“Normal” Workspaces Only Work for “Normal” People
How my not-normal brain made me fight for 25 years.
One of the hardest parts of a late-in-life diagnosis of ADHD is when you start playing the tape of your life back and see things in a way you never have. Everything starts to make sense, and it’s slightly heartbreaking. And annoying.
When I play my tape, I wonder what would have happened if I had 1) known what I know now, 2) been medicated, and most importantly, 3) advocated for myself.
There is nowhere in my life that this applies more than in my previous work life. I have spent most of my life working in offices. I can definitively say that this has been a hellscape. I know now that I am not built for a normal office environment. It was never going to work.
It’s not me, corporate office. It’s you.
Of course, I feel like I had little choice in my office environment. As card- carrying members of Gen X, we pretty much assumed our lives would be spent in offices, which turned out actually to be cubicles.
Cubicles, among many other office things, are a fate worse than death for people with ADHD. They’re like the slow killing of our souls.
