For years, Liz Norell’s supervisor gave her the same feedback: Be more collegial; communicate better about projects. Norell asked for guidance but kept hitting the same brick wall: “Over and over, in emails and conversations, I was told: ‘Use your professional judgment.’” That vague advice “felt like a trap,” she said. “I could never predict what would inflame the situation, so I walked around on eggshells constantly.” Eventually, she was fired, in part, for not being collegial enough.
A few years later, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. At that point, so many things became clear, said Norell, now an associate director of instructional support at the University of Mississippi’s teaching center. In the higher-ed workplace today, she said, “I’m much more cognizant of what I need to be successful and where I might need to engage in self-advocacy.”
Have you ever wondered, as an academic, whether you might be neurodivergent — whether you’ve gone through life with undiagnosed autism, attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or some other developmental disorder? Do you wonder whether your career in higher education has suffered because you lacked a complete picture of yourself?
You might be right. Adult diagnoses of ADHD and autism are on the rise, in large part because the diagnostic criteria from decades ago were far too narrow. Today, a “lost generation” of adults with such developmental conditions are seeking some answers — including more and more faculty members. A diagnosis later in life can help you find self-acceptance and better ways to take care of yourself.
I write from experience both personal (I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 21 and autism at age 43) and professional (I’ve been doing research and writing on mental health and disability for more than a decade). Based on my research and interviews with neurodivergent faculty and staff members, I’ve found that most agree that getting an adult diagnosis — while the process itself is hard — can be life- and career-changing in a good way.
“Neurodiversity” is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of mental disabilities, including developmental disorders. I’m focusing here on the latter, and particularly on those undiagnosed in childhood. For neurodivergent people, figuring out and following behavioral norms in the workplace can be difficult — and even more so when you aren’t aware that you have a developmental disorder and end up berating yourself for failing to be “normal.” Once you are aware of it, you may worry about how the stigma attached to mental-health disorders will hurt your career. Stigma also works internally on people with disabilities, creating feelings of isolation and shame.
Aimée Morrison, an associate professor of English at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, was diagnosed with ADHD at 44. She now hosts a podcast on ADHD and higher education (with Lee Skallerup Bessette, an assistant director of digital learning at Georgetown University and another late-in-life diagnosed ADHDer). As Morrison wrote, these diagnoses can provide “a new frame for self-understanding.” Before diagnosis, she wrote, you may have suffered “daily headaches trying to infer people’s feelings from facial expressions that are inscrutable.” Afterward, the same person “may decide that it’s OK now to just say, ‘I can’t tell what you’re feeling; can you explain it to me?’”
It’s no easy decision to speak publicly or write about your adult diagnosis of autism or ADHD, but some faculty members have said that doing so helped them make sense of their identities and push back against stigma and arbitrary norms.
Bradley J. Irish, an associate professor of English at Arizona State University, wrote a 2023 essay on “How to Make Room for Neurodivergent Professors” after his adult autism diagnosis. “Suddenly,” he wrote, “I realized that many of the intellectual and interpersonal challenges I had faced as a teacher and scholar were not the result of a personal flaw or failing, but rather reflected that I simply engage with the world in a different way than many of my colleagues.”
If any of this sounds familiar, here are three key reasons you might consider seeking an adult diagnosis of neurodivergence:
It can help you manage work-related stress. As college faculty members, we face some stressors that are unique to our jobs and others not unlike those of any workplace. We face complex internal politics with bosses and colleagues, unwritten rules about how much labor we should be putting in, uncertainty about which campus events we should attend, pressure to make small talk, and more.
In his Chronicle essay, Irish wrote about how his autism had affected his career: “It didn’t take long to appreciate that my neurodiversity had contributed to the various social difficulties I had grappled with in academia.” He described his “tendency to express myself in a way that is prone to misinterpretation, my struggles to make small talk at conferences, my inability to relate to most colleagues, my reluctance to engage in departmental politics, even when doing so might advance my career.”
But an adult diagnosis helped him, and others I interviewed as well. Norrell sought a diagnosis after a colleague, a psychology professor, told her that “I took things too literally and didn’t understand the nuances of communication with my supervisors.” Before her diagnosis, Norrell said in an interview, “I hadn’t ever even considered that I might be autistic.” The diagnosis, she added, “has allowed me to be far, far more aware of my blind spots and quirks — the things that might introduce misunderstandings or miscommunications at work.”
It can help you appreciate your strengths. Developmental disorders can affect “executive function” — that is, your ability to concentrate, organize, process information, and plan large-scale projects. Not every neurodivergent person struggles with all of those challenges, but most struggle with some.
Neurodivergence, however, also brings gifts. The negative medical term “hypersensitive,” when viewed from a neuropositive perspective, shows a person who is attuned to details that others might miss. A similar term, “hyper-focused,” shows an ability to complete a task in a brief amount of time that neurotypicals might find extraordinary.
The point is: The medical community tends to focus on negative diagnostic criteria, but it’s crucial that you view your neurodivergence not only as a source of challenges but also of strengths. As Irish wrote, after his diagnosis, “I recognized that I could also thank my autism for many of my professional strengths, such as my ability to dive deeply into complex research tasks and to focus intently on a particular student’s concerns.”
It can help you be a better teacher. A common thread of my research and interviews is that an adult diagnosis can help faculty members improve their teaching and relationships with students. “Higher education made my way of being in the workplace harder than it needed to be,” Norrell said. As a result of that realization, she said, “I’ve become a much more vocal advocate for ways that we unintentionally create barriers to equity in our classrooms and offices.” She has organized a workshop for faculty members on how to create inclusive classrooms.
Charlie Amiot, a reference librarian at the University of Baltimore School of Law, was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. “I now teach in ways that allow neurodiverse students to better learn, which also benefits the more neurotypical students,” she said. “I’m also very open in my life and classroom about my neurodiversities, which has led to some powerful conversations with students … who otherwise may have had nobody to discuss neurodiversity with.” For Amiot, this openness “has led to many positive outcomes (including obtaining official diagnoses) for my neurodivergent students.”
Are you ready to start the process? If so, you have two valid choices: an “official” diagnosis by a medical professional or a self-diagnosis.
As an adult, you will face many challenges in seeking a medical diagnosis of a developmental disorder, including the frequently exorbitant cost, the doctors who put up barriers to diagnosing adults, the fact that adults have learned to mask their symptoms, and more.
Because of those challenges, many adults turn to self-diagnosis. Of course a self-diagnosis will not help if you are seeking accommodations through your workplace. But it’s a valid choice if what you want is self-acceptance and understanding of your own needs. Indeed, a 2020 study of autistic adults found that “self-diagnosed adults strongly resembled their diagnosed counterparts on autism identity, gender, age, employment, stigma, quality of life, and other factors.”
There are good online resources for self-diagnosis, whether you might be autistic or have ADHD (and here’s a checklist specifically for women). Even if you eventually want to seek a medical diagnosis, you can start exploring your potential neurodivergence with those tools.
Everyone I’ve interviewed on this subject has voiced similar sentiments on finally obtaining a diagnosis as an adult. It “truly is like slowly turning on the lights when you’ve lived in a dark cave for most of your life,” said Amiot. “Suddenly you can see and navigate your surroundings in healthier and easier ways.” Norrell agreed: “I only felt relief, and it was immediate and intense.”
