Should I start a neurodiversity Slack channel in my professional soc.?

October 17, 2023 6:54 PM

I'm involved in a relatively new society for a certain category of software engineers in my professional area. The society has an active and growing Slack workspace with hundreds of members. Some of the people almost certainly have ADHD or possibly other forms of neurodiversity. Would it be a good idea or bad idea to start a Slack discussion channel on the topic of neurodiversity?

As someone who only recently got diagnosed with ADHD, very late in life, I'm keenly aware of how attentional issues can impact one's life. I want to share what I learn as well as learn from other people – everything from tips on how to cope with it, to how to recognize it in yourself, resources available, special considerations for people working in scientific software, etc. But this idea could be another one of my ADHD-driven diversions ("yes! this is an urgent and important and obviously necessary thing to do!"), or it could be a bad idea for other reasons (e.g., people accidentally outing themselves as having one or another condition and this getting back to their employers). Basically, I know I'm bad at making decisions like this, and I can't ask other people in this society about it without outing myself, and I don't know what impact this may have.

If you have had a similar situation (perhaps a similar Slack channel for another group or your workplace), or have done something similar in other contexts, or even decided against doing it, can you share some of your reasoning and your experiences?

Miscellaneous details. The people in this Slack use their real names and often identify where they work. I would not suggest other people to join (I'm not going to do something dumb like tell someone "hey Alex, you look like you have ADHD too – join the channel!"); rather, the idea would be for people to self-join the channel if they want to.

posted by StrawberryPie to Human Relations (10 answers total)

Best answer: I’m an ND software engineer and I wouldn’t join under my real name. A Discord would be ok because it’s not linked to my professional identity. Both I and my partner have lost jobs either due to expressing ND behavior or disclosing a disability (even though that’s illegal, it’s hard to prove, especially against a powerful corporation). It’s still too stigmatized. For folks who would join, more power to you, we need to fight the stigma, but it’s up to the individual to evaluate their own risk tolerance.
posted by matildaben at 7:16 PM on October 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

I can't ask other people in this society about it without outing myself

I think that's your answer right there.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:28 PM on October 17, 2023 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: Not to threadsit, but I realize I left some confusion. I don't think I mind outing myself – I expected I'd have to do that if I were to create the Slack channel, if the answer here is that this is a reasonable idea in the first place. But if the general consensus here is "no, bad idea", then presumably, for the same reason, I should reconsider outing myself.
posted by StrawberryPie at 7:59 PM on October 17, 2023

About outing yourself as ND in a professional setting if you need accommodations:

Standard advice is to ask for what you need, without specifying your diagnosis.

People are stil so ignorant and prejudiced about what being Autistic, ADHD etc means that it often doesn't help to tell them your diagnosis.

So "I need written instructions instead of verbal" etc.

Maybe a more generic Slack like "avoiding burnout" might let people discuss their needs and share resources without fear of being judged? Might also work better for all the people who don't realise that self diagnosis is valid, and think they can't "claim" to be ND without formal diagnosis.
posted by Zumbador at 9:04 PM on October 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: FWIW, a very large search engine company you've all heard of has at least two internal ADHD groups that employees can join. There are chat, email groups, and frequent virtual get-togethers.

I see it as a very positive thing. Folks trade advice on all sorts of topics around coping and work-around strategies, medication and side effects, what work accommodations are available and how to get them, and other things. It's all really constructive.

At least one coworker mentioned they wouldn't keep working there if it weren't for the ADHD group. So it can be a very positive thing.

That being said, this is the first place I've ever worked that had such groups, although I've had many ADHD coworkers. I suspect if someone had created such a group in one of my prior gigs a bunch of people would have joined though.

I got recently got diagnosed myself, and it's great to be a part of a supportive group of people who have similar challenges. I'm finding that there are a lot more people around me with ADHD than I would have suspected.

On preview, related to what Zumbador said, if you out yourself you may need to educate people about what ADHD means for you. I've had the condition all my life (of course) but didn't really understand it until I accepted that I have it and started researching it. Many people have a really vague idea about what ADHD really is, and of course ADHD presents differently for everyone.

As for myself, I've publicly said I have ADHD a number of times, but I also haven't sat down with my boss and told him about the diagnosis. I'm on the fence about doing so. I have, however told him various things that do and don't work for me and he's been very understanding.

