ADHD, Neurodiversity, and Bias

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m Morra Aarons-Mele, and this is The Anxious Achiever. We look at stories from business leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges – how they fell down, how they pick themselves up, and how they hope workplaces can change in the future. Last season we spoke with a military combat pilot, a famous entrepreneur, and a professor about their journeys managing ADHD in their intense careers. We dove into what it was like being an entrepreneur with this issue, and why, in fact, according to research, having ADHD might even advantage you if you’re an entrepreneur. It was one of our most popular episodes, however, everyone on the episode was a White man and I got feedback from listeners, which was great, saying, “Hey, women have ADHD too.” So today, I want to address the fact that we have bias. Of course we have bias when it comes to neurodiversity and addressing mental health. We have ideas of who exactly faces certain issues. And I bet if you picture someone with ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you probably picture a child, a kid. You might picture a man, and a White man at that. The Anxious Achiever is about de-stigmatizing all that goes on in our brains, and how all that goes on in our brains helps us succeed at work. It’s about breaking down preconceptions. Chanté Joseph has written, “The ADHD stereotype of young, White, hyperactive boys is doubly damaging for Black women in particular, who find it impossible to see themselves in the narrative. Failing to see themselves represented, they then hesitate to seek out adequate support.” Well today I’m excited to speak with Stephanie Ozuo. She’s based in the UK and she’s a career advisor. She has ADHD, and she’s going to tell us her story. I started by asking her how she got into her line of work, and why it matters to her.

STEPHANIE OZUO: I am a careers advisor, [inaudible 00:02:32] in career development and management and I help people get into work. I help job seekers at all levels get into their desired positions – senior leadership positions. I help people transition into self-employment as well. That’s my vocation and that’s what I studied, but I also have a creative agency and a film club. So, I’m one of five, and I run a creative agency with four other amazing women, where we basically do campaigns, marketing, social media, all that jazz.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Okay. So, you have three businesses?

STEPHANIE OZUO: Basically. I think, and we’ll get into this, people with ADHD do a lot. So, yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Oh, that’s really funny. Well there is a lot of data out there. Last season I had a professor on who studies ADHD and entrepreneurship, and people with ADHD tend to be very entrepreneurial, as you probably know.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Definitely.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: You were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. How old were you when you were diagnosed and what led to your finally going to a doctor and seeking out help?

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah, I was diagnosed at the age of about 25, so very late. I’m 26 now, so not really that long ago. I think what led to it was, it was actually a junior doctor with ADHD herself who had followed me for quite a bit on Twitter. And she literally just DM’d me one day and was like, “I see you talk about your symptoms and your experiences and I just have a strong inkling that you might have adult ADHD, and I think we should look into it.” I did, and here I am today with you. It’s very, very, very common, especially for women, to receive late diagnosis. And yeah, it’s been a journey, a very difficult, enlightening one, but one that I have been very happy to embark on.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well, but tell me what got you in that doctor’s door? Were you in a point of crisis? Where you thinking, “Gosh, what is wrong with me?” What led you to even be in the clinic?

STEPHANIE OZUO: What led me to being diagnosed with ADHD is, I guess I’ve always felt that I was different. I’ve always felt that I was not necessarily… How can I put this? The same as other girls, and that was apparent to me from quite young. My table was always the messiest, my desk was always untidy, I’m chronically late, I forget things. I was just really struggling, but it was when I hit adulthood that things started to take a really bad turn. Constantly being let go from jobs, constantly leaving jobs, constantly being disorganized. And the insecurity and the compounding effects on my mental health was why it even got to a place where a junior doctor had had to message me on Twitter, to be like, Hey, I think he might have ADHD.

MORRA AARONS-MELE:

Wow. Talk to me about getting fired from jobs, what would happen?

