Awesome Disabled

So, I don’t really have an ability to think linearly. If I’m starting at A, and need to end up at B, I will usually spend a few minutes talking about what it’s like to be at A, and whether I even want to be at B. Then I’ll probably walk around a bit, finding others to distract about my A to B journey. I will go to Z, then back to A, then maybe a wander around LMNOP. I will take a detour to the alleyway behind B. If I’m feeling bold, I may sneak into B from there. Then I will take one more victory lap to brag about how I’m now in B.

As you can tell, there is an amount of chaos that surrounds me at work. I am a capable worker, very smart and skilled. I have good ideas, and I’m a good person. But I’m weird.

It’s no surprise at all that my approach to executive functioning is somewhat unusual. During my autism evaluation, I did an executive functioning inventory, and, in almost every category, my result was VERY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM.

Because I went for decades in my life without any sort of diagnosis or support, I ended up Frankensteining bits and bobs of strategies and coping mechanisms in a swirling behavioral collage. As a child, I never had an adult to talk to me about strategies, so I had to make them up on my own. As you could imagine, my VERY SIGNIFICANT executive functioning problems on their own could have lead to some pretty serious mental health problems in my life, autism aside. And you would be right in imagining that. I’ve paid dearly for being a square peg in a round hole.

Now in my fifth decade of life, I am getting onto solid ground mental health-wise a bit more. I have started stitching the strategies together properly to support myself sustainably. But I’m still weird and chaotic.

Honestly, that’s one of my strategies. Masking comes at a huge cost, and I’ve thought about times to lower it. Instead of being a quiet team member forcing myself to say nothing and become invisible, I became a more active (and chaotic) team member with good ideas and lots of energy. As my ideas became accepted, and my risk of vulnerability started paying off, I became more comfortable with being the chaos goblin of the group.

It has come back to bite me in the butt at times. When people know I’m a creative, lateral thinker, I can be an easy target if something goes wrong. I recently caught a bit of flak at work for a creative idea that ruffled some feathers. The funny thing was that, although I was the public face of the idea (voluntarily), it actually wasn’t even my idea.

On balance, though, it has been a benefit to me more often than it’s been a liability. It makes me stand out professionally in a good way, once people catch my vibe. And because I’m a project-based thinker, it’s easy to see the results of my efforts once the project comes to fruition.

I’ve been on the job hunt recently, and I find my creative nature is both an asset and a liability. I lead with my heart, and with my passionate and creative spirit. That resonates with some folks, and it rubs others the wrong way. Both of those things are ultimately good for me, because it connects me with communities that will vibe with me, even though rejection stings.

I’ve realized that what power I have can be used to strengthen the idea that neurodiversity is a good thing, and that no one type of brain is better than another. And that includes being a weird chaos goblin.