To make sure we are using the same terms, I’ll start with how I see what neurodiversity means. Broadly speaking, neurodiversity refers to the natural variations in how our brains function, encompassing a wide range of neurological differences including, but not limited to, e.g. autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. These differences influence how we think, learn, and speak but also how we interpret the world around us; what is said to us, social cues, and unspoken communication. It also affects how people react to things like noise, smells, and visual stimuli.
Onwards to my experiences and why I was a panellist in the seminar. I think the first time I seriously had the thought “maybe I’m somewhat an autist myself” was around 2015 when I delivered a spontaneous 2-hour monologue about an old videogame I had played when I was 16 years old and then in 2019 I realised that maybe I have an ADHD too when I hyperfocused on solving a puzzle for 7-hours straight without any interruptions. For the latter I have an official diagnosis, for the former, I don’t see the need for.
Now if you combine this with the fact that I started my professional career in 2012, you can conclude that like for many other neurodivergent people, those years before the realisations were rough. It didn’t feel safe to be 100% myself even with the closest co-workers and the constant need for masking made networking feel scary and downright impossible. But slowly the psychological safety started to form and when I started to understand myself, I could begin to go out of my comfort zone and actively create that feeling of safety while also working on how to control my feelings and exhaustion. Now I’m at a point where I only rarely feel the need for masking (usually when interacting with new people for the first few times) and even then it’s more controlled than instinctual, which in turn lessens the exhaustion masking normally causes.
So how to support others (especially if you are in a leadership position) in reaching the point where they can be who they are without any fear? Of course, I can only speak on behalf of myself and what I felt helped me and/or would’ve helped me, so your mileage may vary.
You can’t actively help someone who doesn’t understand themselves.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and even though it isn’t a concrete tip, I feel it needs to be said. If my direct superior or any colleague had said in 2014 that “Are you an autist?” or “Do you have ADHD?” I would’ve scoffed or reacted negatively. At that point in my life masking was instinctual and constant, so any hint towards me doing that would’ve been met with hostility. I needed compassion and a feeling of being accepted, both of which led me to the second point.- Create an atmosphere of psychological safety. You of course should be doing this anyway, but for me, as a neurodivergent person, this is extra important. I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if I didn’t feel accepted as I am, as I wouldn’t want to out myself. That said, writing this hasn’t been an easy task. I’ve been semi-open about my neurodivergent traits for a while now, but I’ve still retained some control over who I tell about it and when and now I’m relinquishing all that. Also, even though we want to be able to be open and transparent to each other, if you are told by someone that they have neurodivergent traits, don’t out them to others until they are ready. This is doubly true with new people because I believe everybody wants to control what kind of first impression they make.
- Open and ongoing dialogue about all DEI aspects. This is important for many reasons, but I’ll focus on the ones relating to my own experiences. I’ve personally been involved with DEI topics since at least 2010 and even with that, it took me around 5 years to start to recognise (or more likely, accept) my differences from neurotypical people. Without being involved in circles that had ongoing discussions about DEI topics, it would’ve taken even longer, as learning all the ways we all can be different from each other and still be accepted helped me come to realisation about myself. So, foster that DEI discussion and don’t let it be a one-and-done process!
- Accept that you can’t understand everything. This is a big one. Because neurodiversity is such a big subject, even if you yourself are neurodivergent, it doesn’t mean that you can understand how other neurodivergent people see the world. If one feels that a thing is important for them, then the only thing you can do is to trust them and accept that the thing is important even if you can’t understand why it’s important or it makes no sense to you. In most cases, there’s also an issue in play called the double empathy problem (fin: empatiakuilu) but going deeper into that would be a whole other blog post in itself.
- Try to use the “correct” terminology. I put the quotation marks in there because this can be a difficult topic. In this blog post, I’ve used the terms neurodiversity and neurodivergent, but I’ve also come across sentiments along the lines of “I’m not neurodivergent, I’m autist and please call me that.” The actual tip here is to try and not be discouraged if you get it wrong, usually it’s not a big deal.
- Be open-minded, challenge your biases. Again, this goes almost hand in hand with psychological safety and DEI aspects, but I want to raise this up especially when doing recruitment. It’s good to have multiple different interview structures and readiness to adjust when needed so all candidates can really give their best. This readiness should also be mentioned in the job postings themselves so potential candidates can request it.
That’s probably it in a nutshell. Now that we are here in the last paragraph of my blog post I want to reiterate that I’m not a professional on this subject, just an expert by experience and the difficulties I’ve experienced due to being neurodivergent are relatively minor when compared to many others. Nevertheless, I’m always interested in talking about this and other DEI subjects so if you want to discuss these topics or share comments, hit me up on e.g. LinkedIn!
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