A neurodivergent career: why traditional work doesn’t work for me and what I do instead

Techniques for working with our unique brains instead of against them

Welcome to Not Always Neurosparkly, and thank you for being here. Have you ever felt like a square peg in a round hole when it comes to your career? This one is for you!

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

First published in Wise & Well

There was no reason not to think I’d be successful. I’d been told I was clever my entire life, was a highly excelling student in school, and consistently placed in the top 2% of my psychological studies degree course at university. I wrote my first little book at age five and completed a novel at nine. My childhood journals reveal dreams of becoming a librarian and successful writer by the age of 28.

It was a blow to discover that these aspirations never translated into a job I loved — or could even keep.

My diagnosis at the age of eight with what was then called Attention Deficit Disorder was shoved under the carpet. My parents refused the Ritalin prescription and nothing further was done. They were convinced that despite my restlessness in class, there was nothing wrong with me, since I seemed to thrive at home, where I could follow my own momentum and was perpetually absorbed in my own creative projects. Focusing on the fact that I’d taught myself to read at three, they continued to encourage my voracious devouring of books and constant writing of stories.

My social struggles went unseen; the ongoing bullying was written off as bad luck, and the fact that I was clearly marked out for my differences — social awkwardness and being skinny, pale and bespectacled — was never dealt with. I coped by escaping into trees, spending hours in the local forest, where the silence and lack of demands affirmed my being in a way that people never could.

Indeed, there was nothing “wrong” with me. I just had a brain and nervous system that operated on a different basis than most. The brain structure, brain function and brain development of people with ADHD have been shown to differ from those without the condition. These changes have many effects; for example, they can affect communication between different areas of the brain, impacting the ability to concentrate and do certain tasks.

Lower down, we’ll take a look at how to work with these differences in a way that benefits our careers.

Chronically unpopular

Unlike many ADHDers (possibly due to what I later discovered were my autistic traits coming to the rescue here!), I didn’t struggle to get my homework done, and I coped with the boredom in class by daydreaming and reading books under my desk. Chronically unpopular and isolated from my peers, I found my identity in being an academic overachiever. It was easy to “get by” despite my ADHD in structured environments with external deadlines and clear expectations, where my intellect was the key to success.

After graduating, I continued working at the university because it offered both healthy helpings of autonomy — often appealing to those with ADHD — and a good amount of structure. According to this article, fulfilling occupations for people with ADHD typically involve working in high-intensity, creative, or very structured fields. University study and work supplied all of this, and going forward, I struggled to replicate this.

By the fourth year of my studies, I was bored rigid, longing to escape the dry academic environment of endless papers and ideas that seemed to bear little relevance to the outside world.

Endlessly curious, I wanted to travel, taste life, and be free. I forced myself through one more year of working as a research assistant and tutor at the university, saving up money to go overseas.

Overstimulated or under-stimulated: a no-win situation

Outside of the rarefied environment of academia, it was soon painfully obvious that I lacked the skills, capacity and drive for what was required.

Because I was diligent and terrified of getting things wrong, I could learn any job involving a computer and excel at it. But these jobs always had an expiry date of a few months to a maximum of two years before I was burned out, exhausted, bored or all of the above. I was also burning the candle at both ends, often working two jobs and studying at the same time.

Due to what I now regard as my autistic traits, I never grasped the social networking aspects that brought success to my peers. I lacked the subtlety, small talk capacities and strategies to “get in there.”

Stuck in a deadening office job in a windowless room, I was desperate for a change when my attention was caught by a newspaper ad for a support worker role with adults with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties.

I applied with hope and excitement: This was why I’d studied psychology in the first place — because, due to traumatic childhood experiences, I longed to understand people and to help them, the way I wished I had been helped. I thought that if I could just figure people out, I’d be successful.

I met my nemesis at the support worker job. The constant shifting goalposts, toxic managerial environment, and the stress and anxiety of dealing with individuals whose erratic, sometimes violent behavior often stretched me beyond my capacity, leaving me almost missing the peace of the relatively undemanding office job.

This had become the story of my career: either be under-stimulated or overstimulated. A no-win situation.

Meanwhile, my once promising writing began to fizzle out as I dealt with the ongoing overwhelm of trying to manage full-time adult life: paying the bills, a tumultuous love life — people with ADHD and autism often struggle more with relationships — and having one eczema outbreak after another from the stress.

I found myself with no energy, time or motivation left to do the things that I loved most. My novel-in-progress atrophied on my desk as I continued to put out fires in everyday life.

Burnout and the Big Why

Enter motherhood, an unexpected fork in the road, and a welcome release from the grind of full-time employment, even as I entered into sleep deprivation of the most extreme magnitude. Day after day in the sunny park with my baby strapped to me, I exulted: I was free. I didn’t have to ‘go to work’. I could look after my child in the ways that worked for me, in our own rhythms and timing, and be outside in nature as much as I wanted.

I knew immediately that returning to my job was not an option.

