Preparing for my new job: AUDHD Style
I had a long post on my previous website about my AuDHD and this post I’m going to focus on more things I’ve learned and experienced as I’m entering a new job. I’m still working on recovering those old blog posts! For anyone just tuning in, the combined diagnosis of Autism + ADHD has only been possible since 2013ish when the DSM was adjusted.
In January I’m starting a new position through a Congressional Fellowship program as a Legislative Assistant in a personal office in the House of Representatives. Because I’m writing this for myself, I don’t want to highlight who I’ll be working for in this post but I’m hopeful that in the future the office will be comfortable with me talking about it more explicitly.
This new job is exciting and terrifying. I’m coming from a non-traditional work environment, academia, where I’ve been for the past seven years. I just defended my PhD in October of 2023 and was a Visiting Assistant Professor (or Visiting Instructor) from 2022-2023 at a small liberal arts college. For the past seven years my life has been organized by coursework and research. My day-to-day has been largely unscheduled. At the start of graduate school I spent “all day” in classes, which meant I was in 1-3 classes a day, totaling 4-6 hours in a controlled environment. The rest of my time was my own, so I could go to the gym, or run errands, or clean the house when it worked for me and did my coursework or research at times when my brain was most interested in doing those tasks.
In contrast, I’m starting a job with the expectation of me being in the office 2-3 weeks a month, from 9-5:30 everyday. Even when I’ll be working from home I’ll need to match that schedule so I can be an effective teammate. I just completed a month-long orientation program for the fellowship which gave me a test-run of this type of environment.
Orientation was rough for me. I’m becoming more aware of my “sensory overload” moments and taking steps to prioritize myself in those situations. I had to sit in the hallway for a full hour during orientation with my noise-cancelling headphones because something about the voice of the presenter, the physical space of the conference room, and the ambient sounds of my colleagues sent me into a serious distress spiral. I felt physically ill and was emotionally dysregulated. I’m scared that something like this will happen when I’m needed at my desk or in a committee hearing and escaping won’t be an option.
There was a similar moment during a later orientation session where sitting became physically impossible. I was at a table in the front of the room and was hyper-aware of how my fidgeting was likely distracting to everyone around me. Luckily, the room was designed in a way that I could step out to go to the bathroom (which has become my number one sensory re-set trick) and then spend the rest of the session (an hour) standing in the back of the room. This was the only way that I could maintain any sort of focus on the presentation. I felt extremely self-conscious and was worried that everyone thought I was being rude, but even though my emotional distress was high because of that, it was lower than it would have been if I tried to stay seated. In this case it was the lighting in the room, the sensation of the chair, and even the feeling of the air blowing from the space heater in front of me.
A lot of AuDHD people experience rejection sensitivity and oppositional defiance. When I was “my own boss” as a graduate student and then as a professor, I was able to avoid a lot of the types of relationships or interactions that might trigger those states of emotional distress. I have a supervisor now and am part of an office hierarchy. I don’t want to be a bad employee, and I really don’t want my supervisor or their bosses to think I’m being purposefully difficult. Even though I have a desire to fit into this system, I’m not certain I’ll be able to do so easily.
I’m really used to following my brainworms (see Jenn Woodall’s Brainworms print) wherever they want to go but in this job, I’ll need to prepare specific outputs for a limited topic. Part of my interview was to do a one-hour writing test where I had to write a voting decision memo which was only one page. For those at home—my dissertation was like 400 pages.
In order to prepare for my new role I was given a list of policy areas to read about and instead of being able to focus on what was written in the memo, I found myself trying to go beyond to get a bigger picture of the spider-web of the policy issue at hand. My notes to myself are all about how to expand the policy idea—which is not exactly the job of a legislative assistant.
I was honest about my AuDHD in my interview and I really appreciate the way that the team responded to it but I’m not used to having to manage my AuDHD and people’s perceptions of it at the same time. Prior to this job, I’ve been really lucky to be able to keep to myself (research) and honestly I’ve never had a student judge me for being AuDHD (usually they’re excited to have something in common with me).
I have no idea if it’s normal or weird for me to disclose my AuDHD in this type of work environment but I’ve already done it so no going back now! All of this is happening at the same time that a family member is going through a very detailed ADOS-II assessment process and it’s been weird to see the assessment from the outside like this. And it’s also made me worried that I’ll have to go through this in the future if I keep saying that I’m AuDHD out loud, at work.
I’ve been talking with my therapist about how I can set myself up for success in my new job and those conversations are forcing me to be a lot more explicit about my support needs. For example, I bought myself noise-cancelling headphones as a post-defense gift because I’ve wanted a pair for a while. I never thought I’d be someone that wears them to manage sensory input, I just thought they’d be useful when I need to work and my dog is barking a lot. But keeping my headphones on when I’m on the train, or in a room with lots of other people, or just relaxing at the end of the day, has been a huge improvement for me. I feel much calmer when I can dampen the ambient sounds and that makes basically every aspect of my life better.
So, I’m coming up with a list of things to buy that I hope will help me survive working in a shared office space:
Noise Reducing earplugs for when over-ear headphones are too obvious/appear rude
Availability sign for my desk
A reusable Prioritization Matrix (still deciding on the actual design of this)
*I’m still researching a good planner option because I’m not sure what functions I’ll need but I know that paper planners work best for me. In the past I’ve written everything out on paper and then I’ll transcribe that to my electronic calendar as a way to try and force the information into my brain twice, kind of like studying.
**I’m also trying to think about sensory items that might help relax me when I’m busy and stressed, so things that are soft and cozy but unobtrusive since I’ll be sharing a desk with another staffer.
There are other productivity things that I do when I’m at home that I probably won’t be able to do in the office and I’m fairly worried about that. One that I like to do is watch youtube videos in the background (I’m watching this one right now). I also do self-care or personal hygiene things as a way to transition between tasks or a way to warm up my brain to start the day—but even I know it’s not okay to clip your nails in a shared office. Maybe I’ll just get really into hand lotion and podcasts?
Even though this job has a lot of new things that make me nervous, there are some aspects of it that I think are a good fit for AuDHD. There are a variety of “outputs” that I’ll be responsible for from policy research briefs, to short voting memos, to floor speeches, to meeting notes. I’ll also get the chance to go to different types of locations like committee hearings and stakeholder meetings. And, most importantly, I’m assigned to a number of issue areas so my brain won’t get bored researching one topic for the next nine months.
I hope to be able to document this process for myself to look back on and also to help other AuDHD people feel less alone. If you’re AuDHD like me and are in a job that’s been tough or are considering a career change, I just want to say that I know (somewhat) how you’re feeling. The anxiety for me is higher than it probably would be for neurotypical people—I start in four days and to be honest, I’m this close to calling the fellowship director and bailing completely. It’s taking all of my energy to keep myself motivated to show up next week.
Additional Job Resources:
Autism Now has an entire section dedicated to autistic people and employment that can be helpful for job-seekers and supervisors/employers with autistic employees.
Attitude also has a section on ADHD at work that can be helpful for job-seekers and supervisors/employers with autistic employees.
Both ADHD and Autism can fall under the category of disability so if you’re experiencing any issues at work it’s worth checking out the ADA to learn about your legal rights for accommodations!
Videos + Content Creators that I’ve been learning from:
SciGuys Podcast (Episode # 230 The Science of Autism and ADHD with Joris Lechene) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEgJcyNohxs
Alexander Avila (Tiktok gave me Autism: The Politics of Self Diagnosis) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4ieMzbXiRA
The Thought Spot https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtspot222
Yo Samdy Sam (How my AUTISM hides my ADHD) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ8fAfVevL8
