Haley Moss: "My Autism Is Not the Center of the Universe"

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2:32Morra Aarons-Mele: I'm Maura Aarons-Millie, and this is The Anxious Achiever. And I'm not going to lie, y 'all, this is one of my favorite conversations I have had in a long, long time. And it's with Haley Moss. Haley is a lawyer. She's an expert on the Americans with Disabilities Act. She is a disability activist, a neurodiversity activist. She is a lawyer and a speaker and a world changer, and she has autism. And I wanted to do this episode because I wanted to really dive deep into the protections offered by the ADA, which if you have a disability, you are entitled to by law. And we get into that. But we get into a lot of conversations around neurodivergence that feel sometimes like we We so need to talk about them and are so hard to talk about online without people exploding.

3:25Morra Aarons-Mele: We talk about being neurodivergent and whether you express yourself as having a disability or not. We talk about accepting your neurodivergence versus positioning it as an advantage. Haley really blew my mind with this one. She herself, she says, is at peace with her autism. It's a piece of her, has been for a long time, but she doesn't see it as a superpower. And indeed, she is expanding her identity beyond her autism, even though for a living, she talks about autism and disability. But, you know, she talked about the whole idea of neurodivergent strengths, which we know is backed by data for many of us, as a strategic self-positioning strategy in a work world that isn't meant for you.

4:31Morra Aarons-Mele: We strategically self-position at work all the time. We name drop, we lead. You know, I used to say in meetings, well, when I was working with President Obama, and people were like, oh, okay, she worked with President Obama, she must know what she's doing, right? So we give clues and sort of humble brag about ourselves all the time. And I think Haley and I, we have this really interesting conversation about presenting neurodivergent strengths in a way that tells everyone around you, respect me. I'm really good at what I do. Even though it may be a little bit of strategic self-positioning and we may not even believe it and we're still enduring the pain of masking.

5:18Morra Aarons-Mele: Indeed, it might be another form of masking. So I'm rambling. This is a really, really good conversation with Haley Moss. I hope you enjoy it.

5:32Morra Aarons-Mele: Well, Haley, welcome to The Anxious Achiever. Thank you so much for having me. I would love you, before we get started, maybe to tell the audience a little bit about yourself and the work that you do. Absolutely. So for those of you who are new here or don't know me, my name is Haley Moss. I am an attorney. I am an author. I am a neurodiversity advocate, and I'm a keynote speaker. So I have some of the coolest things that you could do. I think I went to law school once upon a time and I practiced in healthcare litigation and international law. I genuinely loved it, but my life story went viral at the same time, which was definitely a story for another day.

6:18But I was billed as Florida's first openly autistic attorney and all that had legs of its own and had its own life, which is really cool, honestly, when I think about it. and I'm very grateful for that experience. And I was getting asked to do lots of education around neurodivergence, a lot of education around autism and speaking and I always wanted to do it and I thought, why not? And before I knew it, it was a full-blown business in of itself. So I left my law practice job that I loved dearly and thought I would take a year or two sabbatical to figure it out, to start this thing and hope it would pay off somehow or at least be a good story to tell.

6:58And it's been six and a half years later, I am still doing that. So I genuinely love that I get to help shape the perception and challenge people's preconceived notions around disability and autism and also get to use my legal experience as well as my lived experience to make something unique.

7:18Morra Aarons-Mele: Well, that's great. And we're gonna talk about both today. So I'm really excited. If you don't mind me asking, you said it went viral. was the virality that you were Florida's first openly autistic attorney. And was that your choice to go public? Yes and no. So I had always been public about my story since I was about 13 or 14 years old. I went to a conference, spoke out, and I was a published author when I was in high school. So it was something I was already public with. And I remember when I was going to get weren't into the bar, my boss at the time had asked me if I was okay if, say, one of the local newspapers came to cover it because we didn't have a lot of autism representation and things like that.

7:59And I was like, yeah, of course, no problem. I just didn't know that our local newspaper story would get picked up by most of the national and international media. None of us could have predicted that. We thought it would just be like a feel good local story type thing, and it would be really cool. And it's one of those things that I thought was nice to have. And it was just interesting. And before I knew it, I was at an event, probably two or three weeks after the local newspaper ran the story. And my phone was blowing up with requests for photos from other outlets. And I was very confused. I just remember sitting there at a table like banquet style or gala style or something.

8:39And I just remember checking my phone in the bathroom. And there was a request from like the AP or the hill like all these random like national outlets like hi do you own the this photo that they pulled from Instagram or from Twitter at the time and I was just like yeah that's my that's me that's my picture like we're we're running a story based on what we saw in whatever outlet and I was just like oh okay and then before I knew it I was fielding inquiries from television and all of that and it was really really cool it was definitely an adventure. It was just the story that was being told was not the one I wanted to tell, which I realized I had a lot of privilege in getting to help shape the story I wanted to tell because people take you seriously when you have a law degree and a law license behind you.

9:28Because the story everybody wanted to tell was that I was non-speaking at three and then I became a lawyer and what that meant. And I was like, well, you know, there's a lot of obstacles that were in that path that don't really get talked about because there's only so much you can do. in a 30 second to two minute clip or what your words get taken out. And that's not the whole story. And looking back, I really stand by the way that I approach that. That's not the story I wanted to tell. I'm in my thirties now. It's been several years since 2019. And I'm also like, yeah, I felt like there was something more important in the story I wanted to tell was about neurodiversity at work.

