Oh no. Your boss has asked to schedule quick chat this afternoon. You feel your stomach tighten. She'll wanna talk about that project you've been working on, the one that was due last week that you barely started. You think to yourself, maybe I should tell her I have ADHD. She doesn't realize how incredibly hard this is for me. What if she thinks I'm just making an excuse? What should I do?

You should tune into Stimuli, greetings and salutation Stimuli, families, ADHD, coach Ryan here. Today we're gonna discuss one of the most highly debated topics of all of the ADHD world, whether to disclose or not to disclose. Done, done, done. Here's what we'll cover in our chat booth. What typically happens leading up to this. What are your options if or when you reach this fork in the road? What are the positives of disclosing? What are the negatives of telling your company? You have ADHD? As we get into this though, I wanna have two things that I say right up front. First and foremost, this is not legal advice. This is your choice. I am not an attorney. I am not a. But this is just from my personal perspective and from the experience of myself and my clients.

The second thing I wanna say is, I know how hard this is. This truly is one of the most hot button issues that I encounter as an ADHD coach with my clients, and my own personal experience. From a purely emotional perspective, let's be honest life with ADHD is not easy, no matter how you slice it. As I said, some of this is from personal experience. When I think about the idea and the question of to disclose or not to disclose, all of the emotions come flooding back to me. Do any of the following sound familiar to you? I am under the gun all of the time. All of my deadlines are piled up on each other. I'm disappointed with where my life is at. Right. I can't be fully present with my family. I hate my job. I'm not even good at my job, but my company just doesn't understand what it's like to have ADHD and because of my stress at work, I mean, literally every other aspect of my life is suffering.

I'm not getting nearly enough sleep. My relationships are strained health. It's gone out the window and I've lost track of my finances. I'm so embarrassed, and while I am at work, I have no routines in place. I'm completely at the mercy of my inbox. Others demands, projects at work, and whatever my boss tells me to do, I, I just feel so overwhelmed every day and I'm starting to feel hopeless.I have fallen way short of my potential, and to be honest, I'm not even sure why. I mean, I thought I was gonna be much more successful than this. On top of that, I'm carrying around an overwhelming sense of I don't feel like I can ever fully unplug because of how much I suck at my job. It, it's constantly on my mind. Anytime that I'm not doing something that is not related to work, I feel guilty. I mean, that could be anything from talking with friends, to talking with coworkers around the office, whether it's virtual or in person. I mean, even if I'm making any kind of small talk, I'm always thinking in the back of my mind, the negative self talk is saying, hey, you've got a lot of work to do. You're behind. You can't sit here and chat. Even things like going to a doctor's appointment or taking time off work to be with family or travel weighs on my psyche.

And the thing is, it's not like I'm not trying. I feel the need to arrive early and stay late at the office because, I mean, really that's the only way I feel like I'll ever catch up. But then I never do. My customers are impressed with me. I don't feel confident in myself, and I feel isolated from my colleagues. I have no real friends at work. I feel like I can never fully relax because I always have so much to do. I mean, sure I, I put on a good face at work, but, it's only a matter of time before this all falls apart.

I'm scared I'm gonna get fired again. I've been fired from multiple jobs for not being able to complete the most basic task and, and I have trouble prioritizing anything everything. No one understands how hard it is to have ADHD. I feel like giving up, but I mean, I can't give up. But at the same time, I can't go on it. I have never been successful at anything. I'm a failure. I'll always be a failure. I can never qualify for a raise because I can't even get fully meat on my performance evaluation.

And on top of that, I almost always run. I'm easily distracted at work, anything from attractive coworkers to any movement around my cube, not to mention any lights or cars or noises outside of the windows of the office. I just, I look around and I envy my coworkers. They seem to just do their job so easily, just come in and log in and do the thing and leave, and here I am just working so hard and not getting anywhere.

The pressure's starting to turn up. Everything's feeling so overwhelming. All of those were very raw emotions that I pulled from my own experience and experience of my clients.

Which leads us to the point, do we need to disclose about our ADHD? Something's gonna give. There's no way around that. So you've reached this book in the rope, what do we do? And here's, here's what I will say, all of us here at Stimuli. we're always gonna tell you you have to do what's best for you and your specific situation, but in order to help you make an informed decision, I spoke with one of the four most legal experts in this field, and here's what he said.

If you remember nothing else, remember these two things. Regardless of if you are in the United States or outside of it, the law can only protect you if you do disclose. ADHD is certainly a recognized disability. I know here in the US it's the Americans with Disabilities Act. That covers it. But the second thing to remember, and this is even more important, if the leaders at this company aren't looking to give you the support that you need, is that really where you wanna work? Okay.

In all of our recordings, I give you some tough love. Are you ready? It was hard for me to hear it the first time, and I'm gonna give it to you because I love you. I want the best for you. All of our Stimuli users, here comes brace yourself. It is not the employer's responsibility to create accommodations for you. I repeat it is not the employer's responsibility to create the accommodations for. You have to take ownership over the solutions. If we're gonna bring challenges to the leadership team, we should also have proposed solutions on, on a much more encouraging note. Here's my hashtag Ryan reminder for this episode.

Here's the thing. It is just a job. It's just a job. People literally die from the physical and emotional stress they put themselves under. They get out of alignment and we get so caught up in all of the things we're not doing right, that we lose sight of what is going well. I can tell you I was definitely headed in that direction myself before I was liberated by the companies who fired me.

There might have been some times where I felt like I was getting targeted for my ADHD, but here's what it all comes down to -it's not worth it. It's not worth it to stress this. So I will tell you the same thing that I tell all of my ADHD clients. If your strengths don't align with this role, that's okay. You don't have to swim upstream. I tell them, find another job doing something you love. Or even if you can't find something you love because people say, well, I don't know what that is fine. Maybe you find something that you like, just not something that you despise or dread going to every single day.

So if I had to give you my answer, disclose or not disclose, it's easy. Don't disclose. We will have an entire other episode down the road about what you can do to request better accommodations. You don't have to do that in the formal way every time. This is your decision. It's a personal decision. If you feel that coming, stepping forward and letting people know about your formal ADHD diagnosis will help you and will give you a better working environment, that is the move to make.

However, if you think that even if you tell them you have ADHD, things won't improve, and they may even get worse, come up with some of your own solutions, and one of those solutions might be to go somewhere else. This is Ryan for Stimuli, letting you know I love you, I believe in you, but we can do this together.

You're not alone.