"You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you." -Isadora Duncan
Logging on to write this article, I'm struck by the freedom I feel at this very moment: particularly the freedom to show up authentically in front of a professional audience as an openly neurodivergent business owner.
While it's officially ADHD Awareness Month, you've probably noticed that I didn't save my messaging for October. Since the moment I got my diagnosis, I knew I wanted to be public about having ADHD.
Why? Because, as one of my best friends so beautifully stated, "What would it have meant to have attended one of your talks at the beginning of your own career?"
Early on in my professional journey, a supervisor placed a mysterious 1:1 on my calendar. As I walked into the meeting room, I was struck by the overhead light. It felt so piercingly bright that I struggled to keep my eyes open. I was worried I was making a strange expression, so I started to fidget under the table. Then, I was worried I'd be caught squirming, so I started pinching the backs of my legs to sit still.
"I called this meeting because there are many things we love about having you on the team," she started... The lights were blinding me... "But," she continued, "you're just too intense. It's making people uncomfortable." I pinched the back of my leg. "It's making me uncomfortable."
As the conversation unfolded, she seemed to indicate she wanted me to be passionate, but not too passionate ("but please continue to represent our organization so well to the public")... She wanted me to be focused, but not hyperfocused ("but please continue to learn at a lightning-fast speed")...
As a young professional with no understanding of ADHD, I felt trapped and totally defenseless. I was just waiting for the moment to be released from the meeting room- and the sensory overload.
Finally, it was over. Fighting off tears, I proceeded to walk to the restroom. Then, I sat in a bathroom stall, and I sobbed.
Even without an ADHD diagnosis, I knew then what I still know now: It's not so simple to leverage my brain's "super strengths" and then somehow disable the parts that are less socially acceptable.
My mind is a mixed bag: it's all the things, all at once.
Knowing I couldn't change how my brain worked, I determined that the only way I would be successful in my career would be to simply pretend I was somebody who I wasn't: in other words, to mask. That created a heaviness that I believe led to illness and took me years and years to start to shake off.
Despite the weight of this memory, I truly don't look back with any bitterness. At that time, there was so little that was understood about neurodiversity in the workplace- especially ADHD symptoms among women. I'm confident that both my supervisor and I would have really appreciated more education and awareness.
Yet, even with the advancements from then to now, I'm looking at the world around me with this sickening feeling that we've only just begun to scratch the surface. As a hyperactive/impulsive ADHD-er, I don't feel we're moving fast enough. Research remains spotty, and, as a society, we're continuing to uphold systems and norms that often fail a segment of the population that is only growing in identification.
I write this piece at an interesting moment in my career. I have clocked more than a decade in healthcare management and community health education. I have also founded a company on a mission to produce transformative and memorable adult education.
It's a point in which I can recognize my unique preparation for becoming an advocate and also a point in which, transparently, I still don't have all the answers.
With that said, my team and I are dreaming up ways to make the working world a little kinder- to create space for difference and better support the very minds that are paving new paths forward for all of us, each and every day.
ADHD Awareness Month is more than just about shining a spotlight on stories like mine. It's about creating a future in which everyone (including the traditionally employed) gets to be more free: to dream, to contribute, and to show up as the brilliant force that I believe we're all meant to be.
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