Ask me about neurodivergence, and I can talk for hours.
I do talk about it for hours on my podcasts. I write extensively. My first book is about to be released, and I have hundreds of pages of notes for several more in the queue. There is no shortage of things I have to say about my favorite topic.
But the one question that quite literally renders me speechless is:
“What do you do for a living?”
I freeze. Every time.
How do I answer that?
Frequently, I half-mumble, “That’s a great question,” followed by an uncertain chuckle.
Of course I know what I do for a living! I write, teach, coach, consult, and create educational content and courses. I am currently in the sixth season of my podcast, and I host a think tank with other neurodiversity experts.
But nobody wants to hear me rattle off a list like that. I am envious of people who can simply say, “I’m an attorney,” or “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m a stay-at-home parent.”
While my brain rapidly runs through its prepared list of canned responses, I usually blurt out one of the following:
“I’m a therapist.”
That isn’t really true anymore. I was a licensed therapist for 19 years before shifting my focus more than six years ago. Still, it is an easy answer that people understand.
“I’m in the field of neurodiversity.”
That usually gets a polite nod accompanied by a blank stare. Most people still aren’t familiar with the term.
“I work in autism.”
Although that stops far short of describing what I actually do, it gets immediate recognition.
The minute I mention autism, most people tell me about an autistic child they know—their grandchild, nephew, or friend’s child. Sometimes it is their own child.
That is what happened at a doctor’s appointment last week.
My doctor asked, “What do you do for work?”
I decided to try a new approach.
“I’m about to release my first book.”
“Wow! What’s it about?”
“It’s about the way we’ve misunderstood autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodiver—”
“Oh, my son is autistic! My youngest is probably somewhere on the spectrum, too.”
“Ah! I have an autistic daughter and an ADHD son myself,” I responded. “My work is primarily with adults, though, who—”
“Oh, I really want to read it because I want to understand my son better!”
I loved hearing that. Of course I hope the book helps her understand her son!
But I also hope her son is only the beginning of what she sees.
The conversation waned as my appointment ended. It was casual chitchat. People who ask what I do are not expecting a seminar on the history and cultural framing of neurodivergence.
Still, I left feeling frustrated.
Not with my doctor. With the cultural misunderstanding at the root of my problem.
The exchange perfectly illustrates why I cannot answer that seemingly simple question. We have language for working with autistic children. We have language for diagnosing and treating disorders. People understand what a therapist does.
But when I say I work with neurodivergent adults and relationships, many people have no mental picture for what that means.
That limited picture is exactly why I wrote this first book, The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence.
As I drove home from my appointment, I realized I wanted to share with you the exchange with my doctor as an example of why our collective understanding of neurodivergence needs an update. So I started formulating this article in my mind.
Then, a few days later, something happened that I could not have scripted any better.
Dr. Tony Attwood said it out loud
This newsletter was still sitting unfinished on my screen when I recorded a podcast episode with Dr. Tony Attwood and my season co-host, Mona Kay (airing in September).
For those who don’t know his work, Dr. Attwood is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist who has spent more than 50 years working with autistic people and their families.
He has written extensively about autism, but Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals was the first book I read after my daughter was diagnosed more than 15 years ago.
I wanted to understand my daughter, just as my doctor now wants to understand her son.
And now I was interviewing Dr. Attwood.
As if that weren’t surreal enough, my review copy of The Misunderstood Mind had arrived just hours before the podcast taping.
For the first time, I was holding the book I had spent two years researching, writing, and revising.
Two enormous career milestones in a matter of hours!
During our conversation, Dr. Attwood reflected on how dramatically the autism field has changed over the course of his career.
When he first began studying autism in 1971, the prevailing picture was based largely on Leo Kanner’s description: autistic children who were conspicuously different, minimally speaking, and had high support needs. Dr. Attwood spent approximately the first 20 years of his career working primarily with people who fit what we would now call an ASD Level 3 presentation.
Today, he explained, we understand that this presentation represents only about 25 percent of the autism spectrum.
He was not suggesting that the remaining 75 percent never experience disability or need support. His point was that the conspicuous, high-support-needs presentation that defined autism for decades represents a minority of autistic people.
