feared he would have to change jobs.
"It was hard for me not to work," he says.
"I was very tired, various thoughts were running through my head.
"I was worried about how (colleagues) would look at me".
Despite his fears, when Liam returned to work, his colleagues supported him.
He was offered support from occupational health and wellbeing teams, and neurodiversity experts helped him learn how to cope with autism.
He learned that it is important to do tasks individually and not several at the same time, to have a daily routine and to talk about what needs to be prioritized.
Over time, things got easier.
Liam joined a network of neurodivergent employees and was encouraged to come out as autistic.
Now, he says, he can approach tasks and describe intelligence work as solving a complex puzzle, where neurodivergent people can offer alternative perspectives and help fill gaps in knowledge.
He says that his hyperfocus (an unusually prolonged and intense level of attention to a particular task), attention to detail and good memory have proven fruitful in his work in the field.
Working in MI5 means keeping many secrets and only close family members of Liam know what he does, but he says that it has never been stressful for him.
"I have a lot of information in my head, but keeping secrets has never been a problem for me," he adds.
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MI5 is an employer that supports the employment of people with disabilities, which means it has taken steps to provide them with equal opportunities.
According to data published in 2022, people with disabilities made up four percent of the total of 5.000 employees in this intelligence service.
However, the Institute for Government, a British independent think tank that aims to improve government effectiveness, says that this share is below the average for the civil service, which was 2022 percent in 14 and 15,5 percent for the working population in the United Kingdom (UK).
Historically, the security services have been reluctant to welcome disabled people, black people and members of minority ethnic groups, but MI5 says it has been working hard to change that.
In its latest report on the pay gap, MI5 states that of the new hires in 2022 and 2023, a quarter were from ethnic minorities and almost 48 per cent were women.
MI5 has not said how many of its employees who are neurodivergent reach senior positions in the service, but Liam says autism has not stopped him from progressing.
He was promoted to senior manager after health problems, and says he knows others who have also moved up in the service.
"Some people have ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), some are autistic, and some are hypersensitive," he says.
"People who are neurodivergent contribute to the power of MI5".
Gordon Korera, the BBC's security correspondent, says that British security agencies are really careful to have a diverse workforce.
"Partly to reflect the structure of the population, to show that they are open to the best people, and also to avoid the 'group opinion' that is formed when all people are of the same origin or have the same view of the world."
Of the three main intelligence and security services - MI5, MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) - it seems that people with disabilities are more visibly represented in the Government Communications Headquarters, which "often looks for people who are neurodivergent," says Korera.
But he adds that "in terms of the ethnicity of the staff and the number of women in senior positions, it always seemed to be more visible in MI5".
Kamran Malik from a British charity for disabled people Disability Rights UK says the work culture in the UK is improving in terms of employing neurodivergent people.
"Organisations like MI5 are key to creating a more inclusive working environment to support people with conditions such as autism," he says.
But according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, only 30 percent of autistic people were employed in 2022 and 2023.
"Employers often do not know and understand what neurodiversity means, and because of this, misconceptions are created and insufficient support is provided," explains Malik.
Liam says he has everything he needs to do a good job and wanted to share his story.
But when we pressed him to reveal the places where his colleagues gather to share their experiences, Liam responded in the style of a spy.
"I can neither confirm nor deny that there is a pub where MI5 employees gather."
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