Written in November 2025
Disclosing a diagnosis of neurodivergence, or as I like to call it – coming out – is a deeply personal decision.
I am open about it, especially at work, because as a neurodiversity trainer and ADHD coach it’s practically a qualification! I never really got the chance to be open about it more than once when I was employed, chiefly because I didn’t know I was autistic until my mid 30s, and I had already stopped working for other people by the time I realised that ADHD was part of my recipe.
The one time I was open with an employer, it did nothing to help me. They would not make adjustments for me, however reasonable and legal they were. There was no better understanding of the support I might need, or the things that pushed me to breaking point, and I had given them my psychological report with exactly those recommendations in.
Me asking for specific things for a specific reason, backed up by a clinical report, was not enough for those adjustments to be made and I ended up burning out.
This experience was awful, but the one positive from it is that I can empathise very deeply with people who have disclosed and who subsequently experienced discrimination, poor treatment or were otherwise been denied the things they are legally entitled to. I can also understand why someone might not want to disclose a diagnosis (of anything), because if it’s not going to help, and might make matters worse, why share something so deeply personal?
To disclose
There are some situations where disclosure may be an overwhelmingly positive thing:
- When you’re in a senior position and your disclosure is a form of role modelling
- When you’re at a supportive workplace and disclosure means you will actually be supported and accepted
- If you’re facing disciplinary or performance management procedures because of things related to your (as yet undisclosed) neurodivergence
Another very good reason to disclose a diagnosis, is if you have ADHD, are on stimulant medication, and you work somewhere that has mandatory/random drug testing.
Not to disclose
There are many more situations where disclosure may be a negative thing:
- If you work in an industry where being neurodivergent is poorly understood and may hold you back. Shockingly, the medical profession is one where you’d think neurodivergence would be understood and accepted, but it’s one of the most significant where disclosure is not an advantage
- If your colleagues, managers and others hold outdated views on neurodiversity and you’re likely to experience bullying. Yes, this is absolutely illegal but it doesn’t stop it from happening, and it doesn’t stop it from being harmful
- If you don’t feel safe to disclose, for whatever reason
- When you have seen others disclose and then experience negative outcomes directly related to disclosure. Again, this is illegal but that doesn’t stop it from happening and harming
To consider
Despite me listing some situations where you should and should not disclose, it’s still not the sort of thing where a blanket rule applies.
It’s also not the sort of thing where you have to disclose your private medical information in order to be accommodated – you don’t need any particular diagnosis to be protected by the Equality Act. All you need for the Act to apply is difficulties with daily tasks related to work (and indeed life in general).
You can also disclose challenges or particular difficulties without disclosing anything concrete. You can say you have Auditory Processing Disorder and need to have subtitles on video meetings (even joining meetings remotely if you’re in the same building as the meeting itself), auto-transcription of phone calls and written back-ups of spoken conversations even if your diagnosis is actually ADHD.
You can even say you have challenges with the above things without giving a reason at all. You might choose to use a vague phrase like “neurological condition” or “neurodevelopmental condition” rather than list the diagnosis/es that you have. Your employer can’t demand proof, nor do you have to provide any voluntarily.
Tips for disclosure
If you decide that coming out is the right decision, here are some things to think about:
- Who to disclose to. You can disclose to HR, your manager, their manager, colleagues, clients, all of them, one of them, some of them. It’s totally up to you. You can also expect confidentiality, but it’s best to state that you do/do not want this information shared, and who it should/should not be shared with
- What might happen after you come out
- What you want to happen after you come out
- Whether those two things are the same
- Is there anyone else in your organisation who is open about being neurodivergent? Ask them for their take on it
- Consider using a disclosure template, or engage the services of AI to draft you a letter
- Try a weighted pros and cons list: Write a standard pros and cons list then give each factor a number according to how important it is (1 = not that important, 5 = absolutely vitally important). Add the numbers and whichever side is higher is your answer, subject to your intuition or gut instinct
In the next blog we’ll look at disclosure, or coming out, in social situations and other settings.
https://www.agcas.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Resources/Disability%20TG/disclosure.pdf