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
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.
