The Hidden Evidence of Neurodivergent Support Needs: When Success Masks Accommodation
- fearlesscounselling
- Sep 9
- 4 min read
As a dual-qualified lawyer and psychotherapist, I've spent years advocating for neurodivergent individuals navigating diagnostic assessments and workplace accommodations. But it wasn't until I examined my own life trajectory that I truly understood how success can paradoxically obscure genuine support needs.
The Tale of Two Careers
There's a stark contrast between my functioning in traditional employment as a young lawyer versus my current self-designed structure since my mid-thirties. From 21 to 28, I was climbing the legal career ladder, reaching the pinnacle at 28 when I set up my own legal practice which was so successful I retired from it at 33. Yet throughout this apparent success, I was working 14-hour days, five days a week, pulling the occasional all-nighter, while struggling with depression, anxiety, and chronic fatigue.
This pattern of thriving under specific conditions while becoming unwell in conventional workplaces is pretty classic for high-masking neurodivergent individuals - I know because I also work with them. The fact that I developed chronic fatigue in traditional employment wasn't a personal failing - I was chronically stressed and overstimulated, burning through my capacity daily, but having no power to do anything about it. I have many ADHD and autistic traits that really made me successful as a lawyer in this field, but they were unsustainable. I had no idea how to regulate my nervous system or manage my hyperfocus, and the nature of the work made this impossible anyway.
Sophisticated Accommodations Disguised as Lifestyle Choices
How I've restructured my life powerfully demonstrates my support needs in ways I'm only now beginning to appreciate. I retrained as a psychotherapist, leveraging my former career as a mental health and child protection solicitor and my growing awareness of my differences, which, through my journey as a mental health lawyer and my psychotherapy training, I came to understand as ADHD and being autistic and PDA. After I retrained, I took a leap and bought a smallholding in far flung west Wales on the Pembrokeshire coast. This freedom would once have been unthinkable whilst I was stuck on the hamster wheel in London. I feel like I've managed to cherry pick the bits of my job I loved - helping people who, like me, are going through their existential crisis, my fascination with how to be healthy in mind and body and live a life of meaning. Now I specialise in supporting stressed professionals and neurodivergent individuals through major life transitions, combining my legal background with therapeutic expertise in neurodivergent-affirming therapy and relationship work. No longer in the stressful and demanding litigation field, I need only work two days a week and take plenty of holidays to help manage my hyperfocus and avoid burnout. My business is my intense interest - successful, engaged, and sustainable. I have exemplary self care, with daily exercise in the form of yoga, pilates, aerial, strength training, walks in the woods and on the beach. I'm about to start a yoga teacher training course. My freedoms even extend to having three standard poodles - something unthinkable in my London lawyer days.
My current arrangement isn't just lifestyle choice - it's sophisticated accommodation that addresses:
• Autonomy needs (PDA requirement for control over my tasks and environment)
• Energy management (preventing the cycles that led to chronic fatigue or burnout)
• Special interest integration (ADHD/autistic need for meaningful engagement)
• Movement and dopamine regulation (daily physical activity requirements for ADHD brain functioning)
• Social autonomy (choosing who I work with and limiting unnecessary interpersonal demands)
• Solitary work environment (working from home or my private rented therapy room)
• No commuting (which really drained my energy battery, sucking the life out of me - apart from walking to my woods to do walk and talk therapy)
• Sensory and social regulation (controlling my environment and interactions)
Neurodivergent people really benefit from being in nature and I own 25 acres in all - my own organic meadow set within Celtic rain forest (I feel a bit Gollum-like writing this... "my precious").
The Diagnostic Paradox
For diagnostic purposes, a historical comparison is essential. I have concrete evidence - my system broke down without accommodations. I framed my "retirement" at 32 as a huge career success, but it wasn't a luxury - it was a vital intervention to prevent burnout.
I only have this insight now, after retraining to be a psychotherapist and starting to understand myself at a granular level with lots of time to do so. Many neurodivergent individuals never get the opportunity to demonstrate what they're capable of under optimal conditions because they're stuck in systems that don't accommodate their neurotype.
Reframing Success as Evidence
Really, my professional success within my accommodated structure strengthens rather than weakens the case for my support needs. It shows what's possible when the right conditions are in place. This is crucial for diagnostic assessors to understand - the absence of obvious struggle doesn't indicate the absence of support needs.
The Generational Shift
I'm super focused on this at the moment, because my children are all nearing or already at various diagnoses and don't have anywhere near the freedoms I have. But hell, they have the benefit of my fearsome advocacy, raging against the machines.
A Call to Action
For professionals conducting assessments: look beyond surface-level functioning. Ask about the scaffolding that enables success. Consider what happens when accommodations are removed. The most sophisticated masking often appears as competence, not struggle.
For neurodivergent individuals: your accommodations aren't weaknesses to hide - they're evidence of your insight and self-advocacy. The fact that you need specific conditions to thrive doesn't diminish your capabilities; it demonstrates your support needs.
Stop apologizing for the accommodations that make you thrive.
What accommodations have you implemented that others might not recognize as support needs? How do we better advocate for recognition of invisible disabilities in professional settings?
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