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Vancouver’s Margaux Woske has a closet filled with hundreds of small white pins, each bearing a description of the wearer’s condition or identity, such as “Disabled is not a bad word,” “Autistic but not rude” or “I have social anxiety.”
Finding employment isn’t easy for someone in Woske’s position: Woske, 35, is autistic, has ADHD, and has no higher education. The two worked in art-supply stores, but the combination of fluorescent lights, strong smells (especially the fish brought in by a colleague at the art store), and human interaction left them exhausted. For many people with autism, these sensations can be debilitating.
So by early 2023, Mx. Wosk started selling art full time, a business they say is in the low six figures. They’ve made more than 12,000 sales on Etsy alone, in addition to sales through other wholesale accounts, all from home and on their own schedule. “For me, being self-employed is the best option,” Mx. Wosk says, “because it best accommodates my sensory needs.”
Many neurodiverse employees face unfriendly work environments. Neurodiversity is an umbrella term for conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism, and other mental and sensory disorders. According to Statistics Canada data, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in Canada (including neurodiverse people) is roughly double that of the overall Canadian population. According to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, 14.3% of Canadians with autism aged 15 and over are unemployed.
The reasons for this gap in employment are as diverse as the myriad conditions that fall under the label “neurodiversity.” Potential problems for neurodiverse people, like reading social cues, paying attention, and understanding complex contracts, can all make the workplace a difficult place to function well.
For many, self-employment is a way to carve out a career: some neurodiverse workers find it easier to manage their symptoms when they have full control over their workload and hours, while others reluctantly take up entrepreneurship or freelancing after years of battling discrimination in the workplace.
Whatever the reason, most of the 12 neurodiverse workers we spoke to for this article saw self-employment as a better option than going back to the office, despite the challenges.
About 13% of all Canadian workers are self-employed, according to RBC. While it’s hard to say what percentage of workers have neurodevelopmental disorders, some conditions appear to be better suited to self-employment than others. A 2019 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice found that workers diagnosed with ADHD were 30% more likely to become entrepreneurs than those without neurodevelopmental disorders.
People with many neurodiverse disorders, including autism and ADHD, can find the 9-to-5 office environment exhausting. People with autism are typically turned off by loud noises, bright lights, and strong smells. People with ADHD may be highly productive one hour and completely unable to focus the next.
For Berlin-based content designer Lucie Le Nour, who is autistic, a typical workday consists of three to four hours in the morning, a longer break until mid-afternoon, and another hour in the evening. She doesn’t work on Fridays and typically does so to conserve her energy, avoid burnout, and stay productive. “I work in sprints,” she says.
Freelancing allows Le Nour to have the autonomy she needs to work in her field while managing her symptoms. She has been fired from numerous jobs over the years. “Social dynamics are very tricky for me,” she says. “I don’t understand all the corporate double-dealing. I tend to speak my mind.” After losing her most recent full-time job while on probation at the end of 2022, she decided to try freelancing.
Being able to decide who you work for and how you work makes a big difference. Le Nour says she feels much calmer now that she doesn’t have to go to an office or deal with the dynamics of office politics. She can decide her own working conditions and environment.
Priyanka Chanda, 31, a freelance designer with ADHD who lives in Oshawa, Ontario, says she adjusts her work hours to fit her focus — a flexibility she’d never get in an office job. “If you’re working 9-to-5, you can’t say you don’t feel like talking or working,” Chanda says. “You have to work and produce results.”
But some neurodiverse freelancers can thrive in the very chaotic and uncertain world of self-employment. For Megan Van Harten, co-chief executive officer of Indigenous-owned creative agency Design de Plume, running a business means tapping into the talents that many people with neurodevelopmental disorders develop from an early age – particularly the ability to adapt to their surroundings in the face of adversity.
Solving problems in unconventional ways is something Van Harten says she wasn’t able to do until she left her first job as a graphic designer. Instead of strictly adhering to brand guidelines, she can now apply her talents to all kinds of creative projects. “We have to be really innovative,” says the 36-year-old, who has ADHD. “Especially because our whole lives we’ve been told you’re not good enough or you have to act a certain way. It’s made us really good innovators.”
That’s not to say that freelancing or starting a business is an easy option for neurodiverse professionals, or anyone else. Handling your own taxes, invoices, and marketing can be difficult, especially for those with issues with attention, working memory, and planning. Burning out or having to take sick leave has a much bigger impact if you don’t have access to any extended sick leave at all. And constantly switching between unstable part-time contracts can be stressful.
Meredith Richards, a 51-year-old federal civil servant who has ADHD, says she never started a business or freelanced when she was younger because she didn’t believe she could do it. She previously worked as a psychotherapist, but although self-employment is not uncommon, she worried she would fail.
She wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until recently, and she says she struggled with mental health issues. She was also a single mother and wasn’t sure she could provide for her son. “I didn’t think I could actually run a business,” Richards says. “I didn’t think I was capable, so I stayed in a very unhealthy space.”
Today, she has a steady income, benefits, and a generous pension as a federal civil servant, and the broad scope of the civil service allows her to move jobs every few years, which is not uncommon for many ADHD workers.
Chris Wainwright, chief operating officer at HR software company Humi, also hasn’t struggled in the corporate world as a person with ADHD and autism, and while he understands why professionals with neurodevelopmental disorders might seek other jobs, he hasn’t walked that path himself.
“I think in the corporate world, it’s important to be open to feedback and try to grow along a predefined path,” he says. “When that predefined path isn’t working, the instinct is to run away.”
But he says employment, especially at a startup, can be rewarding for neurodiverse professionals who are patient and persevere, and the chaos of the startup world isn’t as stressful for him as an executive with ADHD.
“I’m comfortable with incomplete information and having to adapt my behavior to suit different people in different situations,” Wainwright says, “because I’ve had to do that my whole life.”
Many neurodiverse workers are deemed unsuitable for freelancing or entrepreneurship. Woske says business support for neurodiverse employees is typically geared toward larger companies hiring wage and salaried workers, not helping them start their own businesses. For Woske, this is problematic because a freelance career gives them a degree of control over their working conditions that they don’t get elsewhere. “People don’t see it as an option, because it’s not presented to them,” Woske says.