October was ADHD Awareness Month, and as it closed, I’ve been reflecting on my own experience of being diagnosed with ADHD and autism in 2024.
After multiple episodes of burnout over a two-year period, my sense that I was different became overbearing. A quiet hum I’d been hearing since my early twenties turned into a roar. I asked for help, but I never received it. Maybe it was a sign of the times, but the signs that had been there since childhood just didn’t prompt any exploration.
I learnt to read at age two, yet I struggled with reciting the alphabet. Even now I can only do it properly if I sing it, and I can’t tell you offhand which letter follows or precedes another without running through the whole thing. I was called a gifted child. I could read and retain a book in a few hours, burning through Enid Blyton so fast that if my parents hadn’t been so scrupulously honest, they could have returned books that looked unread.
I also took things literally. When my ice skating teacher told me that if I didn’t pass my test I’d have to stay with her for a week, I believed she was going to kidnap me. I didn’t realise she meant an extra class.
My pattern recognition is often mistaken for negativity. It lets me run scenarios at lightning speed and land on likely outcomes, which are usually labelled, and penalised, as me being too pessimistic. I blurt my thoughts out and am overly communicative at times. At other times I seem to hoard information, because I struggle to explain something when so much of the processing has happened subconsciously. I can’t help but fight for justice even when I should probably let it go, and equally I can go so silent that my energy alone creates noise. I disengage quickly, not through boredom but from overstimulation. Sometimes I zone out, almost like I’ve gone into standby. I’m not being rude, I’ve just got distracted. I doodle, I multitask, and I can plough through work at such an alarming rate that colleagues have accused me of trying to make them look bad.
Getting diagnosed made me curious about my whole life: my impulsiveness, my directness, my bravery. Was it me, or was it my ADHD? I’ve often wondered. Talking to friends and others about their experiences has been fulfilling and affirming. Those nights spent crying, scared of my racing thoughts and a body that felt like it was vibrating from the inside, no longer felt like a secret enemy consuming me from within.
But it isn’t just personal. I’ve had a huge revelation about workplace conversations on neurodiversity, especially for the late diagnosed. There’s a complete mismatch, and it’s having disastrous consequences. Here’s how it plays out.
You get diagnosed.
The workplace recognises your condition.
You breathe a sigh of relief.
You look at the policies that talk about being yourself at work.
You get confirmation from occupational health and some adjustments are made.
Your manager confirms the adjustments.
No one manages your team.
Team dynamics don’t change.
Your reputation for being negative, difficult, direct and disruptive isn’t corrected or amended.
You think you’re safe because your manager knows why you act that way.
You stop covering. It’s been exhausting, and finally people know and adjustments have been agreed.
No one gives you grace.
No one cares.
You’re now being penalised for your authenticity.
The same authenticity you were told would be welcomed.
The authenticity protected by employment law.
You begin to fail.
You rail against the injustice.
You retreat.
Your performance suffers.
You disengage.
You leave.
Does this resonate?
I’ve developed something to help teams re-contract after a diagnosis. Want to work with me on this? Let me know.