‘I was terrified of the tea round’: the small changes that can help neurodivergent people thrive at work

Workers with ADHD and autism bring impressive skills and dedication to their jobs, but face challenges neurotypical employers may not consider. A few key adjustments can be transformative

To the outside world, Kat Brown was a professional success. What her colleagues didn’t know, however, was how much effort it was costing her. “I had this underlying kind of whirring voice in my head of ‘you’re not good enough, you’re not normal, you need to try five times harder than everybody else’,” says Brown, author of the ADHD memoir It’s Not A Bloody Trend. “The only way I could calm that down was with alcohol, and along with booze, coffee. It was the way I lassoed my brain into doing what I wanted.”

That meant downing up to nine americanos a day, unwinding with drinks after work – and sometimes bursting into exhausted tears when she got home. Only when she was diagnosed with ADHD at 37, shortly after quitting her job in the media and going freelance, did everything begin to make sense. Some people with ADHD, she explains, find caffeine helps stabilise rather than stimulate an already whirring mind. Meanwhile her anxiety, she thinks, reflected a sense that she was different and a terror of being somehow exposed.

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