For someone who is neurodivergent, the workplace is a high-stakes performance arena. It is a maze of unspoken rules, fluctuating expectations and social codes that were never designed with neurodivergence in mind. These challenges are usually invisible.

The Myth of the Superpower

Let us first address the myth of the superpower. Neurodivergence is often framed as a workplace “superpower”. This is a buzzword used to highlight creativity, focus or unconventional problem-solving. In the right environment and the right support, those traits can shine, but that narrative does not tell the whole story.

What is rarely acknowledged is the cost: the environments that truly allow neurodivergent strengths to emerge are still the exception and most certainly not the norm. Many teams and workplaces are not set up with neurodivergence in mind. Disclosure, even today, can lead to subtle distancing, bias setting in or being quietly sidelined, regardless of ability, stepping away from plans to include you in future projects or a reason why you are not thriving in a company. Sometimes they spot it very early through the doors. This is a person might last 6 weeks in one company before being fired, 5 weeks in another with the same outcome, managing a whole half a year elsewhere, but culminating with the same ending. This really happens and it has happened to me. You get to know quiet stigma up close.

I have lived all sides of this equation: not knowing but really struggling at school and at work; then knowing but staying silent and then eventually disclosing. Each version comes with its own price. The biggest aspect that causes the most pain is – as in the correct interpretation of Sartre’s ‘hell is other people’ that I covered in another recent article: it is the perception of others that defines who you are: weird, awkward, flawed, difficult, problematic, blemished. It is never said in performance reviews or in meetings. It is always the unsaid thing that you can pick up in the pauses, the glances and the quiet exclusions. You feel it very clearly and it burns. For years. Forever the outsider.

There is also the behaviour that nobody talks about: the overcorrection. When you know you are different – weird, as they put it – so you study the room, memorise the rhythms and build a version of yourself that looks what “normal” seems to be. Only it is too much. Too enthusiastic. Too agreeable. Too polished, or at least trying to be. Sometimes this can manifest itself as trying to ‘be funny’. You become a caricature of a neurodivergent person’s idea of what a neurotypical person acts like. This is a version assembled from observation and from the media, but not instinct. Even then, it does not work. You come across as uncanny: the outsider playing the insider and getting it wrong.

So, no, it is pretty far from a superpower. It feels more like constant translation, self-monitoring and risk calculation.

The greatest strain does not always come from office politics or bad management, even though both can be chronically corrosive. It comes from something deeper: constantly having to translate, filter and regulate oneself in order to survive professionally.

Here are some of the struggles that many neurodivergent professionals face daily that are rarely discussed and often misunderstood:

1.       Unwritten Social Rules

Workplaces thrive on implication and ambiguity. Knowing when to speak, how to disagree without being seen as combative, when to perform enthusiasm and when to pull back. These are unwritten skills most neurotypical people learn intuitively. However, for someone who is neurodivergent, these rules often feel contradictory, inaccessible or arbitrary. What is implicit sometimes needs to be explicitly explained. The workplace feels like everybody else has access to a rulebook that you have not received. I’ve likened it previously to going into a movie 25 minutes after it started and you have to work it all out yourself.

The struggle: Constant anxiety about doing or saying the “wrong” thing, even when the intention is respectful and professional. The slow realisation that nobody is coming to help you.

2.       Sensory Overload

Open-plan offices, harsh lighting, unpredictable noise and hot-desking can all be physically and mentally exhausting. The sensory environment of most workplaces is designed for efficiency, not comfort. For someone with neurodivergence, it can feel like trying to work inside a pinball machine.

The struggle: Managing physical discomfort while appearing focused and “normal”.

3.       Changes in Routine or Structure

Many professionals who are neurodivergent rely on predictability and routine to thrive. Last-minute changes, vague briefs, shifting deadlines, such as from a standard to a rush timeline or changes to job scopes can be deeply destabilising, while just mildly inconvenient to neurotypical people.

The struggle: Producing high-quality work under conditions that feel chaotic or incoherent.

4.       Small Talk and Surface Interaction

Office small talk, team lunches and birthday cards often serve as social glue in office culture. For people with neurodivergence, this can feel forced, performative and exhausting. Similarly, after-work drinks are another part of this glue. This is often a bad idea for neurodivergent people. Try to stay away or make a brief appearance and then skedaddle as soon as you can. Remember: in vino veritas.

The struggle: Feeling misunderstood as cold, aloof or unfriendly when simply being sincere.

5.       Masking and Burnout

Masking is the act of suppressing natural behaviours to appear neurotypical. This can mean controlling body language, mimicking speech patterns hiding stims and rehearsing appropriate emotional responses – all day, every day.

The struggle: It is exhausting. Constant self-monitoring eventually burns you out.

6.       Being Misunderstood or Underestimated

Quietness is often interpreted as disengagement. Directness is mistaken for abrasiveness and is a regular cause of friction. Detail-orientation is labelled as rigidity. Qualities such as clarity, insight and precision are often misread through a neurotypical lens.

The struggle: Being overlooked for leadership roles, even with strong skills directly relevant to the role.

7.       Navigating Feedback and Conflict

Tone, implication and subtext all can be difficult to read. An offhand comment meant as a joke might be taken at face value. A vague critique might be internalised too harshly. And conflict, when it arises, can feel catastrophic, not just procedural. Or you might embrace all of these but going a little overboard.

The struggle: Absorbing feedback and conflict without spiralling into confusion, guilt or misinterpretation.

8.       Performing Culture

“Culture fit” often means being socially fluent, emotionally expressive and enthusiastically team-oriented. These are all neurotypical traits. The demand to be these, on top of performing in your job, becomes its own exhausting performance.

The struggle: Feeling pressure to perform personality rather than contribute expertise.

9.       Blurred Boundaries and Hierarchies

This is a trap I would repeatedly fall into. For some neurodivergent professionals, authority and hierarchy do not automatically create emotional distance. If a manager is kind, consistent and open, the instinct might be to reciprocate, to form a real connection and friendship. This is not because of some political manoeuvring to curry favour or secure promotions, but out of sincerity. You like the person. A friendship develops, but they are your boss. In UK culture, workplace hierarchies are flatter than in other cultures. They are flatter but they run on invisible lines. How close is too close without stepping over that line?

The struggle: Building personal rapport with someone in power. More often than not, it is reciprocated. However, familiarity definitely breeds contempt. And it is hard to snap back to formality.

The next article is about the variable of disclosure of living with neurodivergence.

Thank you for reading,

Mark Gibson

Leeds, United Kingdom, June 2025