3 reasons never to share your ADD

[sarahsweets]

If someone noticed something in me and had the balls to ask if it was adhd, I dont think I would share it even then. Its not anyone elses business and the last thing I want to feel is that I need to explain away my behavior. I tell who I choose, if it makes sense.

[anonymouslyadd]

If we have a difficult time sharing ADD with our families, how can we ever expect to share it with our coworkers?

[Little Nut]

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

If someone noticed something in me and had the balls to ask if it was adhd, I dont think I would share it even then. Its not anyone elses business and the last thing I want to feel is that I need to explain away my behavior. I tell who I choose, if it makes sense.

LOL...not at your post, sarah, but at my likely responses to a nosy coworker that stepped over the line without explicitly saying so. Something along the lines of, "thank you for noticing, but just between us it is a case of chronic jock itch and it really interferes with my focus when talking, writing, reading, listening and concentrating. I'm uncomfortable talking about it, especially at work." Add appropriate body tic.

[bryanrc51]

To me it seems there is never one hard and fast rule for everything and this is no different. Although looking at risk / reward there seems to be little upside and a lot of downside. Seems like a gamble to disclose, that said I have disclosed but it is a family owned business and nothing bad has come out of it, maybe a little more understanding. I am getting tested for ASD sometime next year which I think would get even more understanding but every case is different.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by dvdnvwls

It's easy to list the disadvantages. There might be more, but those are a strong list already.

I think the more important part, and easy to miss in a discussion like this, is: it only takes one definite disadvantage to disclosing, in order to settle this case. Because who can think of a real advantage that can reliably be gained from telling an employer? Since there are no credible advantages to be had, why bother?

I guess that depends on location. In the US, an employer must be notified that someone has a disability prior to starting the interactive process. If I'm fired for poor performance and never told my employer about my disability, they have no legal obligation to not fire me even if my performance was related to my disability. On the other hand, if I mentioned my disability is impairing my performance, they have a legal obligation to participate in the interactive process if they want my performance to improve.

There's kind of a legal grey area when the company says they're OK with your performance even with a disability, but even that's tenuous, because they also have to provide you with the same opportunities for promotions/raises/etc, and if your disability is impairing your performance, then failing to look into accommodations could be considered discriminatory in that context.

[ginniebean]

so far, as far as my research into this has shown, the courts will not protect those with adhd. Our symptoms have been used to show us unfit for the job and the courts have accepted this.

Sadly, we are not protected.

[jman05]

I would only share it if you are screwing up a lot at work.

[Jaykay8]

The last job i had didn't specifically ask about 'mental illness' but the form did say 'Are you on any medication?' Does anyone have any experience with this? Did you tell the truth or lie? What happened?

[finallyfound10]

If I didn't work in a field where I could be drug tested, I would never tell.

In the US nurses are drug tested during the pre-employment process after you've been hires and we can be randomly tested so I have to disclose. I have worked for 2 big hospital systems and had disclose to Employee Health as the meds would show up in my urine test and bloodwork. I loathed doing it but it's a legal thing here.

Find out if you say no then they find out that you are on meds, can you be fired. You can risk it or tell the truth depending on the answer. I might risk it if the chances are very low that they would ever find out.

[Cory_S]

Personally I am fairly close with most of my co workers and I have had no problem telling them about my new diagnosis. If anything they can grasp that some of my shortcomings with remedial aspects of our job is not just laziness. No one is perfect and I do better in high stress aspects of our job that they all shy away from. I also work in a hospital so we are exposed to everything under the sun, so ADHD is relatively a tame subject compared to things we see in the ER.

[kkristin17]

Like most things in life, I think this is a really contextual matter.

In some careers, having ADHD might actually be seen as an asset, like marketing. You might get promoted to lead projects because of your "creative vision" or something along those lines.

Most of the time though, it seems like disclosing your ADHD in a career is just giving people ammunition to use against you.

Or maybe I'm just overly cynical from working in sales.