Reframing Neurodiversity in the Workplace: From Liability to Asset
How adults with ADHD can figure out what accommodations they need, decide whether to disclose, and reframe neurodivergence at work as an asset, not a liability.
Work and career
You're the person who saves the project in a crisis and the person who forgot the weekly report again. Your reviews say "brilliant but inconsistent." Maybe you've changed jobs every couple of years, or you've stayed in one that's grinding you down because you're not sure you'd do any better somewhere else. That pattern is so common among neurodivergent adults that more employers are starting to plan around it.
Inconsistent usually means your performance depends on whether the work fits your brain, and nobody has looked at the fit. With ADHD it's interest and urgency: you're unstoppable in the crisis and stalled on the weekly report. If you're Autistic, it's often the unwritten rules, the open office, and the energy it takes to mask through eight hours of meetings. If you're AuDHD, you get the tug-of-war: one side needs novelty to stay engaged, and the other needs predictability to function at all.
Your ability was never the question. If you've left job after job, there's usually a reason under the pattern: the novelty wore off around month eight, the masking burned you out, or you said the true thing in the wrong meeting. Leaving fixes it for a while, and then the next job brings it back. Once we can see where the mismatch is, you can change how the work is set up, ask for an accommodation that actually helps, or, when it really is time to go, pick the next job for fit instead of escape.
Start with these
Free resource
Get the free Pills Don't Teach Skills worksheet
Medication can open the door, but your kid still has to learn the skills. This free worksheet covers starting ADHD medication for your child: which changes to expect and when, which side effects level out and which are red flags, why sensory issues can show up, and what to track for the doctor.
For more, check out these Resources!
Book
Unmasking for Life
Devon Price, PhD
Devon Price's follow-up to Unmasking Autism moves from understanding the mask to living without it. It covers the practical skills for friendships, family, work, and romance, and the communication each one takes when you stop performing. For autistic and AuDHD adults who finished the first book and then wondered what an unmasked week actually looks like.
Podcast
Translating ADHD
Asher Collins; Dusty Chipura
Asher Collins and Dusty Chipura are ADHD coaches who have ADHD, and their show covers the condition at work, in business, and in the daily routines that hold both up. They translate, which is the right word: what's happening in the brain and what to do about it at your desk. There hasn't been a new episode in over four months. For adults with ADHD running a career or a company.