3 Reasons Why a Diagnosis Can Help You Self Advocate
If you’re struggling at work and suspect it may in part be neurological, a diagnosis is the first arrow in your quiver to getting the right kind of support.
While any neurotherapist can offer a diagnosis, check out this resource - Exceptional Individuals - to take an online quiz to assess your neurodiversity…
Here’s are 3 reasons why:
It depersonalizes your experience: A diagnosis offers consciousness around what can be an intensely personal, emotional, and muddled experience. It’s a way of looking outside-in. A diagnosis can be clarifying, as it illuminates challenges from an objective, scientific perspective; and empowering, as it releases the individual from the responsibility of ‘failing’ at something – and frames this ‘failure’ not as an aspect of self-worth, but as a component of the condition. Without a diagnosis, it is easy to fall into comparison with others who simply do not function in the same way you do. Instead of getting into a competitive place (and its shadow-side: low self-worth), it’s just a matter of apples and oranges.
It helps you communicate with others effectively: once you have a box for your experience, you can access information as to the specific needs and support systems that will help you thrive. Without a diagnosis, your behavior may be interpreted incorrectly and be vulnerable to judgment. Difficulty with social skills may be perceived as cold and isolationist. Difficulty meeting deadlines may be perceived as lazy or uncommitted. Once you can point to a diagnosis and say, “this is a common behavior resulting from this condition”, you build a bridge for others to empathize and support you.
It opens up a community for you to belong to: Support groups! You may cringe at those words but consider whether that may be your fear. Shared territory, shared experience, and the resulting beauty of human connection. With a diagnosis, you suddenly become less alone in your experience. It helps you see what is common to people who have the same disorder, and what your unique flavor of it is. It offers both belonging and the ability to see yourself more clearly.
All in all, a diagnosis is net positive. Are there any negatives? Sure. It can feel uncomfortable to be boxed in, to be reduced to a label. On the flip, sometimes people get overly attached to their diagnosis, latching onto it as a way to stay in victim-mentality and not create conscious change. For both scenarios, it’s important to remember: a diagnosis is a tool, but you are not your diagnosis. You are a beautiful, complex human being… who happens to have [insert diagnosis here].