For one thing, my baby was incredibly attached, and I couldn’t imagine leaving him with anyone else. This was my chance: with the buffer of his father’s full-time salary, I began to write freelance for online publications in the evenings and to teach yoga once a week while his father looked after him. Finances were tight, but it felt worth it.

I kept thinking that my career success was only around the corner — when my son was old enough to go to nursery school; when he went to full-time school. But something had happened to me: After all the years of pushing myself, I was in burnout. After dropping my son off at nursery, I’d either spend those few precious hours in the local woods or lie on my bed, exhausted. I needed recovery time, not work time.

I didn’t realize, then, that I was neurodivergent.

I continued to push myself to be the best mom, taking on home education and dragging myself through the days blunted by exhaustion. I wondered why small talk with other mums drained the life out of me and why I couldn’t just juggle it all the way I used to.

The comparison and self-criticism were brutal. My lifelong best friend ended up with a bright journalism career, eventually running an award-winning copywriting agency, yet I was the one who’d introduced her to writing back when we were young. Why couldn’t I get it together?

Down the rabbit hole

Fast forward ten years and I found out that even though I’d forgotten all about it since my childhood diagnosis, my ADHD had, oddly enough, not just gone away. Between 60 (US) to 65 % (UK) of children with ADHD still struggle with it in adult life, and it’s a well-known phenomenon that the perimenopausal phase of life in women brings an amplification of ADHD traits. Entering my 40s ramped up the challenges. Why could I just not focus the way I used to? Why was I finding it so hard to get started with things — even things I wanted to do?

I was bitterly disappointed in myself. I’d always been a go-getter, perpetually busy with one creative project or another (and often, too many at the same time). Now, I could barely get through the cooking, dishes and a little bit of freelance work without collapsing in a heap on the sofa.

After listening to a podcast featuring New York Times bestselling autistic author Katherine May, who only discovered she was on the autistic spectrum at age 37, I was stunned to find I recognised myself in her stories. The sensory sensitivity and overwhelm, the difficulty with social situations, and the tendency from a young age to strongly prefer my own company and special interests to time with others, all made a new kind of sense.

Down the rabbit hole of research I went, scoring high on reliable, reputable online autism tests such as the Autism Quotient and RAADS, and finding more and more that I resonated with in the autism online forums. Both my long-term partner and my sister confirmed that autism made the most sense of how I had always seemed to them, which was both an ‘ouch’ and a validating confirmation.

Eventually, I got referred for specialist assessment for autism, which is a long process in the UK medical system.

It was then that I came to the realization that I was likely suffering from some form of autistic burnout as a result of burning the candle at both ends for decades in an eternal search for the right amount of stimulation for my chronically bored ADHD brain. There’s another name for those of us who navigate the often contradictory traits of both autism and ADHD: AuDHD.

I found out how autism and ADHD impact on work life, recognising myself in the stories I read of fragmented focus, inconsistent motivation and energy, frequent overwhelm, and struggles to prioritize and order things. I started to reach out for support on online forums and Facebook groups and eventually connected with a fellow neurodivergent friend and ADHD coach.

As I’ve learned more about how to work with my ADHD and autistic spectrum traits, I am crafting a work life that works for me. I’ve accepted that I will never fit into the mold, and will probably always need accommodations, but that’s OK, because how many of us really thrive in the 9–5?

This is how I approach my work life now that I know I have a neurodivergent way of moving through the world.

Work with my strengths, not against them

ADHD expert Russell Barkley, PhD, has famously said that ADHD is not a disorder of knowing what to do, it’s a disorder of doing what you know — at the right times and places. I work to capitalize on my ADHD hyperfocus rather than trying to do ‘all the things’ in one day.

Like many ADHDers and autistics, it’s getting started that’s the issue. Once we get started, we can be unstoppable.

But I don’t sit around waiting for an elusive state of inspiration to strike; I take action to put myself deliberately into a state of inspiration, and then I flow with it and just go. Instead of scaring myself with the entire list, I tell myself, “I’m just going to do this one thing.”

Putting on music I love, dancing, going for a nature walk, and doing half an hour of yoga in the morning all get me primed to get my work done. I get the dopamine going, then start with the easiest, most ‘quick reward’ task on my list (rather than the “eat the frog” strategy often suggested by productivity gurus). Sometimes, putting on some laundry is an easy win to get the day going, even though it’s totally unrelated to the work task.

Yes, I know I’m lucky to be able to set my own hours, having been self-employed for most of the past sixteen years. But even within a conventional job, I believe it is possible to incorporate these strategies into our routines and workload management.

Keep it fun, varied and interesting

We ADHDers need to hunt for our dopamine because our brains often don’t come supplied with the usual efficiency of dopamine receptors to keep us motivated. We run the risk of getting sidetracked by every dopamine-providing morsel — the Instagram feed, the tasty snack, even a bit of drama. I prevent this distraction by varying things up in my work life and making sure there’s enough enjoyment.