10:06I wanted to talk about my community. I wanted to talk about how many people weren't being given opportunities to succeed or be employed or do something. It's not like we can't do this so much as we're not getting the support and opportunity to even get there. So I wanted to hopefully shift that conversation instead.

10:26Morra Aarons-Mele: Did you have any resentment about, I mean, it's such a classic media narrative, right? The like, it's the redemption story. It's the, you know, it's, it's the story that they love so much and it's kind of like a version of rags to riches I suppose you know um in the sense of like she was non-speaking a three and now she's a lawyer um such a cliche you know as but did you have any resentment around that simplified storyline not necessarily resentment as much as it wasn't a hundred percent accurate because you know there's so much more it's like i like to think of i do because i've lived that experience i think of that exactly so the way that i tell that story it was that non-speaking to lawyer story i'm like that is the equivalent of if you've watched the wizard of oz right and if you've watched the Wizard of Oz and simplified the movie down to Tornado whisks Dorothy away.

11:32She and she meets the wizard. Like that's the equivalent of that story because and everybody knows most of the movie happens while she's in Munchkin land. She's on the yellow brick road. She meets the scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. And then they fight the Wicked Witch and all this other stuff happens in the Flying Monkeys. Like there's a lot more movie in there before the wizard or before she gets to go back home to Kansas. You know, like that's kind of the way that I look at it is that you're telling an incomplete version of the story that if you are going to make a movie, you don't have the plot.

12:01You have the beginning and the end credits, which is very strange to think about. So I don't really resent it, but I was also extremely grateful because that was the way people were starting to have these conversations and engage a little bit deeper. But what's funny for me is every once in a while, there will be some big viral account that will repost a simple version of that story. And then people are like, that's the lawyer I want in my corner. I'm saying they're like, wow, my life has evolved so much since this happened. And it's very interesting for me. So I guess it's one of those things.

12:34I wouldn't say I have any resentment. I understand why stories are told that way. I know they're told a certain way. And this is definitely a big stereotype and stigma issue in disability world. of that those inspirational type stories are told and they objectify us. And that's the one thing I didn't want to happen. But I also recognize if you get to me and the work that I'm doing and learn more about this community because you found a headline like that, then who am I to say otherwise? I'm glad that you're here.

13:03Morra Aarons-Mele: It's so interesting. I mean, I struggle because I tell stories, you know, I don't and I do. I do tell. Right. In my new book, it's full of stories of neurodivergent leaders. And I mean, I myself am one. It's like, you want to show the success. You do. I think that that's important. People respond to that.

13:35It's just not always that you have to tell a complete story, though. You can't just

13:39Morra Aarons-Mele: like gloss over, give the highlight reel. That's right. And storytelling when we're telling our own stories is very incredibly powerful in a way that somebody else telling your story might not have that same impact or that same meaning. That if I ask another human being to tell my story, it's going to be very different than the story that I'm telling. I want to talk a little bit about the ADA. Since I have an expert in front of me, I want to take advantage of that. And I want to talk about accommodation and disclosure. Let's do it. Let's do it. So can you just really quickly describe how the ADA, we're going to keep a neurodivergent lens, not just autism, but let's keep a neurodivergent lens here.

14:27Morra Aarons-Mele: how the ADA is commonly applied for people at work who are neurodivergent and what the purpose is and some of the common accommodations and requests that you see. Perfect. So I'm just going to back up with kind of where that overview is and what we're talking about as well, because I know if you don't have a legal background, it can be a little bit confusing sometimes. But with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, there are five major titles that it covers and how it applies to protecting and including people with disabilities, essentially. And that big one that you're really wanting to get into is Title I, which is all about employment.

15:10So basically under Title I of the ADA, employers cannot discriminate against people with disabilities anywhere in the employment life cycle from applying to hiring to interviewing to compensation to all the way through determination. That entire employment life cycle is covered if you're a qualified individual with a disability. And the big thing that you were touching on is this idea of reasonable accommodations. So under this, if you're a qualified individual, you can get accommodations at work. And that's also where disclosure comes in. We'll talk about disclosure probably a little bit more, I'm sure.

15:47but you have to essentially let your employer know you're a qualified person with a disability. How do you know if you're neurodivergent? Because you can't usually readily observe that somebody's neurodivergent. You have to tell them. Makes sense. And when we think about what is a reasonable accommodation, it's pretty much any adjustment that can make it so you can perform the essential functions of your job. And essential functions is essentially the legalese term of art that is how you can do the regular responsibilities and things you were supposed to do in accordance with your responsibilities, your duties, your title, whatever it may be.

16:25If you have no idea what's essential to your job, just take a look at a job description online and a posting for a similar job. That's a great way to get an idea. So for instance, if you are an assistant, you probably have to be able to send emails, communicate with people and talk on the phone. If you need help with that, whether it's having more calendar reminders or just talking on the phone isn't your jam, then we can hopefully accommodate you. Makes sense. And when I ask people what they consider reasonable or what they have advocated for or would like to advocate for, it really does depend on the individual.

