The ripple effect of disclosure

When you share something personal publicly, you tend to get two kinds of outcomes. There’s the immediate reaction you can see, and then there are the slower ripples you only notice afterwards.

By the way, if this isn’t you, please don’t see this as exclusionary. As I’ve mentioned before, my decision to be open wasn’t a “slam dunk” by any means. Whether this either validates your decision or altered it, hopefully it’s a useful perspective.

Reactions

The first impact is obvious. You post something on LinkedIn and you get a reaction in the comments. Of course you do. It’s why many people use LinkedIn in the first place.

In my case, it was lovely and affirming. People said kind things about me personally, and some added that my openness was helpful. It landed in the way kind words land when you’ve been carrying something quietly.

At the same time, there’s a reality you bump into quickly. After you’ve built it up in your mind, you realise how fleeting it is. The comments come in, you feel the warmth, and then everyone moves on to the next thing.

Social media reactions can be a bit like a sugar rush. It feels good in the moment, but you return to your life much as you were. Sometimes you even feel a bit grim afterwards for having got caught up in it.

Ripples

The second impact is the one that matters more. It’s the ripple effect.

Some reactions take longer to emerge. People read something and sit with it. Some decide to message privately. Some don’t say anything straight away, but it changes how they approach you later.

What surprised me was how many people were already thinking about this stuff. They just hadn’t had a reason to say so.

Friendship

One of the first ripples came through a very old friendship. A dear friend I’ve known for over thirty years got in touch out of the blue. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, but we’ve always been the kind of friends who can carry on where we left off.

I assumed he’d seen my post and wanted to know more, but the depth of his response surprised me. We met for lunch and chatted. He said he’d read my blog post about diagnosis and he didn’t recognise the person speaking from the version of me he knew all those years ago. He told me he’d always thought my brain didn’t stop, but that was as far as he’d taken it. He wanted to understand what had really been going on.

I talked him through the story I’ve been describing in the last few episodes, and I signposted some traits using shared experiences we’d had over the years. But that wasn’t the interesting part. He then told me he’d had his own mental health struggles for a few years. He spoke about parts of his past with an openness I’d never heard from him before, despite how close we are.

He’s older than me, and I think I’d always looked up to him as a kind of mentor. Looking back, it’s possible he felt he had to perform a “strong” role. Whatever the reason, something shifted. A friendship of three decades, one of my closest, got deeper.

I’ve been open about mental health challenges before and I realise not everyone is. It took me until into my forties to do so. I don’t know if it was the specificity of ADHD diagnosis, but my willingness to put myself out there seemed to give other people permission to be more honest too. That felt wonderful.

Trust

Another ripple showed up at work, and it made the same point in a different way.

I was talking to a neurodiverse colleague later on. It was the first time we’d met and we weren’t familiar with each other. As we spoke, they opened up quickly about their own feelings and their life as a neurodivergent person. I remember thinking how open they were being with someone they’d only just met. I said something like, “You said you don’t trust easily and I’m surprised you’re talking this openly to me.” They replied, “I looked you up and read your blog, and I figured if you’re prepared to be that open with people, I can trust you.”

If you are reading this as a neurodivergent person you will understand.

As a colleague and manager, I’ve always tried to be open with people. Vulnerability is also a very fashionable concept in corporate life and, to be fair, that isn’t a bad thing. But this felt different. This was my decision to be open creating real trust from the beginning, not as an abstract “good thing”, but as something tangible.

Community

Another ripple was the way other ADHD and neurodivergent people began to surface.

Some were open about it and would talk quite freely in the office, even in front of others. Others pulled me aside for a private chat. With a few of them, I could tell they’d been wrestling with themselves for a long time.

One moment that has stayed with me happened at a work event one evening. A colleague I’ve known and loved for over a decade sidled up and whispered in my ear, “We share a superpower, you know.” They told me they’d been diagnosed but didn’t feel ready to tell others. Unlike me, they hadn’t experienced it as an entirely positive thing.

That made me more careful. It reminded me that while diagnosis was a relief for me, it can be far more complicated for someone else. These conversations carry trust, and that trust has to be handled properly.

I always check first. If someone mentions that another person has ADHD, I’ll ask whether they’re open about it. If there’s any doubt, I leave it.

Again, you need to do you, whatever form that takes.

Connection

There’s also something else that happens when you start being open about neurodivergence. You begin to notice patterns of connection.

Every time someone talks to me about it, my life feels a bit richer for it. There’s a bond. It can feel like being in a special club, with some kind of invisibility cloak.

People say neurodivergent people flock together, and I think that’s true. A few old friends told me they’d been diagnosed after they heard about me. In every case, they were people I’d always felt a particular connection with, even when I couldn’t quite explain why.

One of them was the person who sent me a poem I mentioned last time.

You can also spot it quickly in some people. There’s a particular energy. It can feel like two cogs that mesh easily, even if you’ve only just met.

Support

As these conversations increased, another pattern emerged. People started coming to me with worries in general, often around mental health. They seemed comfortable talking to me because I’d been open.

I’m no doctor, and I’m careful not to pretend I have answers I don’t. But I found it incredibly humbling.

I like helping people. The reward of these conversations made something else feel clear. Alongside ADHD becoming part of my identity, being an ally and champion for neurodiverse people was going to become part of it too.

Awkwardness

Some people don’t know what to say, and they feel obliged to fill the space. That might be a British thing in my case. But when people are uncertain, they don’t always say the right things.

I do think that separating impact from intent is really important; whilst things can feel upsetting, they may not have been intentionally so.

Assuming good intent is the key I’ve found, sometimes when I’ve been. counting to ten.

Some examples will follow in the next post.