That doesn’t mean I can avoid the boring things. Tax return, anyone? Instead, I invite fun into the mundane by bracketing the activity with an encouraging (time boundaried) chat with a friend or a cup of coffee in the sunshine on both sides of it. Because with ADHD it’s so easy to stay focused on all the things I didn’t manage to get done, rewarding myself and giving myself positive feedback even for the small things is vital. This increases the pleasure chemicals in my brain so I want to do more.

I also build in my need for variety by not having a rigid schedule. Sometimes, I work in the mornings. Other times, afternoons are my prime time. I work with a rolling to-do list, picking three items to action each day. I flourish by having several different clients I support with different projects and businesses as well as running my own business. That way, I don’t get stuck on one thing. If one area feels like I’m wading through mud, I can switch to something else that flows better.

Somehow, it all gets done — even if it looks a little chaotic at times.

Taking rest time seriously

With an ADHD brain and autistic tendencies, my brain is working overtime, taking in all the stimuli around me on a much deeper level than neurotypical brains. It’s vital that I build in space and rest time to give my brain the breaks it needs. If it takes four hours to write an article, I’ve learned that I need a buffer of time around that — ideally a whole day. Time to stare out the window, go for walks, pet the dog. Yes, being realistic, a whole day of work for me is 4–5 hours.

Demand avoidance and Pathological demand avoidance (PDA) are common profiles with autism and also overlap with ADHD. This means that we can struggle to do what we need to do, even what we want to do, because the demand to do it, even if internally imposed, triggers anxiety, and this creates exhaustion over time. I regularly need a total break from all demands to let my brain rest and recalibrate. A day which may not look on the outside like doing nothing, yet involves permission to not do anything that’s on the list.

Here’s the thing …. Work doesn’t have to look like work

Cue another contradiction: I thrive on routine and structure, yet when it’s me who has to implement it, I can resist it with all my might. Workaround? Letting my brain think it doesn’t have to do anything. Instead of forcing myself to plough away at the laptop, I often record voice notes when out on a walk, which I then transcribe when I get home, to create articles and courses. This doesn’t feel like pressurized work and I find that more gets done than when I slave-drive myself into the ground.

I created both of my books through a combination of audio and written material. The first book emerged out of conversational interviews (something I love doing!) with other creative mothers and the second one from journals and audio recordings created during a year of living on the road with my partner, exploring nature and alternative communities.

I have this idea that for maximum focus and professionalism, I should work in a home office with a desk. That’s what proper people do, right? But guess what? I work best lying in bed, propped up by pillows, favorite Spotify playlists in my ear — this is comfortable for me, since I also suffer from chronic back pain — and occasionally out at a coffee shop (with noise-canceling headphones!) to meet my need for variety. ‘

Working with others

Body doubling, a productivity strategy in which another person works alongside you as you complete a task you might otherwise find challenging, has been no less than life-changing for me. Why is it that getting together with others on Zoom and working on our projects alongside each other, whether that’s cleaning the house, writing an article or organizing our filing, is so effective at getting things done?

Because the practice emerged from ADHD self-help groups, the evidence supporting body doubling is more anecdotal than scientific at this point — but it definitely works for me. It takes one element of what worked for me in school and university environments — the ability to ‘mirror’ others who are focused on a task — and amplifies that in timed sessions.

I think it works because it makes the boring less boring, through the sense of another person or people being there, and because of the accountability factor. We are less likely to drift off onto Facebook or dusting unimportant corners of the room when we can feel and see others getting on with their stuff too. I also thrive on collaboration and regularly host events both in person and online with others — this helps me get around to stuff that my own ‘brain freeze’ would usually stop me from doing.

Brain gym

Both ADHD and Autism impair executive functioning — in brief, the functions that help us do what we know we should do. Prioritising tasks, problem-solving, task initiation and completion, and even emotional regulation are all connected with executive function difficulties — and have a huge impact on work. I do brain gym exercises daily to improve the connection between different parts of my brain and practice daily yoga to improve my mind-body connection so I’m not racing ahead of myself (ADHD) or getting dissociated from my body and stuck in my head (Autism).

Forget the career milestones

I’ve changed career direction so many times that, unlike those who’ve dedicated themselves to one path, my CV resembles that of five different people. My only consistency has been my writing and personal development trajectory. I’ve come to accept that instead of singularity, I offer breadth, flexibility and great versatility. I embrace the term “multi-passionate” or “multipotentialite” with pride, accepting that a linear career path is not in my destiny.

I have come to accept that while my autistic traits give me a tendency towards special interests, I don’t have to turn every one of them into a money-earning career path. I can enjoy my obsession with topics as diverse as The Beatles and nature connection without putting pressure on myself to become a music journalist or a nature tour guide.

My work life can look a little haphazard sometimes, and I can still get stressed out trying to juggle it all, but my neurodivergent-friendly strategies help me find a rhythm and purpose to my days and weeks that works with my unique brain, rather than against it.

If you’re neurodivergent, how have you approached your work life? I’d love to hear ….

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