STEPHANIE OZUO: It’s crazy because in the interview process and the hiring stages, they would love me, and on paper obviously I’m qualified and all that kind of stuff, and I come in and I talk my spiel and I talk my jazz, and I’m really excited and I showcase my passion. But when I would actually get into those jobs, especially the 9:00 to 5:00, typical office jobs, I would really struggle. I would really struggle to prioritize my work. I would physically find it painful. I remember sitting at one of my old jobs, sitting on the chair and it felt physically painful to start a task. I guess I just internalized that as, Oh, there must be something wrong with me, or, I’m lazy. Or whatever it is, and I just never knew I had a disability. So, getting fired from these jobs was usually… Sometimes it wasn’t even about the actual performance itself, constantly being late, careless mistakes, things like that, typical ADHD symptoms and that was really affecting my employment. The thing about ADHD and careers, obviously because of the system we live in, if you lose your job, you lose your income, you lose your income, you lose your home, you lose your home, you lose everything else. It’s a very scary spiral that you find yourself in, especially now, obviously we’ve got the pandemic and it’s hard to get jobs anyway, so people with this condition are really struggling. Going back to the times when I would get fired, it would be different because at least when you know you have ADHD, you could ask for accommodations, can’t you? Because, obviously, legally in the UK, and I think in America as well and just generally, you’re not allowed to discriminate against people with protected disabilities, which ADHD is. But when you don’t know you have ADHD, you can’t advocate for yourself, you can’t request accommodations because you do not have that self-awareness. So, what it meant was that when I was being fired and when I was being let go, and when I was failing and being dismissed, it was a very awful process, and I internalized all of that within me.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Stephanie, that is horrible. I can’t even imagine how you felt, thinking… You must have just wanted to bang your head against the wall.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah. Yeah, it was rough. There was a particular job, I will never forget this, Morra, I got let go after five days.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Wow.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Why?

STEPHANIE OZUO: ‘Till today I am not really sure, but it was definitely due to my ADHD symptoms, because basically there was this marketing agency that I really, really wanted to work for. It was like my dream job, literally all the clients that you can think of, like Netflix and all that kind of stuff, because obviously I have a background in film and entertainment. I was so excited, and then what happened was because I had been fired so many times, Morra, when I got into the job, the anxiety gripped me. I was so anxious, I was just so anxious I wasn’t going to perform. I was really nervous, and they took it as me not blending and being part of the team, but they didn’t know that I had so much that I had dealt with. Then finally, what ticked it off was, we had a client meeting where I was meant to go outside of the office and go to the meeting. In the calendar invite, they didn’t actually put exactly the address because I was actually just meant to go with my coworkers. So, when I went out with my coworkers, we stopped first in a restaurant… This is going to sound long winded, but it’s really important.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: No, it’s good.

STEPHANIE OZUO: What happened was, my coworkers at the time, we were meant to come with our bags, meant to come with everything, but obviously I had forgotten to bring what I was meant to bring to the meeting. So, it meant, Morra, that I had to run back to the office to get my things. When I went back to the office to get my things, guess what? I couldn’t find my way back to the office because I had forgotten how to get back to the office. So, I was running really late, by that time I was really panicky. By the time I had got all my things, started getting in the cab, the address in the calendar was apparently not right, I ended up going to the wrong place. I missed a big, important client meeting, the biggest that they’ve had. And not long after that, I was let go just after five days. Whether that’s fair or not, that’s fine, but I think it’s so important here to really introduce the compounding effects of race. When you are a Black girl with ADHD, when you are a Black girl with anxiety, when people see you being really introverted and alone, people see that as you being stuck up, people see that as you being, oh, you don’t really want to engage. But they never really see like, Wow, this person could be anxious or this person could just be introverted. Having ADHD is one thing, being Black with ADHD is a whole other ball game. That’s why so many people with ADHD, for example, end up in the prison system and we know the majority of people who end up in the prison system. So yeah, I think it’s really important to talk about ADHD, not just as a disability, not just as neurodivergency, which is very cool and [inaudible 00:12:21]. we need to talk about the real effects that ADHD as a disability has on work, career, finances, and safety, security.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah it cascades through everything.

STEPHANIE OZUO: And it cascades through everything.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Let’s talk about shame. Were you ashamed of yourself before you had the diagnosis?

