Just told my new boss

[BabafredDenandenanda]

I went undiagnosed for years. I had begun to suspect, but I wasn’t sure.

Then I did something really, really impulsive and stupid. It doesn’t matter what I did, but it put me on the path to a diagnosis. Now I’m on meds and I’m doing much (SQUIRREL!) better.

My boss at the time was very understanding. But what did happen in that particular job was two things – the meds got me more focused and attentive, which was good, but the flipside to that was the job itself was no longer the job for me. In short, I grew, very quickly, to hate it.

So, I ended up seeing a career path counsellor and, two years later, quit. I struck out on my own as my own boss.

Some of you may be thinking, “an ADHDer being his own boss? How does he manage to get anything done?”

I find it quite easy, actually – I use my ADHD to my advantage. I hyperfocus. And when I hyperfocus on something I absolutely love doing (programming and messing around with computers) then it channels my ADHD energy into something positive and rewarding.

I’m very glad to see the positive posts here in terms of what has happened when people have disclosed their ADHD to their boss. Everything I’ve read up to now has said, “don’t” which, frankly, I disagree with. It’s a serious workplace issue, and I think managers are, finally, starting to get it.

In my role, I met with a customer a few weeks back. They had three TV sets in their offices, one of which had CNN on. I said, very politely, “I tend to get distracted very easily, so could we…?” Immediately the TV got muted and we had a very positive meeting and set some direction for me.

In that situation, I felt that it was better to simply indicate how easily I get distracted and leave it at that.

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