17:01So I'm sure you know this just as well as I do, that if you've met one neurodivergent person, they are going to be very different from other neurodivergent people, even within the same diagnostic category. So I know when I'm around autistic people as well. All of us have very different needs. We have different preferences, different things that we're able to succeed with. So I know folks who will always request hybrid work environments. This is actually the most common one I see is remote or hybrid at this point. Yeah. Because I recognize so many people benefit from it, which is awesome. Is that might be an example of a reasonable accommodation, assuming you're not in a position where you have to actually show up every single day.

17:42And that's pretty integral to what you do. So if you are, say, a chef in a restaurant, you probably wouldn't be able to argue that working remote is, you know, reasonable. That's just an educated guess here, I guess. But for most of us who have office jobs or in sales or whatever it may be, that that might be a reasonable accommodation. I know when I was in office, what I did is I always shut my lights off because we had fluorescence and they were terrible and they would hum they would hum and give me headaches I would just shut them off and then I had like my own little baby lamp that I would want now and then because I couldn't get the whole building to switch out their lights as much as I would have loved it

18:22Morra Aarons-Mele: so I was I just had my little dark bat cave as I always called it with love and sometimes people would make fun of me for my bat cave because you know it just is a little bit jarring if you weren't expecting it it's like why are you working in complete darkness it's like because have you been around those fluorescent lights? Because I have and they suck. Like that's that was kind of the attitude that I had about it. And I always had noise canceling headphones because of that, too. Like if I had to keep them on to avoid the humming, that was what my noise canceling headphones are for. And that's the other really great thing.

18:53And I think that comes with reasonable accommodations, either something you already have in your toolkit or something that costs absolutely nothing that employers don't usually have to shell out a ton of money to accommodate at you, that's one of the biggest myths around accommodation, is the majority of accommodations are actually free to implement. I also think a lot of accommodations that we have right now are genuinely just good workplace policy and practice. So I'll tell people like send an agenda for meetings or at least make sure things are on the calendar or give people multiple ways to participate.

19:25Things like that, anybody can do. I always ask for agendas and note-taking and things like that because I need the organization and I struggle to organize myself.

19:36Morra Aarons-Mele: A hundred percent. Have you read The Canary Code by Lyudmila Proslova? I have not, but I'm very familiar with her work. Yeah. I mean, I love that book and that's her basic point. And we know this from data, especially from workplace flexibility. Everybody wants flexibility in their time, place. and her point obviously is you know what's great for autistic people is great for everybody mostly exactly and that's I find myself telling people that a lot is like hey you end up innovating for so many different people and I think that's how it goes for a lot of disability generally and I think about that usually when I go to Disney of all places because Disney is very stroller friendly because there are a lot of families with young kids and a lot of it is also physically accessible because of that so you have lots of wheelchair friendly things because they have to accommodate the strollers and vice versa so then it ends up benefiting everyone is whether you're a wheelchair user or you're pushing a double wide stroller you can still get around you can still have a safe place to park your wheelchair or stroller if you have to transfer for any reason that it's something that even though one of those groups was probably the intended beneficiary and the other was not, they both benefit from these different adjustments.

20:54And it's really interesting to me because so much of it is, say, physically accessible in that way. And I realized, I never realized how much, say, a stroller would have that same type of barrier. But Disney, of course, thought of this.

21:10Morra Aarons-Mele: It's good for their business. And it's just fascinating to see for me is I'm like, wow. But then again, of course, when we talk about theme parks, I have all sorts of other like Pandora's box on accessibility. But physically, I've always been very impressed with that is like, oh, that there's so many people who are part of inclusion that don't recognize they're part of inclusion. And I think parents and caregivers, whether neurotypical, neurodivergent, disabled, non-disabled, have so much to gain from disability inclusion, whether it's that flexibility to be a better caregiver or it's even that physical accessibility at somewhere like Disney parks.

21:47Yeah.

21:48Morra Aarons-Mele: A hundred percent. And the same is true in your average everyday office. Mm-hmm. That's why I get excited about it because it's like, this is going to help everybody, not just me. Yes. I have a great statistic in my book that I think it's something like 92 % of the past 10 years of winners of the Great Places to Work Awards all offer workplace flexibility. That's fascinating and that's great. right it's i mean we humans we need agency whether it's for a reason based on our chemistry or because it's just how we need to live you know to me it's anyway we could talk about this all day a lot of that we can also bring back to like rewriting workplace culture because i find myself yapping a lot about professionalism oh say more and how professionalism is just this very like vibe coded word essentially of what we think it means and a lot of it should really just boil down to being respectful and kind but really the way that we set these standards ends up being ableist and racist and sexist and all these different things that's right even though that's not always the intention but that's what ends up happening that it doesn't really matter if i send that to you on asynchronous hours as long as it's done because it's important if it has a firm deadline that's very different but if it's done by the end of the week does it matter if I get it to you at 8 p.m or 9 a.m that's right and because some people work better in the morning some people don't like everybody has a different schedule and that flexibility is also a big part of it I'm always like if you can get things done who am I to say how it gets done or when it gets done if it gets done by a certain point and just treat people with respect and kindness which sometimes we forget to do.

