Stop Calling Neurodivergent Professionals "Superheroes"

Originally Published on LinkedIn

This is something that's been festering in the corporate wellness space for a while now, and I'm done being polite about it. If neurodivergence is such a gift, why are so many of us unemployed, burned out, or barely surviving inside systems that were never built for us?

Somewhere along the way, the conversation around neurodivergence in the workplace got co-opted by inspirational branding: pastel infographics, conference keynotes, well-meaning HR initiatives that frame neurodivergence as a superpower, like adding a cape on a systemic failure makes it fly. Here's what I want to know: What’s the actual superpower when neurodivergent people remain disproportionately unemployed, underemployed, and pushed out of the workforce  despite an ever-growing, increasingly identified population?

The numbers are rising yet opportunities aren’t. And the toxic positivity that surrounds this conversation is actually making things worse, because it gives companies a feel-good narrative without requiring them to change a single thing.

A Look Under the Hood of How “Superpowers” Actually Play Out for Neurodivergent Professionals in Corporate Systems

So here’s how I run my superhero day: I run a media platform, and I've built at least six streams of revenue. I'm NOT a visionary entrepreneurial spirit who thrives on the hustle, that's just what it takes for me to make ends meet. Don’t get me wrong, it's rewarding work and I’m glad I chose this path. I'm proud of what I've created, but let me be crystal clear: this was not my choice. This was my response to a system that repeatedly showed me it had no room for the way my brain works.

Earning a living shouldn’t be so demanding that it drives an employee to burnout. But here's the paradox that every neurodivergent professional knows intimately: following corporate rules as a neurodivergent person will burn you out, guaranteed. It’s not a possibility or a lack of self care. As it stands, corporate systems are set up in a way that ensures neurodivergent burnout. This isn’t a superpower for me.

I have days where I can’t get out of bed and a shower means being so tired that baby wipes count. I once forgot how to chew solid food for two months after an extended period of burnout. It took me most of my life to realize that I don't just “benefit” from visual and external reminders; can’t function without them. It took me thirty-eight years to give myself permission to put whiteboards everywhere in my home. To publish my website messy and make mistakes out loud. I’m over performing neurotypicality at the expense of my actual life.

And I'm not a special case. Most neurodivergent women don't get diagnosed until adulthood, long after the damage has been done. After the failed jobs, the shattered self-worth, the years of masking so convincingly that even the professionals miss it.

Neurodivergent Powers Include Being Misdiagnosed, Mislabeled, and Misunderstood

I was told I was bipolar for years because I’m a woman, because at the time no one realized that women and girls could have AuDHD when I was growing up. My hyperfocus (aka the very skill that lets me build six revenue streams in a single platform) was called a “manic high,” and when I crashed after having to mask for extended periods, it was called a “manic low” instead of burnout. 

Neurodivergent women try explaining that to our mental health professionals, but the diagnostic frameworks weren't designed with women like us. There's only so much we can say, only so honest we can be about the depth of the struggle, before the conversation shifts from support to surveillance. When you hear the “have you ever had any thoughts about harming yourself or others” and knowing damn well you can’t even crack a joke or you will 100% end up under a 72 hour psych hold.. Women learn, quickly and painfully, that radical honesty about our neurodivergent experience can (and will) be used against us.

So we learn to edit ourselves. We mask for your doctors the same way we mask for our managers, and the cycle continues.

Corporate Systems Aren’t Broken, They’re Running Exactly as They Were Designed

We keep talking about the modern workplace as though it's an evolving organism that just hasn't caught up yet. As if a few more ERGs and some noise-canceling headphones will close the gap, but here’s the uncomfortable truth: The system isn't broken. It was designed this way.

Our corporate structure was modeled on Henry Ford's assembly line: a framework designed for uniformity, predictability, and programmable output. Identical tasks. Identical hours. Identical behaviors. It was built for standardization, not humanity, and it has been cosplaying as progress ever since. And what’s wilder is that the equality gap hasn’t changed much. Let’s use my timeline as an example.

I'm 40 years old. Women in America couldn't get a credit card without a husband's signature until roughly ten years before I was born. That's what our mothers lived through. That's not even mentioning the compounded barriers facing BIPOC women, whose access to financial autonomy, medical credibility, and workplace equity has been delayed even further. When we talk about neurodivergence in women being severely under-researched and underrepresented (so apparent it’s cruel and unusual to ignore imo) we need to understand that this is a reflection of who the system was designed to serve (and who it was designed to ignore).

What Punishment for Having Superpowers Looks Like

We don't (olfficially) get fired for being neurodivergent. That would be too clean and actionable. What happens instead is far more subtle and psychologically fucked up. We get managed out instead:

• We’re placed on performance improvement plans that measure compliance rather than competence. 

• We’re pulled into meetings about our tone, and in my case, watch hours of our own call recordings, listening and re-listening, trying desperately to hear what they heard, and we hear nothing wrong.

• We get penalized for working differently. For needing different tools, different rhythms, different measures of success. 

• We get told we have "communication issues" when the real issue is that we communicate in ways the system never learned to interpret.

And eventually, enough of us get the message. We leave or we’re forced/bullied out. Bills don’t stop just because corporate systems are biased. Sometimes we have to start our own businesses out of survival. I’m not a natural entrepreneur, but the system cannot handle a brain it can't program. But here’s the real slap in the face…

They call us brave, founders with a creative edge. They point to our hustle as proof that neurodivergence really is a superpower, completely missing the fact that we were pushed into this.

What Neurodivergent Employees Are Actually Asking For

I would claw out of my own skin before allowing anyone to feel pity for us, and we’re not asking for special treatment. Personally, I'm definitely not asking for another corporate webinar that rebrands my disability as a competitive advantage while changing nothing about the environment that disables me. I’m asking us to call a spade a spade and roll up our sleeves to fix this for our kids, for future neurodivergents tired of feeling like a failure for being set up to fail by a system that could care less about our health, well-being, and neurodiversity.

The system isn’t failing neurodivergent employees because of AI, open office plans, or remote work debates. It's failing because it was never designed to include neurodivergent professionals. And no amount of toxic positivity or calling our struggles a superpower will fix what requires structural change.

Accommodations shouldn't feel like negotiations, and a diagnosis shouldn't come decades too late. Women shouldn't have to nearly lose themselves before anyone thinks to ask the right questions. And no one should have to build an entire business ecosystem just to afford the luxury of working in a way their brain actually supports. We're in a lose-lose situation until we cut the crap and admit what's actually happening here.

So the next time you're tempted to call neurodivergence a superpower, I want you to ask yourself:

• Have you ever watched hours of your own call recordings trying to find the "tone problem" and crying because no matter how many times you review, you still heard nothing wrong?

• Have you ever forgotten how to chew solid food?

• Have you ever built an empire not because you wanted to, but because the alternative was a system that would break you?

If not, maybe retire the cape metaphor and start building a workplace that doesn't require one.