They meet their deadlines. Their work is good. They rarely complain. They might be the person who always volunteers, stays late when something needs finishing, remembers the detail everyone else missed and somehow manages to pull things out of the bag when the pressure is on. So why would you be worried about them? Because sometimes the employee who appears to be coping exceptionally well is using an exceptional amount of energy to make it look that way. This is something I t

Somewhere along the way, "neurodivergence is a superpower" became one of those phrases we're apparently supposed to nod enthusiastically at. And I understand where it came from. For a long time, conversations about ADHD and autism focused overwhelmingly on deficits: what someone couldn't do, what needed correcting, where they struggled or how they differed from the supposed norm. Moving towards a more strengths-based understanding was important. Neurodivergent people can be c

You get the job. The promotion. The qualification. Someone tells you that you did something brilliantly. For about twelve seconds, you feel pleased. Then another voice appears. They’ve overestimated me.I got lucky.Someone else would have done this better.Eventually they’re going to realise I’m not actually as good as they think I am. Meanwhile, there may be quite a lot of evidence suggesting that you do, in fact, know what you’re doing. Qualifications. Experience. Positive fe

Resilience is one of those words that's almost impossible to argue with. Of course we want to be resilient. We want to be able to cope when life gets difficult, recover after setbacks and keep going when things don't quite work out as planned. The problem is that resilience has also become something of a workplace cure-all. If employees are exhausted, overwhelmed or struggling, the response is often to help them become more resilient: perhaps a wellbeing webinar, some mindful

You've deleted the messages. You've told your friends you're done. You can probably produce a reasonably comprehensive PowerPoint presentation on all the reasons this person was bad for you. And yet you miss them. Perhaps you check their social media. Maybe you replay old conversations or remember the good moments and temporarily forget the approximately 746 reasons you decided the relationship couldn't continue. Then comes the shame: What is wrong with me? Why would I miss s

There is a strange expectation placed on disabled and chronically ill people that once we've reached some mythical state of “acceptance”, we're supposed to be completely at peace with everything that comes with it. We should have embraced our bodies, found the silver lining, become impressively resilient and perhaps even be grateful for everything our experiences have taught us. Preferably while smiling. I don't think acceptance works like that. You can accept that disability

You know what needs doing. The email is still sitting there, patiently. The washing has been in the basket long enough that it may now qualify as a permanent fixture. You've been meaning to book that appointment for about three weeks, and you've thought about it — really thought about it — more times than it would have taken to just pick up the phone. None of this has slipped your mind. That's the part that makes it confusing. You haven't forgotten. You've thought about it at

I hadn't expected Jason Arday to be the subject of my first blog post. But his death raises uncomfortable questions about racism, autism, public shaming and whether accountability can lose sight of the human being.