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28:05Morra Aarons-Mele: there's a wonderful quote from amanda morin and um emily kircher morris which is that authenticity is a privilege and um i think that that's a lot of what you're hitting on too is that you know if you're the boss and you're an older cisgender white guy who like wants to put golf balls and i'm going to pull out all the stereotypes here you know and show up rock rock in at 10 then great. That's his authentic self, but he's the boss. He has all the power and status. And most of us don't have the power and status that allows us to get what we need. That is true. And when it comes to culture change, and with culture change, we always expect it to fall on new people and young people, which is something I noticed even when I was in the workplaces, a lot of it fell on who was new, who was young, who was willing to disrupt and who was willing to kind of break down those stigmas when you needed those, say, old white guys to be the champions, that you needed them to use their privilege to make it better for other people and shift that culture and be the leader, not necessarily the Gen Zer who is not afraid to talk about mental health, because I know Gen Z absolutely fascinates me because they do have a lot looser of a relationship with stigma and with talking about mental health.

29:25It to me is the most fascinating thing on the planet. And I admire them so greatly for it. Well, my millennial generation were like the first ones that really started to, but they just don't care. They're like, yeah, this is my life. And this is just how it is. Thank you very much. And I'm like, I love you for that. But it must be exhausting to be that person when you are in a place that had a known hierarchy or a known set of norms and you were just, you know, different.

29:51Morra Aarons-Mele: But let me give you another perspective as someone who's older and who has seen this issue for many years is that it's very triggering when you're an older person or someone who hasn't grown up with that language and that permission. it can even evoke a trauma response because most people grow up hiding yes and working so hard to camouflage and conform every single day and when they are at a point and they're probably they're exhausted they've been doing this for decades their nervous systems are shot they have all the worries also that come with middle age. And then they meet someone who's younger, who feels so free and is so honest.

30:49Morra Aarons-Mele: It can be really threatening. It can be triggering. It's confusing. And so I have compassion for the other side as well. Oh, me too. I have a lot of compassion for that. I think it's also very different when you have, say, the big boss being like, this is just how it's always been. And they're threatened by things changing, not necessarily somebody who has also lived it and has a very different lived experience. I think they're very different things with nuance too. But I think also there's a wonderful management theory called immunity to change. And I think what they would say is that boss who is saying this is the way things have always been, they might be neurodivergent themselves.

31:35Morra Aarons-Mele: They might be holding anxiety. Their immunity to change, they can't change because they have protected themselves so heavily. you know so to me it's like it's like a two-way street i want a world where that makes sense that we we shouldn't ideally we don't have to even be on that street that's what like in my perfect ideally ideally and then how much of it i think is not only just our immunity to change on that but how much of it is that like larger organization culture is that much more resistant and there's so much bureaucracy and other stuff yes i mean it's really fascinating to try to unpack and untangle because I think you can hold all of these different truths and not really know where to go with it well that's really hard for us too we don't like that I don't either I'm like I'm like I think all these things could be true at the same time you know but most people it's easier especially like in a bureaucracy to have it just to like yes or no this is um okay so I want to I I want to talk about where the rubber meets the road in terms of reasonable accommodation, enforcement, and sort of the everyday passive aggressiveness and bias and sludging that encroaches upon those accommodations.

32:55Morra Aarons-Mele: I'd love your perspective on that. You know, the law sounds very clean, but as we were just saying, real life is not clean. No. Yeah. So how do you actually make this work? That is, and it depends on your organization as well, because if you have, say, the big HR department, they can formally implement your accommodations. Well, sometimes you are also in smaller organizations or even ones that don't have a formalized department or a person who is well-versed in this. You might just be at the mercy of your manager that you've disclosed. You've shared what you needed. You came up with a solution that is reasonable, even though the biggest in-practice pushback sometimes is they'll say something's not reasonable and then you're kind of stuck defending that.

33:41or they'll offer you an alternative that is reasonable and neurodivergent folks will get hung up on the fact it wasn't their preferred solution, even if the alternative was indeed reasonable.

33:52Morra Aarons-Mele: What's an example of that? I like to use note-taking as my example because I'm a terrible note-taker. And when I request note-taking, I often will request that somebody else in the meetings takes notes and circulates them to everybody. That would be my preferred method to help me with my terrible note-taking. but every once in a while I'll get offered a recording of the meeting or I will get offered an AI note taker summary or a transcript and even though I would much rather have a human being sending notes and taking notes you can you can argue that all those alternatives that were offered in any of those given times is reasonable it's helping with the fact I can't really take notes very well and that I could still not miss the meeting or the event or whatever's happening and still be able to follow along or have notes to go with it.

34:42So even though I might be annoyed or upset that I didn't get a human being who was circulating notes to the whole group, which honestly I think is the best thing you could do because if you weren't there and there's still record of what happened, you get it. I love things in writing. That's my lawyer brain. I'm the opposite. I'm like, give me the recording. I'm so happy with the recording. See, my brain needs the writing. And also that's just lawyer brain is lawyer brain loves everything in writing.

35:09Morra Aarons-Mele: You guys are weird. I don't know. We kind of are. But I also I also have a better job with visual information than auditory information. I know that about myself. I know that about myself is I need visual. Yeah. So I can get offered any of those different alternatives. They're reasonable, but that doesn't mean it's the thing that would make me thrive the best. and people get hung up and will argue none of those are reasonable. Those other ones aren't reasonable. So that's something that happens a lot or you have the well-meaning manager who's like, yeah, of course, no problem. And then they never do the thing.

35:43And then you have to like constantly advocate for yourself over and over and over again. That's something that I know can be really difficult. And that's the other thing with reasonable accommodations that is in real life, I think more difficult for neurodivergent people is that you're having to constantly explain and advocate for yourself. And that in itself is exhausting.

