Will my brain belong?
Cognitive diversity might not be at the front of your mind considering the people who come together to learn. But for me, it's one of the foundations of my passion for welcoming people to join an Upfront Bond — described by some as the “Couch-to-5K of confidence”.
The language we use to talk about this topic is evolving fast but the most widespread is the term “neurodivergence” which relates to a family of diagnoses related to brains that are different from an assumed “average”.
Alongside a growing cohort, I was diagnosed as neurodivergent as an adult. Unusually, I was eight months pregnant which I confess delayed my focus on what the diagnosis meant for me somewhat…
I’m still making my way through a journey of understanding the murky overlapping mess of how my neurodivergence interacts with my confidence challenges. I’ve spoken to Bonders who talk about how important being Upfront is navigating diagnosis for themsleves and / or thier children. And for advocating for others needs. In my personal experience, three factors stand out where confidence meets neurodivergence — reducing masking, advocating for adjustments at work and pacing my learning.
Masking and the pressure to conform
The term “masking” describes the way the way individuals manage how their symptoms appear to other people to try and fit in. Seeking belonging is hard wired into all humans, and that makes fitting in explicit or implicit in many decisions. Feeling like you don’t belong is received as a danger signal. The expectations of people around us are therefore really, really difficult to ignore.
This has huge implications for all of us and in the Bond we learn about how understanding about intersectionality — particularly understanding how white supremacy and patriarchy dictate expectations — is vital for learning how to be confident. When I think about this in the context my neurodivergence, it translates into pressure to ignore building migraines and ignore rest after I’ve been somewhere particularly loud or bright. Confidence to stop ignoring how challenging I find these spaces has been a crucial step for me to stop masking.
Adapting confidently
The world is built with a particular set of assumptions in mind about the people who will spend time in particular places. This comes vividly to life for me when I try and work in a completely normal office. Natural light is rare, vivid artificial light is the norm. Open plan is the norm, encouraging people to interrupt and be interrupted against a backdrop of everyone else's phone calls.
This doesn’t work for me. That means I have to ask for my work environment to be adapted. Although this is my right in law here in the UK, I know that not every experience of requesting adaptations is positive. Mandatory training on how to manage adjustments for neurodivergent employees is rare. Many managers who will ultimately be the gatekeepers of relevant support have no idea what is useful for the people they manage. And the fact that there are very low rates of diagnosis in education means that employees may be still learning what makes a difference to their productivity.
What I’ve needed is more confidence to suggest changes and try and find out how much it makes a difference. This means I wear a sunflower lanyard, sunglasses and noise-cancelling headphones when I visit the office. It also means I spend more time working from home than I might otherwise.
Confidence to try different ways of working, monitor their impact and keep talking to my colleagues and manager about what makes a difference has been transformative for me.
Learning in community, at my pace
When I read the stories of other women who navigated school with undiagnosed neurodivergence I see so much of the struggles I faced. One teacher at primary school took my parents aside and told them not to expect too much from me because, though I tried hard, I just wasn’t very bright. Although my parents waited for my graduation to share the story of my teachers concerned, I didn’t need to have heard it from them directly. I knew I struggled far more than others in my class to do things they found incredibly easy. That meant I found school really challenging and that casts a long shadow over learning in the workplace. Being able to set the pace for my learning has been transformative for me. Whether it's the ability to set my own breaks or choose when I engage with more challenging concepts, my ideal learning environment is self-directed.
But making my way through online content can pose its own challenges. How can I test my understanding? How can I share how I’m feeling as I make my way through and understand how others are finding it? This is why I get so much out of learning as part of the Bond. The community of bonders is there to share as I learn and nudge me towards self-compassion when I’m finding things tough.
Self-directed learning online with a community of people I trust is perfect for my neurodivergent brain, something I learned in the Bond!
As we get ready for Bond 7 I’m thinking about more ways we can support brains of all types — I’d love to hear from you what would make it even better!