If you need a good ADHD explainer, you could point people to this.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 9:28 PM on October 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm also at a company that has an ADHD-specifc group and regularly scheduled ADHD-specific support meetings where folks can discuss tips, medication, dealing with doctors, etc. Every meeting there's a note about confidentiality. The internal "group" is private. Anyone can join, but you can only see the other members if you are a member yourself. It's so great to have this community, and it's wonderful that you're considering having this as a resource for the new society of software engineers you're involved in.
posted by skunk pig at 11:52 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm in the UK where employment protections are different to the US (unfortunately for my US friends most of the Western world seems to have more employment protections than the US) so this advice might not track as well for you, but: I sit on the side of "good thing" as well.

A lot of the more enlightened employers realise that being ND isn't necessarily a bad thing and, let's be honest, if you work in software or tech the chances that you don't have a few ND people working for you is probably nil. Binning high-achieving staff just because they admit to being on the spectrum or having ADHD, or any other ND attribute means cutting yourself off from a large swathe of highly skilled potential employees.

That's not to say that some employers wouldn't be so short-sighted, but if they are then that's their loss. The more ND is normalised, the better for everyone. It exists, it's not going to go away, and it's not a choice to have it or not have it. You may as well get rid of people for having glasses - it's a biological attribute that many people have and that's that.

Supporting and helping each other is a core part of a healthy society, and a lot of our interactions take place online nowadays. I'd join such a channel and be glad of it.

So I say go for it. If people can't join because they're afraid of their employer finding out, hopefully your channel will show them see that plenty of employers aren't so ignorant and short-sighted. Maybe when those employers start losing good staff to other companies they'll change their attitudes.
posted by underclocked at 12:46 AM on October 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I've considered doing something similar, although on Discord as all of the big Slacks I used to belong to moved to Discord because it's cheaper. Personally I think a #neurodiversity (or similar) would be totally fine on a public Slack because it's a broad enough topic that people would not be outing themselves by just joining. However, by making it public (which is the only way people would join), anyone on the server could join and search for a specific person's messages which could out people depending on what they say.

I think this is a good idea that will help people if you can set community expectations properly so people know it isn't fully confidential. You could set a channel description to something explaining the topic (look to see if there are other channels for similar topics) and then pin a message explaining that this is for general discussion and is not confidential
posted by JZig at 7:52 AM on October 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was very glib in my answer above and I apologize for that. I think that starting a #neurodiversity Slack channel would be awesome, but that your effectiveness in leading such an initiative will rest on your willingness to be "out" about your ADHD among your peers. (Hence my comment that if you aren't willing to out yourself, then this is probably too risky and/or difficult to pull off.)

I found out I was autistic a couple of years ago, and "came out" about it at work fairly early in the process. (If I had waited longer, I think I might have been less naive and hence more scared!) My experiences talking about this in a work context have actually been quite positive for the most part, though it helps that I'm well-established in my career and have significant "social capital" in my workplace and profession.

The direction I've chosen with respect to advocacy has been to get involved in my workplace's Equity/Diversity/Inclusion (EDI) efforts and bring in the topic of disability (more broadly) as an EDI issue, while also speaking up about my perspective as an autistic person (mostly around accessibility of communications so far). If your society has a similar initiative or committee, proceeding under its umbrella could be a way to position neurodiversity as a form of diversity of which explicit inclusion is desirable, frame your efforts as being part of the same positively-viewed movement as other equity efforts, and gain a broader group of EDI allies who could potentially help shield you from any anti-ADHD blowback.
posted by heatherlogan at 8:52 AM on October 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

Is there someone with more capital / institutional power who might be suited to start this channel? If that's you, then great. But if there's someone else who's even more well-regarded as senior / a mentor / talented who you could approach, even better. It sets the tone that one can be ND and also very good at their job, and it should help hold off some of the worse behavior that could happen.

I feel like ADHD is becoming more accepted, and autism still mostly isn't, your community may vary. Partly since many people who previously didn't have attentional difficulties do now since the start of the pandemic / increased remote work. An ADHD-specific group might be less of a risk.
posted by momus_window at 9:29 AM on October 18, 2023 [1 favorite]