36:05Morra Aarons-Mele: Exhausting. And it's not always that people don't want to help or aren't supportive. It's that sometimes they forget, they don't know how, or you have to constantly reinforce your boundaries and remind them that this exists, that this is in place. Is this, so the double empathy bind is something I find fascinating. It's sort of like a cousin, I think, to what you're talking about here. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I think double empathy is also super fascinating. So I'm with you on that. And double empathy really is that idea of that neurotypical people and neurodivergent people don't always understand each other, that it's a lot like speaking in two different languages is how I like to look at it.

36:47And usually it's just assumed that neurodivergent people don't understand neurotypical people. And really, it can be a two, it's a two way street. So there's some kind of miscommunication or mismatch of understanding, I guess, is kind of the easiest way to explain it. And I do think that happens at work a lot, too. And I do think it happens when we do talk about accommodations is that we say we'll do it or we don't realize that we have the power to implement something or how do we make sure that we're accountable to enforcing it? I think compliance is a really big issue in of itself. And that's something I know larger organizations are usually better at because things are written out.

37:23HR might be the ones who are doing it and informing their managers, what have you. But in smaller organizations, it's a much larger issue because you are more at the mercy of an individual sometimes. So that can be really scary. And you also sometimes are in these situations where you're like, maybe I don't want to have that conversation. Maybe I don't want to do this. How can I self-accommodate, which a lot of us have been doing for, like you said, decades of trying to self-accommodate and make the systems work for us. because self-accommodation is a whole other kind of can of worms there of we've probably been doing it for longer than we even know since we were kids since when it's like yes because that's what i realized is how many times i was self-accommodating like oh where i knew to escape for the quiet places at certain things or even just having an extra snack with me like all these little things that you were doing just because you knew how your brain was working.

38:24Morra Aarons-Mele: It's super interesting. I got my start in work redesign in what used to be called the work-life movement, workplace flexibility, but was really about working moms a long time ago. And I saw this phenomenon very much with mothers of newborns or mothers of young children, where this was before. I mean, that has changed a lot. And that's what makes me so hopeful for the neurodiversity movement, because I see how the role of parenting at work has changed in 20 years. And it was very much the story of you were having this ginormous physical, emotional, mental scheduling change in your life. But nobody at work cared and you were expected to kind of keep it quiet.

39:13it.

39:14Morra Aarons-Mele: And it was like women would tell me that they just felt like all day long they were tap dancing and juggling plates at the same time. And I think that that's what gives me hope is that we realized that these are very common and very human experiences and it's not fair to make people work that way. I don't know what you think about that, but I have hope that this will change quickly. I don't know about you. I'm hopeful. I've always been hopeful. I think that there's a matter of policy. What's going on in corporate world is a whole other thing. So I know a lot of neurodiversity. What makes me hopeful is no matter what is going on politically, we still are relatively safer in an extent because ADA compliance can still be an HR issue.

40:05It's not always a diversity issue, which I know people are always afraid. And I know diversity is getting all sorts of mixed feedback, depending on what large organization you're in. It might be either done away with in branding, or it might have been rebranded to a different word, that it really depends on who is committed. But there still is a high stakes for neurodivergent people and disabled people more broadly, because there is civil rights protections. There are, for certain federal contractors, they actually have aspirational goals to hire people with disabilities, that we also are good business, that there are still lots of reasons people care.

40:45And when you're talking about working parents and working moms, I always thought that was really interesting too, because a lot of marginalized communities have very similar parallels. If you ask me that, there's similar journeys. I think we have a lot more in common with caregivers. We have a lot in common with veterans. We have a lot in common with LGBTQIA people. And if you really want to keep boiling it down and going down this, you can see not only are these things sometimes in parallel, but they also intersect a lot. That you can still be a neurodivergent mom. You can still be neurodivergent a mom.

41:18You can also be queer. You can be so many other things and have all these different things intersect and impact your individual experience. But if you also silo these different identities and marginalizations off, you might realize that struggle to be seen, to be authentic. Some of these things really do seem a little bit more universal. Yes.

41:37Morra Aarons-Mele: And that's the, I mean, it's the, that's the pain of it because we are still marginalized and it's the beauty of it because it's such a human experience. You know, it's like, let me ask you a question that is maybe your lawyer brain. This is not a very lawyerly question, But I think that – so I did a big study of 1 ,286 professionals who had – some of whom identified as neurodivergent, many of whom did not, although they had diagnoses. And only 10 % of them had formally disclosed. I believe it. About 30-something percent had told colleagues in an informal way. A huge 30 % of the sample just skipped the question.

42:26Morra Aarons-Mele: I think, what's your advice for someone who is neurodivergent, but either doesn't consider themselves to have a disability or doesn't want to formally disclose? How do you get what you need? That is such a good question. And I think the first one is the more interesting of the two questions, at least for me. That you don't consider yourself neurodivergent. Or you don't consider yourself having a disability, but you consider yourself neurodivergent. That's right. Because that is such an identity journey in of itself, I think, for many of us. And I think there's a lot of internalized ableism that goes around the disability word.

