Rosie Arthey
Thriving at Work After a Late Diagnosis: The Role of Self-Compassion in Neurodivergent Careers
Rosie is a coach specialising in working with neurodivergent adults in the workplace. She is passionate about coaching as a tool to support her clients to meet their potential and achieve positive outcomes. Rosie received her ADHD diagnosis in her early 40s. Sign up here to receive Bright Cognition's Neurodiversity Newsletter.
Thriving at Work After a Late Diagnosis: The Role of Self-Compassion in Neurodivergent Careers
In recent years, there’s been a quiet but meaningful shift. Increasing numbers of professionals—particularly those in their 40s and 50s—are receiving diagnoses that name what they’ve always suspected: ADHD, autism, dyslexia. For some, it’s a revelation. For others, it stirs a complex mix of relief, grief, and deep questioning.
What happens when a diagnosis comes not in childhood, but at the height of a career?
It’s a question many midlife professionals are now reckoning with—often privately, often quietly. And while these diagnoses can offer clarity, they also invite a difficult internal reckoning: Have I been pushing through, masking, or simply surviving at work for decades?
When the Mask Starts to Slip
Decades of subtle masking—mimicking neurotypical behaviours, overworking to compensate for invisible differences, internalising shame—can take a toll. Many high-functioning professionals have succeeded despite feeling perpetually behind the scenes, battling systems not built for their way of thinking.
A diagnosis doesn’t erase that history. But it can start to reframe it.
The real question becomes: how can someone begin to thrive, not just survive, now that they understand how their brain truly works?
The Power of Tender (and Fierce) Self-Compassion
There’s a growing body of research showing that self-compassion is a powerful tool for neurodivergent individuals navigating work life. Psychologist and researcher Dr Kristin Neff outlines two forms of self-compassion—tender and fierce—and both are essential.
Tender self-compassion is about sitting with the discomfort. It’s about acknowledging the emotional weight of a diagnosis, the years spent not knowing, and the tension between relief and regret. This phase isn’t about action—it’s about allowing.
Fierce self-compassion, on the other hand, is action-oriented. It’s the part that advocates, sets boundaries, asks for adjustments, and rewrites old scripts. It takes what’s been learned and turns it into forward movement—but only after the tender work has been done.
Together, they form what Neff calls a “caring force”—one that supports growth without shame or urgency.
Listening Before Fixing: What Managers Need to Know
For managers, the instinct to “fix” can often do more harm than good. Research into workplace adjustments shows that neurodivergent team members aren’t primarily seeking special treatment—they’re seeking to be heard.
Validation, empathy, and simple acts of listening without interruption are more powerful than the most well-designed checklist of accommodations.
Rather than jumping in with solutions, the most effective leaders start with presence: “Am I hearing you say this is the biggest challenge right now?”
That single sentence can build trust and open the door to future collaboration.
Thriving Starts with Clues from the Past
For neurodivergent adults trying to redesign a more joyful work life, the place to begin might not be where they expect. It’s not with diagnoses, frameworks, or job titles—it’s with memory.
Where in your life have you thrived?
That thriving may have happened in surprising places: a volunteer project, a sports team, a short-term freelance role. The environment matters more than the title. Was there a clear goal? A supportive team? A deep sense of purpose?
Those clues are breadcrumbs. They point to the conditions under which someone can work at their best—not in spite of their neurodivergence, but because of it.
Redesign Begins with Awareness
Understanding how your brain works is just the beginning. What comes next is a redesign—one rooted in insight, aligned with personal values, and backed by small, intentional steps.
You don’t need to burn it all down. You don’t need to have all the answers.
You just need to begin with honesty, kindness, and a willingness to explore what thriving might look like now.
Curious what joy might look like for you?
Start with Derailed—a 30-minute diagnostic that helps you assess your current work-life alignment. 👉 Take the Quiz
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I've got a gap in my brain around dates and times. Even though I'm pretty good at math and statistics, I've never researched it nor given it a name. I simply learned to surround myself with kind people who helped me bridge that gap, or at very least laugh with me when things go sideways, which is rather often.
[00:00:24] Midlife diagnoses: ADHD, dyslexia, autism & what they reveal
Over the years, I've also had friends and clients receive midlife diagnoses, dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and while those labels brought clarity and self-acceptance, navigating that new found understanding at work, that's a whole other story.
So in this episode, I invited Rosie Arthey an expert in neurodiversity to join me. Together we explore how to approach a later in life diagnosis with curiosity, care, and confidence. Whether it's your own, a colleagues or a team members. Let's dive in.
[00:01:07] The emotional impact of a late diagnosis
More and more I come across professionals who in their forties or fifties have discovered that they are neurodivergent. What would you say to someone who is halfway through their career when they discover this?
Great question. Take a moment to pause, allow some time to process this new information, which might have really rocked you.
Oftentimes people might come to this, discovery after experiences with their children. Their children might have gone through the diagnostic process. So there might be all sorts of difficult and overlapping emotions going on.
[00:01:40] Why self-compassion is the first (and best) step
Really I think the best place to start is with self-compassion.
What do I mean by that? We often hear these phrases, but what do they mean in practice? I'd direct people to the work of Dr. Kristin Neff, and I can share some, links with you, which people can put in the show notes. Research has shown that self-compassion can really benefit, neurodivergent individuals especially.
Dr. Kristin Neff talks about tender self-compassion. In this moment when people have just discovered, their neurodivergence, later in life, tender self-compassion is the place to start.