STEPHANIE OZUO: Oh 100%, 100%. I’m not going to say that since I got the diagnosis, that that shame has left me. Because there’s a difference between getting diagnosed when you’re a child and when you’re young, with all the support, validation, the accommodations, as opposed to being told when you’re quarter way through your life, right? “Hey, by the way you have this.” It’s like, okay. That shame doesn’t really leave you. A lot of the shame came from the impact and the effects of ADHD. The constant job losses, being out of work, the insecurity, the instability. Also the social backlash of ADHD as well. I then [crosstalk 00:13:38]-

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Tell me more about that.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah, so basically emotional dysregulation is a huge part of ADHD. I feel like when the condition is spoken about, people tend to talk more about productivity and, Oh, I can’t do this because capitalism, right? But emotional dysregulation is a huge part of ADHD that start impacting your personal relationships now. Because there’s one thing being fired, you get fired, you can get another job, hey, ho, right? But when you’re losing friendships, when you have random outbursts, when you get really overwhelmed, because we tend to not really manage stress as well, that’s when ADHD can really start affecting your personal life. How to illustrate this is, I’ve got a partner, I’ve been with my boyfriend for three years, love him to bits. The fact that he’s still with me, he deserves an award. I specifically remember him texting me one day and being like, “Oh, you’ve been distant, you’ve been distant.” And I was like, “Wait, what?” It was literally because the Highlands was on, like no joke. We have something called object impermanence I think, where if people aren’t constantly around us, or we’re not constantly seeing people and being [inaudible 00:15:11] to them, we can literally forget… Not forget who you are, but just like, Oh, oh yeah, shit, sorry.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well because you’re focusing, you’re almost hyper-focusing, right, on one thing and it’s the managing things… Trust me, I live with two very, very dear people with ADHD, and so I’m on the other side, and it is challenging. I do find that things that we take for granted, people who are neurotypical without ADHD, like being on time and managing, all the minutia that really are important at work, frankly, especially when you’re young in your career. Do you think there’s an element of it? I mean, you were quite young in your career and so probably people relied and expected you to organize papers and be on top of it. Because when you’re coming up in an agency, certainly that is a big piece of your role. [crosstalk 00:16:09] That must be an extra challenge if you have ADHD and you’re young in your career.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Definitely. Definitely.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah.

STEPHANIE OZUO: And a point that I just want to make about this as well is, what’s so painfully ironic is that when you’re in menial jobs, because basically I did my dissertation on ADHD in the workplace for my master’s thesis, and as I was doing my research, people with ADHD tend to do really well with the more top line stuff. So strategy, brainstorming, consultancy, really high level, creative, decision-making, big level stuff, right? Big ideas, big concepts, but we do tend to struggle with, for example, the more minutia, so admin, more repetitive tasks, mundane tasks. If you think about it, you need… Career as we know it, work as we know it, especially in a 9:00 to 5:00 professional services environment or any office job, you need to basically cut your teeth with the admin stuff, with the menial stuff, with the clerical stuff.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Absolutely.

STEPHANIE OZUO: That’s a big part of your career, because you can’t just expect to come in straight after uni or college and just [crosstalk 00:17:25].

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right, and lead the strategy meeting and have it-

STEPHANIE OZUO: And lead the strategy meeting, like come on. Come on right? You’ve got to cut your teeth. You’ve got to start from the bottom and work up and that’s the way it’s always been. But you need to understand that when you have ADHD, it’s that type of work that you really struggle in, so it means that you can’t really work your way up. Because if you think about it, people are seeing that you are making spelling mistakes, your admin is rubbish, you think I’m going to promote you to a strategy role? You think you’re going to go up? And then it means that you’re trapped in that menial work, which triggers your symptoms even more, and that gives you more shame because you’re being really rubbish at it. That’s why people with ADHD literally, literally, literally, literally rely on entrepreneurship. We excel and we succeed and we flourish on the entrepreneurship. Not to say it’s perfect, but it means that you’re able to do things.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Hold on, so I want to press you here though. You’re a career coach.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I mean, this is your job.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: What if I came to you, and I was a person with ADHD who is in a corporate or bureaucratic, or hierarchical, or “typical” office environment, and I can’t be an entrepreneur, I don’t even want to be. What’s your advice to me? Do I say, “I have ADHD, I need help?” What do I do?

