“At school, college and university, I really struggled to make sense of things. I always felt that I had to put 200% effort into things, only to achieve below-average results. Other people seemed to achieve things so effortlessly. Why was it so hard? Why was I so stupid? Because I just about got by with my studies, it never occurred to anyone that there was anything “different” about me. It was overlooked and never really mentioned. At school, I was labelled as a child who was just not quite up to scratch; “Rosie could concentrate more and do better”, “She talks too much”, “She is disruptive”, “She is not interested in learning.” OUCH. There goes my self-esteem from an early age!

The strange thing was that I enjoyed school. Not particularly for the learning, but for the social side. I had a great group of friends and, looking back now, many of us were neurodivergent. Somehow, we had found each other.”

Reflecting on her time at school Rosie explains:

“Maths was particularly difficult. I would often get dizzy, disoriented, and frustrated because I could not do what seemed like simple arithmetic. I cried over my maths homework regularly. I was terrified of maths lessons because the teacher might ask me a question. I would act up so that I would get sent out of the classroom and then didn’t have to do the work. Teachers would tell me that I should have asked questions about the homework before taking it home. But I did not know what I was meant to ask.

I did not understand any of it! I was not sure how to explain it. It would always get muddled in my brain.

Years later, I would discover that this was dyscalculia – a learning difference affecting how someone understands and works with numbers.

But there was another side to me.

The things I was interested in at school, I often excelled at. I could retain the information. Drama, RE, Music and English were my favourites, and I could focus and pay attention.

I discovered that I had a way with words and loved writing, something that has followed me throughout my working life.

I also threw myself into things that involved using my hands or physically doing something. I played the recorder and then the clarinet. I went to Brownies and Guides. I played netball and computer games. I went to drama club.

But because I could be “disruptive”, “loud” or “unfocused”, my presence was not always welcomed in spaces that were meant to be mine too.

Sometimes I was encouraged to leave. Sometimes I was simply never picked for the team and sat on the sidelines. The things I wanted to love did not always have the space to hold me. Rejection became normal.”

“I struggled through university, both academically and socially. Then I entered the working world and quickly became overwhelmed again. I felt stupid because I was learning things for the first time. Everything felt embarrassing for no real reason. I constantly worried that people were looking at me and figuring out that I was not up to scratch. That I was an impostor. That I shouldn’t be there. Once I understood what I was doing, my confidence would grow. But that feeling never completely disappeared. I was always looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to say: “HEY! You are doing a bad job!”

“In 2022, I started my diagnosis journey. And I got answers. ADHD. Dyscalculia. Dyslexia. WOW. What a relief. Suddenly, so much of my life made sense and everything shifted for me. For the first time, I had somewhere to start. I could move forward, understanding more about my brain and what I could do to help myself.

The validation was life changing.

There were resources I could use to understand myself. There were other people I could speak to who had similar lived experiences. Finally, I was not alone with this.

But diagnosis did not suddenly make everything easy.”

“After my diagnosis, there was a blip at one of my previous workplaces. I was in an all-day, in-person meeting where around 90% of the content was not relevant to my role. This was before I had reached the medication stage of my diagnosis and at a time when my ADHD behaviours were much more noticeable.

I was trying REALLY hard to mask my boredom and concentrate on as much as possible.

The following day, a manager contacted me and said that “it had been noticed” that I was disengaged, fidgeting, not interested and doing other things.

I had been trying SO hard to be present but, I felt like I was being treated like a naughty child again.

It took me a long time to recover from that knock to my confidence, and, for a while, it made me want to keep my neurodiversity secret at work.

Even now, I sometimes catch myself overanalysing my behaviour in meetings and calls.

Am I sitting still enough? Am I fidgeting? Am I making enough eye contact? Am I making too much eye contact? Am I listening properly while also trying to process everything being said?

It can be exhausting.

This is part of what people mean when they talk about masking – suppressing or changing natural behaviours to fit the expectations of the environment around you.”

“From day one at Havebury, I have been upfront about my neurodiversity. That gives me the freedom to bring as much of my true self to work as I choose. My quirks and habits have been wholly accepted by the teams I have worked with, and people have been kind and patient when I have shared vulnerabilities or explained that I struggle with something.

Flexibility is particularly important for me.

Being in the office can be exhausting and sometimes overwhelming because of the amount of in-person communication and stimulation involved. I genuinely enjoy coming in and speaking to my colleagues, but by the time I get home, I can be absolutely exhausted from the interaction, the lights, the background noise, the commute, and being away from my home.

Having the option to work in a hybrid way makes an enormous difference to how well I can perform while managing my energy.

Havebury has also supported me with software and tools for areas where I struggle.