43:06And it's something that's very common with neurodivergent people more than other disability categories is you're very afraid to identify with disability. I do not have that fear personally. I will say that I have a disability. I'm not ashamed of that. I think there is some kind of internalized shame around disability or how we perceive disability. I think that is something we also have to work through. But under kind of the black letter of the law, most forms of neurodivergence qualify as disability. We don't have a separate category to have civil rights protections under. That that is our best bet.

43:37Just mental illness? Mental illness would still fall under disability too. Yeah. That it's any physical or mental impairment that like limits a major life activity. It's a very broad definition under the ADA. And when you put that ADA definition to practice, that's also how you get neurodivergence. You get mental health disabilities, mental illness, what have you. They all would fall under that. That it's weird when you think about it that something like diabetes, something like being blind or deaf or having depression would all fall under the same categorical box. It is very strange when you put that into practice, I guess, but it makes sense under how reasonable accommodations work and anti-discrimination.

44:22Like it makes sense, but it also sounds really funny when you say it out loud. And I think a lot of getting to the point that you feel comfortable identifying is one, survey questions don't always make it clear. So sometimes they'll say, are you neurodivergent? Do you have a disability? Or they'll just ask, do you have a disability point blank? And people just go, no, because they don't consider themselves that way.

44:42Morra Aarons-Mele: Most job descriptions are just like, do you identify as having a disability? And it's like, it's scary to check yes. I also just think that's such a strange question. In all fairness, I never checked yes for the longest time because I didn't know how that data would be used. And now I know that a lot of the places that do ask that, it's because they have some kind of federal contract or subcontract where they're supposed to gather that as reporting data, not necessarily something they can use. But it still feels very nerve wracking to check that off. And for the longest time, I would just be like, if I check off preferred not to disclose, because sometimes that's the third option.

45:17I was like, is that a good idea? And then I was thinking that just says yes, but I don't want to tell you about it. But that was how I, so I eventually just defaulted to checking yes, because I was like, I'm not going to lie. That's not in my DNA. And I'm also not going to say yes, but I don't want to tell you about it. Like, that just seems so strange. So I think it's a little bit of having better clarity in the questions and also having working through that internalized ableism and stigma around disability and related terms for other neurodivergent people. because I do think that difference in disability can coexist.

45:53I don't think they're exclusive of one another, which I think is a trap that I think neurodivergent people can fall into is thinking I'm different, not disabled, but you can also be disabled by society. So it's very complicated. It's very nuanced. It takes time to kind of get to an acceptance there. So that's kind of my first soapbox on these questions. And the second one about disclosure is do you have to disclose? Well, if you want the ADA protections, yes, but you can still advocate for yourself to get accommodations without formally disclosing, which is kind of one of those things that is outside of the letter of the law per se.

46:30But I can still advocate for my needs and have them met. It just might not have that same level of protection or enforcement. So if I tell you I work best when I have clear instructions or it's really helpful when you send the agenda or can you please do that, you might still do it and accommodate me. And I never told you why I needed it. I never told you about my executive functioning challenges or my split attention issues with note taking and listening that I might not tell you why I need it, but I still might be able to advocate for it and receive that. And that's what I usually advise professionals to do if they don't feel comfortable disclosing.

47:02A lot of neurodivergent people are afraid that disclosure will negatively impact their career. That is something I've seen the data show time and time again. And also there's people who just don't feel comfortable disclosing because they don't feel psychologically safe. They might be self-identified and might not have a formal diagnosis and a bunch of paperwork and they don't feel comfortable having that conversation without something from a healthcare professional, for instance. That everybody has different reasons for why they don't feel comfortable sharing and that's okay too. So I feel like you have to figure out a balance if that's you.

47:37How do you advocate for yourself and still have your needs met without having to constantly rely on self-accommodation ideally? but also still feel psychologically safe. I think that's a big kind of tug of war for people.

47:51Morra Aarons-Mele: I mean, that is the big tug of war, right? Because so few people feel psychologically safe at work. I mean, as you know, there's a big movement. I think when it comes especially to ADHD, I think autism to embrace your diagnosis as not a disability at all. You have famous doctors saying ADHD isn't a disability. And so, I mean, I think that's okay. I think that's okay if you don't want to feel disabled. It's a burden to put on the person when it's really a societal and systemic issue of ableism. And I think it comes back to the fact that like neurodivergent and people end up doing so much work. Yes.

48:45Morra Aarons-Mele: When it's really the systems that need to change. And then I think about that pride and I think about it as such an interesting thing because there's also times when it's not a genuine pride, but it's a strategy. It's a huge strategy. Of how you framed your neurodivergence so other people treat you with respect, dignity, you get the same opportunities, or that you're essentially beating them to the punch of making assumptions about perceived deficits in who you are and what you stand for. So I think about that a lot when I see people in corporate settings that frame their neurodiversity as a superpower is it's very difficult sometimes to suss out.

49:25And I don't think that's our job to suss it out of it's a genuine belief in superpowers or if it was a strategic choice to frame it that way. That is fascinating. Because I know there are rooms I will enter if I'm if I say I'm autistic, you might assume I'm not social. I do not want to be in front of people. I have X, Y, and Z. But if I say this is my superpower, I'm really great at A, B, and C, you're going to have a very different perception of me and also what I'm capable of and maybe backtrack on what you were assuming to begin with. So it is sometimes strategy.