STEPHANIE OZUO: Right. So the first, first, first, first thing that I talk about… Because I do have ADHD clients. I work with both neurotypical and neurodivergent clients in my practice. The first thing is… To preface, usually ADHD clients come to me when they’re already in crisis mode, so it’s either they’ve started already, “failing”, They’ve already been reprimanded by management and it’s like, “Crap, help me.” Okay? And in that context, I think the first thing we need to focus on is getting you accommodations, making sure that management knows that you have ADHD. Because what they can do and what they legally should do, is to give you work and a caseload that you are comfortable and that you can manage. That’s what I do. Another thing I do, I work with them is, we start to talk about if the role that they’re in is actually right for them. If the role that they’re in is something that aligns with their skills and responsibilities. And not just that, if the working culture that they’re in is conducive for them, because there are so many environments that are not really accommodating for people with disabilities, full stop. Obviously as a career advisor, majority of my clients are not entrepreneurs, I feel like that’s 2% of them. The advice I give them is, “We need to make sure that the job that you’re in is one that plays on your natural strengths, right? It’s somewhere within your skill remit, but the most important thing, in a role in an industry that you’re genuinely passionate about.” ADHD brains are novelty brains, we’re always seeking new things, excitement and novelty drives us. So, it’s really important for people with ADHD, and I would say other conditions, that you’re in a role and you’re in an industry that genuinely enthuses you. Because that is what is going to lead to longevity and real career development, progression. I work with my clients to uncover their skills, uncover their abilities. There are so many amazing, talented, creative, dedicated, smart people with ADHD who don’t succeed in the workplace, not just because they’re struggling. Some of them aren’t really struggling. A lot of them it’s internally, they don’t put themselves forward for things, they don’t even feel they have anything to offer.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well, their anxiety probably holds them back.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Exactly.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right? Because they’re so scared. I mean, I think a lot of people that I’ve met, especially people who are diagnosed later in life, to your point, are more trapped by shame and anxiety than younger people who are like, Hey, this is me. And they learn, as we all do, to play to their strength and lead with their strength.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yes.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I mean, I’m wondering, what’s a piece of advice to someone who is dealing with a diagnosis but also wanting to find something great about themselves to hang on to? Does that make sense?

STEPHANIE OZUO: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m really bad sometimes at a lot of the things at work and I get upset, but then I remember what I’m really good at, which is I’m really good at sales. I’m really good at talking to clients. And I’m like, Okay, okay Morra, you can live with that. What’s your version? What would you tell people?

STEPHANIE OZUO: I would tell people to write down all the things good about you, right? I would say don’t limit it to work related things – just all the things amazing and lovely about you, okay? That’s the first thing, because it’s so important for people with ADHD to affirm themselves. It’s really important. It’s so important for people with ADHD to understand who they are, what they’re about, and what they’re bringing to the table. But most importantly, what are the positive aspects that you acknowledge from yourself? And just write that down. I would also say, “Have a think about, what are the things that people compliment about you? What are the good things that people say about you?” Because a lot of the time people with ADHD, we will have skills, we will have talents and abilities, but we shrug them off and we dismiss them. We think, Okay, I can draw, so what? I can’t even stay in my job. What does it mean if I can’t even do this? And because we’re not performing and we’re not succeeding the standard neurotypical way, it means that we’re also undermining the talents and the good things about us. I would just say, “Really start getting comfortable with affirming yourself.” Speaking truth and power into yourself as well is really important because I can sit with you… I write amazing good CVs, right? Cheeky plug there, and I can write your CV and write your cover letter back to front. But if you don’t believe you deserve this role, believe you deserve this pay raise, don’t put yourself forward for things, don’t speak up for yourself, don’t apply for things because you think you’re unworthy or deserving, or that’s just a little bit too hard for me, counting yourself out of the game before you’ve even giving yourself a chance, that beautiful document I’ve done for you is not going to take you further than probably the interview stage. Do you see what I mean? So, mindset retraining I think, is really, really important. It really is key. That’s something you’ve got to do yourself with the help of, obviously, therapists and ADHD coaches. It’s a long journey and it’s worthwhile.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Tell me a little bit about the rising phoenix story.

STEPHANIE OZUO: I love that.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: You had a rough go of it, but sounds like you’re in a good place now. What happened?