This is really just acknowledging this is a difficult time. It makes sense, you don't feel great. For some people it might be a massive relief as well, like, oh God, now that really makes sense. But even in that relief, there might be complicated emotions.
And sometimes clients might come to me and it's like a grieving process. They're reevaluating, looking back. So either way, whether it's a relief, whether it's devastating, whether it's just makes perfect sense, tender self-compassion is a great place to start. Accepting it's difficult and it makes sense that you don't feel great.
You are not rushing to try and change things or fix things. You don't need to snap out of it. It's normal that you would feel this way.
And just allowing yourself to get used to the news and normalize it. Lovely. Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about your actual work. When you are working with people who want to increase their chances of thriving
Mm-hmm.
with neurodivergence rather than just surviving, where do you start?
[00:03:15] Understanding neurotypical “norms” and the cost of masking
Great question. I think it's an extension of what I just said about self-compassion, demonstrating that self-compassion by listening to them. I'm demonstrating compassion in listening to them while they vocalize their experiences. Often feeling misunderstood is a common experience for neurodivergent people.
Having a space where you can share your experiences, and feel understood can be powerful. I would say that's always where I start, just by listening, and then, asking, gentle questions to help 'em understand where their needs aren't being met.
We have an a norm how we should behave, within our society, which people might call, neurotypical norms.
That might be like making eye contact or, getting to the point quickly when you're speaking rather than speaking around in circles, which is something I can be guilty of. We have these norms that society feeds to us, in terms of what we should be doing.
And often neurodivergent people that doesn't come naturally to them. And so they might spend a lot of time trying to, what might be called mask or appear to, to behave a certain way or do things a certain way because that's what they've learned is, the right way to be. But in doing that, we can really become disconnected from what we need to perform well.
Yes. Oh my God, I get that. So in some of my work, I do this, exercise called the invisibility cloak, so understand
yeah.
What we're hiding, what we should be doing.
Hmm.
and how to take that off without breaking. So brilliant. So that's absolutely fascinating. So if someone is listening to us and they are perhaps at work and they are managing a team member yet who is currently struggling at work due to some elements of their neurodiversity.
[00:05:06] Managers: what to do (and not do) when supporting team members
How would that person start to really support their team member?
Great. There is research that backs up the importance of the relational aspect of, workplace reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent staff.
This research demonstrated that above any list of reasonable adjustments available. The thing they want most is to feel heard and valued.
Listening is a great place to start with that. It's the biggest tool in your toolbox as a manager. Often as managers we feel, we need to show our worth by fixing this. Being able to offer solutions and we'll often hear that we need to provide solutions to be a good team member.
But listening is a huge part of getting to those solutions. And when you have that relationship, that connection is so important in, in that moment when someone is struggling. And it provides that understanding, that validation, which will lead to trust and that can lead to future solutions.
It can be really easy in those moments when someone shares what they're struggling with to try to connect by saying, oh, we all struggle with that.
Oh my God, I'm terrible at my emails and I never remember. When someone shares something with me. That can feel like a way of connecting or relating. But oftentimes, especially when working with a neurodivergent colleague, this might be something they'd feel really ashamed about, really embarrassed about.
It's quite hard for them to share. So listening is always the best place to start.
Instead of saying, oh, I feel that we all feel that. What can that person say or do to demonstrate that they are listening, not solving first?
For me, the key thing with listening is allowing the person to finish a sentence, not jumping in, then just clarifying what you've heard. So am I hearing you say that one of the biggest challenges you are experiencing at the moment is the amount of emails in your inbox?
As simple as
they can,
lovely. That then allows someone to feel heard and that's before you can get to solutions or future solutions. Lovely. Okay. Let's take it from the other side. So what if someone is listening to this and thinking, I myself want to really learn how to thrive at work with my particular style of neurodivergence?
What can that person do just to make a start practically this week?
[00:07:32] Thriving starts with clues from your own past
We've talked about the tender self-compassion, allowing that time. And then we talk about, fierce self-compassion. So that's, taking action.
I've got a great visual, to put in in the show notes, which shows that difference between that tender self-compassion and that fierce self-compassion. They work together. We need them both. We need to be tender and self-accepting of where we are at the moment, but fierce self-compassion is what will move us forward.
So this idea of thriving, and in fact on the visual it says, tender and fierce compassion creates a caring force allowing us to thrive.
So if they want to learn to thrive at work with their particular style of neurodivergence, where do they start?
I would start with thinking about all areas of your life, not just work, but family, community, sport, volunteering, where have you thrived in the past? Where have you been able to succeed. We might have, good levels of self-efficacy in one area of our life and not in others.
What can we learn from those experiences where we have thrived in the past? What was it about that environment situation or task that made it possible for us to thrive? Was it a clear brief? Was it you were really clear about you knew what you were working towards.
Was it that you were working in a team, you work better in a team than you do alone? Was it that you had people you really trusted? Was it an area you felt passionate about? Was it that you were helping others? So these are all some of the things that are little clues that can help us think about, okay, when I have that, that really helps me to work at my best or that really helps me to thrive.
So that's what I would say in terms of where to start.
And that connects back to understanding your needs today to go forward by understanding how those needs were satisfied in the past lovely. Thank you so much, Rosie.
[00:09:17] Derailed: Lucia’s life satisfaction assessment invitation
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my life satisfaction assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you die. I call it derailed. It's a fabulous place to begin at joy at work. Redesign.