For example, I can find processing large amounts of written information difficult and sometimes use colour overlays and other tools to maintain focus and reduce the amount of energy I spend compensating. Small adjustments can make a very big difference.

Perhaps most importantly, I feel that the culture here provides space for open conversations about neurodiversity.

People want to understand, share their own lived experiences and ask questions.

Having a workplace where people feel psychologically safe enough to share vulnerable information matters.”

“It’s not simply about making people feel good. Research backs this up.

The CIPD’s Neuroinclusion at Work Report 2024 found that only 53% of employees surveyed felt their organisation had an open and supportive climate where people could talk about neurodiversity. A third of neurodivergent employees surveyed said their workplace experience in relation to their neurodivergence had negatively affected their mental wellbeing.

The same research highlights the benefits organisations can gain by becoming more neuroinclusive, including supporting retention, making better use of people’s skills and creating environments where different styles of thinking, learning and communicating are valued.

Psychological safety matters too. Research involving more than 27,000 healthcare workers found that higher psychological safety was associated with lower burnout and a greater willingness among employees to remain with their employer.

Gallup has also found significant links between employees feeling that their opinions count and organisational outcomes. Its research suggests that increasing the proportion of employees who strongly feel their opinions matter could be associated with a 27% reduction in turnover, a 40% reduction in safety incidents and a 12% increase in productivity.

Deloitte’s research into neurodiversity also highlights diversity of thought, different approaches to work, innovation and creativity as potential benefits of neuroinclusive workplaces. It cites research suggesting that neurodivergent professionals in some roles can contribute to teams being up to 30% more productive.

That does not mean every neurodivergent person possesses a particular “superpower”. We are individuals, with different strengths and different challenges.

But it does mean that when organisations create environments where different brains are able to work effectively, everybody has the opportunity to contribute what they do best.”

“It is challenging enough being neurodivergent in a society where many systems, environments, and expectations were not designed with neurodivergent people in mind.

One thing I would love to see continue to change is how we meet individuals where they are when it comes to working requirements and needs.

Rather than making people jump through hoops to access the things they need to do their jobs effectively, we should be thinking about inclusion and accessibility from the beginning.

My previous background in construction gave me some great insight into inclusive design and what environments can look like when different people are considered from the outset.

It is also important to remember that neurodivergent people are not one homogeneous group.

There is no single way that ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia or any other form of neurodivergence “looks”.

We have different strengths, challenges and we need different things to thrive.

I am now very upfront with people about the things I struggle with.

“Coming out” as neurodivergent at work has been one of the most liberating things I have done in my career.

The conversations I have had and the experiences colleagues and peers have shared with me have been incredibly valuable. They have broken down so many barriers.

I do not see the need to keep it a secret anymore.

I can hold my hands up and say:

“Hey, I struggle with XYZ.”

And I have found that people generally respond well to that honesty.

I am also now medicated daily to help with things such as concentration and hyperactivity.

My ADHD is combined type, meaning I experience both inattentiveness and hyperactivity. A lot of my hyperactivity is internal – happening inside my brain rather than necessarily being physically obvious.

The best way I can describe medication is like going from having 50 computer browser tabs open at once to having five, my thinking is clearer.

Overwhelm is still something I struggle with, but nowhere near as much.

Medication is not the perfect solution for everyone, but it has helped me greatly.

My brain does not feel like such a busy and scary place anymore. It feels safe for me to exist there.”

My eldest daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in 2025. For her, too, getting that diagnosis was a relief and validating. But her experience is already different from mine.

She has appropriate support and tools for learning at school. As a family, we are incredibly proud of her resilience and the effort she puts into things. She also has a supportive and understanding group of friends who look out for her and stand up for her when she needs them.

We lean into her strengths. She is active, creative, inquisitive, practical, and very happy to lead people. We encourage those qualities.

When I look at her, I sometimes think about how different things might have been for me if the adults around me had understood that I was not naughty, lazy, stupid or simply “not up to scratch”. My brain just worked differently. And now I get to make sure my daughter grows up knowing that about hers.”

“When I think back to the child crying over her maths homework, terrified that a teacher might ask her a question, I wish she could have known what I know now. She was not stupid and she was not lazy. She was not naughty and she was not failing because she wasn’t trying hard enough.

She was putting an enormous amount of effort into navigating environments that she experienced differently from many of the people around her.

That is why neuroinclusion matters to me.

It is not about lowering expectations or assuming that neurodivergent people cannot do things.

It is about understanding that people might need to get to the same destination in a different way.

And perhaps, if we become better at recognising and supporting those differences, fewer children will grow up asking themselves the question I spent so many years asking: “Why is this so hard for me?”

Instead, maybe they will grow up knowing: “My brain works differently. And that is OK.”