STEPHANIE OZUO: I am. I’m in a beautiful place, I’m in an amazing place. I feel like it’s so important to recognize that even though… Because it’s funny because I’ve been in a… I’m just going to be honest, I’ve not had the best week and I’ve been doubting myself and I’ve been feeling a little bit like, “Oh God, I should do so much more, I should do so much more. I need to do so much more.” But sometimes we forget that we’re currently living through the chapter that we once prayed for. I think how I would describe my journey and how it ended was, you see that job that I told you about where they fired me after five days? That was it, that was breaking point for me. It was really breaking point. I don’t want to get really dark here, I’m trying to keep it cute, but it was a really…

MORRA AARONS-MELE: No, listen, we get dark on this show because we are phoenixes rising.

STEPHANIE OZUO: Yeah. It just got to a point where I was just like, I know I’m talented, I know I’m intelligent, I know I’m good, but it’s like, why aren’t things working out for me? And after that situation with that employment, I just said to myself, “Maybe I need to stop fighting the tide, and maybe I need to stop maybe forcing things and really trying to succeed in this thing. Maybe I just need to find another way.” After that happened, I saw a role for a career coach at a school. Bearing in mind, I have been doing Cover My CV since 2014, but I saw it more as a side hustle, and I saw it more as the thing I do to make me additional money. Because it was something I was passionate about, but at that point it wasn’t my main career focus. I saw the career coach position, it was a voluntary position, it wasn’t paid or anything like that. I applied for it and I got it because I had the experience with careers guidance before, and oh my God. I was dealing with year nines, I don’t know what the equivalent of that is, but they were about 13, 14 years old, so quite junior.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Oh my.

STEPHANIE OZUO: And I would tell them… My job was basically to inform them about their careers. Because many of them would be doing their end of year exams. A lot of them would be doing their GCSE, so I was working with young children. And oh my God, I would leave that place every day, bearing in mind I’m not getting paid or compensated in any way. They wouldn’t even pay my expenses. And I felt a glow, like I’d never felt that feeling, I felt so good. I felt like, wow, like, Oh my God, okay, I’m really feeling like I’m having an impact here and I’m making people feel good. What I want to say to people with ADHD, anybody listening on this show, or just anyone, what is that thing that gives you that feeling? Where you’re just like… Everybody has that. It was then that I knew that, Okay, cool. Maybe I need to just focus on the careers guidance thing full time. But what’s interesting is, the dream of being a marketing director, because I’ve always wanted to work in marketing from very, very young. That was where I really saw myself. It’s interesting that I have not forfeited that call because I still work in marketing. I still do social media. I still do everything, but on my own terms now. Because guess what? The admin, the minutia, we pay other people to do that for me, we delegate those tasks, and it allows me to then focus on my strengths. Whereas in my careers advisor, my careers coach role, I’m able to basically manage my own time, manage the clients, so it means that I have a better handle on my symptoms. That doesn’t mean that I will never ever go back to the 9:00 to 5:00 work, but I just feel like I’m really comfortable where I’m at at the moment and I just want to focus on building myself up, work with my clients and having an impact where I feel like I will be needed. Because one thing I will say is the job, the roles that I have now, I don’t feel like a tray in a cafeteria, where you take a tray, there’s always going to be something there. That’s why employees can think you’re really disposable and firing after five days, when you’ve not even had the chance to do anything, because I’m just another number. But here I’m not another number. I’m Stephanie. And yeah, that was my phoenix rising story, and just really acknowledging, Okay, what am I good at? What am I passionate about? Is this the right environment for me? How can I tailor my life? How can I build my life? How can I build my world to suit me? If you’re neurodivergent, if you are neurodiverse, if you have a disability, if you are an other, you probably feel downcast. You probably feel like you don’t fit in the world. You need to make the world fit in for you, right? You need to see this world and you need to design your own world within the world, because you’ll always feel lesser than when you’re comparing yourself to neurotypical standards and the typical way of doing things.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: That’s it for today’s show. Thank you to my producer, Mary Dooe. Thanks to the team at HBR. I’m grateful to our guests for sharing their experiences and truths; for you, our listeners, who ask me to cover certain items and keep the feedback coming. Please do send me feedback. You can email me, you can leave a message on LinkedIn for me, or tweet me @morraam. And if you love the show, tell your friends, subscribe, and leave a review. From HBR Presents, this is Morra Aarons-Mele.