The Forums › Forums › The Workplace › Strategies for Work › job reviews › Re: job reviews
Anonymous
Thought I’d share my blog post from today – I just told my boss I have been diagnosed with ADHD during my annual employee performance review. If I drank, I’d need a beer just about now!
Sharing My Diagnosis with my Boss
I knew it had to come – the time when I’d be sharing my diagnosis with people outside of my immediate circle of family and friends.
On the weekend I mentioned it briefly to a friend of my brother at his wedding, it just seemed reasonable to mention it given the flow of the conversation, plus I was interested to know how someone I did not know would react. I also wanted to see how I would react afterward. The person looked at me a bit knowingly, then seemed at a loss for words, but luckily a distraction arose – a speech at the wedding. They seemed to make an effort to say something nice afterward so I take it I was not deemed completely insane. Plus they may have had some experience or knew about a friend with it – but I don’t know.
And then today at my job, I had the first of several meetings that comprise my annual performance evaluation with my boss. In the discussion, I brought up my recent diagnosis during a specific conversation about some goals I had been trying to achieve last year (for which this performance evaluation would be directed towards). My boss nodded and said they knew all too well – they’d in fact been diagnosed themselves.
I had prepared well for the meeting, and described what efforts I will be making to further advance certain areas of my professional development. In thinking this out, and putting it to paper, I think I have a good road map (in development) of how I will improve my ability to deliver effectively at work in a consistent and timely way over the next few months.
I felt pretty calm about it during the rest of the meeting, and now I think this will help me in my job performance in the future. But now – an hour later – I am a large canvas sack full of varying emotions and flowing thoughts. I guess I feel mostly okay and optimistic about it, but wow. Whoa. This was a defining point in my post ADHD diagnosis life.
Damn, this stuff is HARD. But I’m getting through it, opportunity by opportunity, road block by road block, challenge by challenge and success by success.
I would be interested to hear in your comments what experiences you have had (or imagine that you will have) in telling or in not telling your boss or colleagues about your ADHD.
Cheers,
Mungo
REPORT ABUSE