50:03Morra Aarons-Mele: But the Play Devil's Advocate, that's work. It is. I mean, that's - Existing as a neurodivergent person. It's so much work. No, no, no. But that's the world of work. That's impression management. Like our job at work, and sometimes we do it with our credentials, or like I would always say like when I worked for President Obama, and they'd be like, oh, she worked for President Obama. She must know what she's talking about. Part of me is just like if you want to play with the big kids, there is a piece of impression management that you need to lead with and you kind of pick. And in my data, 75 % of people in my sample who identified as neurodivergent said they have superpowers.

50:55Morra Aarons-Mele: And that's awesome. 90 % said their different brain gives them skills. 90 % said it gives them challenges. It's like, so I don't know. I would probably say the same things. Yeah, it's a really tough, again, it's such a personal and nuanced question. Exactly. And like superpowers, I don't really identify as strongly with because I look at superpowers in a literal sense. And I'm like, yeah, I can't turn invisible. I can't read minds. I can't fly. I can't do anything like really cool. So maybe not for me. But I absolutely think it's a strength and it absolutely brings me challenges at the same time.

51:26I always look at myself as being very like neutral on being autistic. Like, yes, I'm very proud. I don't know any different. I don't want to know any different. But it just is. It's not a negative in my life. And it's also but I'd say it's a net positive. But I think I keep that neutrality on it for me because I feel like that's the healthiest relationship that I could have is I just don't know any different. This is the hand in life I've been dealt and I'm going to make the most of it. It's kind of a piece, I guess, more than anything. But I also am still extremely proud. I don't want to be different because I don't know who I would be.

52:04And I also would still, of course, welcome anything that improves quality of life. I think all of us feel that way. If you've told me I can get eight hours of sleep a night, I would take that in two seconds, whatever option you had. Are you a bad sleeper? Yeah, unfortunately. I'm always tired. I think that's also just existing as a neurodivergent person is you're tired, not from just sleep, but like just like you said, like that image management and perceptions and just navigating and self accommodating and advocating for yourself and then advocating for others. And this is my favorite thing from being an attorney is that it is so much harder to advocate for you than it is to advocate for an organization or another individual.

52:44that every time I talk to lawyers, we go through this and I'll be like, so how many of you are good at setting boundaries? And they all are just like deer in the headlights. And how many of you are an absolute bulldog in court? And then you just see like it's two very different things happening is that it's really hard for us to advocate for ourselves. And neurodivergent people, we're expected to do it constantly.

53:06Morra Aarons-Mele: Constant. And women. I mean, there's tons of data. There's a great book called Women Don't Ask, right? Women are 25 % more effective at negotiating on behalf of other people than they are for themselves. I believe it. Negotiating for me is the worst. But I bet you're, again, you're a bulldog when you're. When I had to be. I mean, I was a litigator.

53:29And it's funny because I'm like, I did not want to be fighting. I wanted everybody to get along. I wanted to mediate and negotiate.

53:37Morra Aarons-Mele: That's amazing. But I loved it. This episode is brought to you by Vinted, a secondhand marketplace app. You know, I love clothes. And I love when the seasons change to spend a good amount of time, you know, moving out, reviewing my summer stuff, bringing in my fall stuff. I live in New England, so I love a great sweater. I love a great tweed blazer. And now I have a way with Vinted that I can sell clothes I no longer want, but I know someone else will love, and buy some new clothes. It really solves a problem for me, which is running out of closet space and also feeling guilty about buying new clothes.

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57:52Morra Aarons-Mele: That's$50 off your first year at monarch.com with code achiever. When did you kind of come to your inner peace about this all? I feel like once I got out of my teenage years, because I think for a lot of neurodivergent teens, you really either recognize you're different or that you're not doing the same things the other teenagers are doing and you kind of want to be more like that. So I went through a phase where I wanted to be as normal as possible. And I was masking very heavily I tried and I also feel like I learned this as well in college because when I got to college, I wanted the typical college experience in like the big letters, typical college experience, capital T, capital C, capital E.

58:37And my idea of that was I was going to have a roommate, even though I was an only child. I had never even like shared a room with somebody on a trip that wasn't family. Like I knew nothing. And I thought having a roommate was a typical college experience And that's what I wanted. So I work really hard and advocated with my family and I to housing to help me pick a roommate. And we did. And of course, did not go according to plan that living with a roommate was not for me. And my roommate and I were very different people with different schedules, different everything. It did not go well for us.

59:10And I moved out after three months. but I was so I knew that I was someone who would have worked better in my own space lived better in my own space I knew this even at 18 but I wanted a typical college experience and and boy did I get it because I have roommate stories just like everybody else does now but that but looking back I should have also just owned the fact that my neurodivergence meant that I would be more successful by myself and that would be okay not that I would be more susceptible to being socially isolated and all these other things that I was thinking about because you're thinking, I want to have this experience.

59:43I want all the opportunities. It's not like I met people that lived in my dorm or around me because my roommate was involved in things. I did meet people because my roommate and I didn't get along at certain points and I would venture out of the room to avoid.

1:00:00Morra Aarons-Mele: Oh, I remember that feeling. Oh, that's the worst feeling. And my roommate didn't go to class all the time. She took a lot of online classes, so she'd always be home. so I would have to venture out I ventured out a lot and that's actually one of the many reasons that my college best friend and I are best friends is we both would venture out and we just became we would have the one day a week that like our roommates were weren't home and we would like plan accordingly what our activity would be and usually it was just going to get lunch on campus together and then be glad that they left at like 8 30 in the morning and just get to just like have peace and just hang out and we would just vent and do other stuff because we're like wow we actually get to enjoy our spaces.

1:00:39So I feel like I got that piece once I realized this is what I need. And I can't just like keep doing this at this pace. And nothing is bad here. It's not going to change. And I also feel like I got more of a healthy acceptance once I met other neurodivergent people. Is that when you're around other neurodivergent people, you feel like it's not just you. You're not the only one. You're not exceptional in this way, which is something younger me definitely thought because I was in a pressure cooker type private school environment where everybody was a high achiever and disability was not something that was really spoken of I'm sure I was not the only neurodivergent person there without a doubt but it sure as hell felt like it and you wanted to be doing the same things everyone else was doing and once I kind of got out of that mindset, I was like, okay, what do I have?

1:01:33I take stock of it. And now, yes, there are things that are very challenging in my life. I can be here all day talking about that too. But that's also just not who I am is that I don't focus on it constantly. It just is. And I feel like once I had that neutrality and acceptance and peace, realizing, you know, my autism is not the center of the universe. It's not the center of my universe. And it's also not my entire personality.

1:01:55Morra Aarons-Mele: Yeah. Even though sometimes I have to convince people of that because I talk about it for a living. So recognizing I still have a full life with this as part of it, I think of it more of a lens or a filter sometimes, or more of just it interacts with everything in my life, then it is my life. Do you choose to use identity first language, like I am autistic, or you do? I do, but I also alternate, I realize, depending on the situation. So I might say I have a disability, or I'm autistic, I might really go between person first and identity language just because I recognize the spaces that I'm in.

1:02:32That personally, I use identity first language for myself, but I will alternate when I'm on stage. I will alternate when I am in places that I know people aren't as familiar with neurodiversity or disability because I don't want to offend anyone and I want everybody to feel included. I know there are people who feel alienated by person first language and I know there's also people who feel alienated by identity first language. And I don't want you to miss something that might be relevant or helpful for you just because the language isn't reflecting you. So sometimes I try my best to alternate just to make sure everybody feels included.

1:03:09Yeah. Even though personally, if in my personal life, I will always use identity language, but professionally, I will alternate between the two more often. I personally, I have bipolar.

1:03:23Morra Aarons-Mele: So I'm super neurodivergent. But I'm also, I don't have ADHD, but I'm like a hyperactive person and I'm always in pain. So the hardest part of my job is sitting in front of a computer. I hate it I feel like my neck always hurts I'm always itchy I want to move I feel even though I love what I do like I love interviewing people I just wish I could do it like while jumping around and um and you should be able to I feel like we should break that stigma and we should just have like conversations in the way that feels like it makes the most sense for us well I I feel that way And yet I don't because I also value that like I want the person on the other side to know that I'm paying attention to them.

1:04:10Morra Aarons-Mele: And that's how we cue that we're paying attention. I want my audio to be good. Like to me, that's such a perfect example of like I once asked a congressman. He had chronic pain and anxiety and depression. And I said, how do you sit in committee hearings for sometimes, what, six hours? He said, I'm always in pain and I'm distracted by it. And I know that at least half the room is too, but we never talk about it. There's something that's just really sad about that because I dream of a world where we at least know to split those meetings in half or say, hey, go get your, go stand up or something else.

1:04:48That's why even when I, like in fantasy land or ideal world, we get to have these conversations and say, how do you do best with them? that you do best. Like even when I present to the big audiences, I will have an accessibility slide usually. And I will say, please do what feels best for your brain and body to focus. I don't care if you have to go to the back of the room, stand up and do a little dance. Don't worry about distracting me. Don't worry about me. If that's what's going to help your brain and your body today, then please do that. And we have so much, I think, stigma around that because we have these unwritten rules of, oh, you have to sit down in this meeting, in this situation, because that's respectful.

1:05:27Morra Aarons-Mele: That's what we do. And I'm trying to sit there right away going, hey, it's okay if you need to stand up. It's okay if you need to have a fidget spinner or do something else. Is how do we kind of unpack some of that? There's so much culture I would love to work on and just change because I really just feel like you do you and who am I to judge you and that's always what I tell people like I have no right to judge you especially when it comes to like doing what feels best for your brain and body like I say when I sit at the computer all day long and if I am on the computer all day long I have fidgets or something to play with in my hands 99 % of the time and I just hide my hands while I'm presenting so you don't know yeah exactly and I'll tell you that but I will still try to minimize distracting you by not showing the fact that I have like a hair clip or a tube of lipstick in my hand the whole time because I like to play with it.

1:06:18Morra Aarons-Mele: Oh my gosh, I have a million fidgets. I wish I could show you. I think that's a great place to leave it. I want to thank you so much for your deep knowledge and your time and your wisdom. Thank you. And thank you. Because you've also given me a lot to think about too. I know we could talk all day. Yes. That's the best part of this is you really do feel like You can talk to people all day long. Thank you, Haley. Thank you.

1:06:48Morra Aarons-Mele: That's it for this week's show. If you like the show, follow us and tell your friends. And please leave us a review. It really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting for our content. I'm your host, Maura Aarons-Mele. Lots more to come in the next episode.