He noted that the majority have intellectual abilities within the typical range, and some are intellectually gifted.
Yet that earlier, narrower picture still dominates our collective imagination.
Dr. Attwood also spoke about something that has bothered me for years.
“You read the DSM-5,” he said, “and it’s all deficits.”
I could barely contain myself.
Dr. Attwood was putting into his own words what my entire book is about.
So, of course, I held up my freshly minted copy and stuck it in the camera.
“This is my new book!” I told him. “It’s about what we got wrong about autism, ADHD, and neurodivergence.”
“Ah, so you agree!” he said.
Yes.
Yes, I do.
Our culture still talks about autism and ADHD primarily as disorders. We talk about diagnosis, symptoms, impairment, intervention, and treatment. We have made enormous progress in recognizing autistic children, but our language and understanding have not kept pace with them into adulthood.
Moreover, many autistic adults build careers, have relationships, raise families, and move through the world without ever being recognized as autistic.
This is part of why I struggle to explain what I do for a living. My work exists in a space that society does not yet understand.
Then, Dr. Attwood reflected on something that made the point almost impossible to miss.
After more than 50 years of working in the autism field, he has recently concluded that he is autistic himself.
Case in point.
One of the world’s best-known autism experts spent more than five decades helping other people understand autism before recognizing his own place within that picture.
He had not recognized himself in the familiar diagnostic criteria or the cultural image of autism.
I can relate. I didn’t recognize my own ADHD until a few years ago—after working in psychology for more than two decades and specifically in neurodivergence for more than ten years.
If those criteria and stereotypes did not help Tony Attwood recognize his own autism—or help me recognize my ADHD—imagine how many other neurodivergent adults remain unseen by their doctors, partners, families, employers, and even themselves.
More than 20 years ago, Tony Attwood’s work was helping professionals and parents like me understand autism.
Now my own first book is intended to help carry that understanding beyond childhood, diagnostic criteria, and the limited presentations society has been taught to recognize.
And Dr. Attwood told me he wants to read it.
I am still taking that in.
So, what do I do about the dreaded question?
I still don’t have a concise answer, but for those willing to listen, here is the long version:
I work with neurodivergent adults who are physicians, engineers, therapists, executives, teachers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, stay-at-home parents, and retirees.
They are managing careers, marriages, children, household responsibilities, aging parents, sensory overwhelm, burnout, intimacy, and the same argument they have been having with their spouse for 20 years.
Some know they are neurodivergent. Many do not.
I write and teach about the adults whose sensory experiences are repeatedly dismissed as anxiety.
The adults whose executive-function difficulties are mistaken for laziness or irresponsibility.
The successful professionals who appear to be managing life beautifully but are quietly unraveling from the effort.
The exhausted parents who have spent years learning to accommodate their child’s nervous system without realizing they have never understood their own.
These are some of the people sitting in my doctor’s examination rooms every day.
Some may even be telling her about their autistic or ADHD children without realizing that the family history they are describing contains clues about themselves.
Maybe I’ll take her a copy of The Misunderstood Mind at my next visit.
I hope it helps her understand her son. I also hope it helps her recognize the neurodivergent adults she already knows, treats, works alongside, and encounters every day.
Hopefully one day I will be able to say, “I work with neurodivergent adults and relationships,” and people will understand what that means.
For now, I suppose this is the work: writing the books, having the conversations, and helping broaden our collective understanding of neurodivergence.
Because autistic and ADHD children grow up.
And the rest of us were here all along.
—Jodi
P.S. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast or subscribe to my Substack to watch or listen to our interview with Dr. Attwood in September!
Help This Book Reach the People Who Need It
If you believe this broader understanding of neurodivergence needs to reach more people, you can help make an impact.
Preordering does more than reserve your copy. Amazon counts Kindle preorders toward the book’s sales rank and other Kindle Store promotion before release. That early activity can help Amazon recognize that the book is relevant—and make it more likely that new readers who are searching for this information will discover it.
The Kindle edition will be released on October 6, 2026, and preorders are available now. Paperback and hardback pre-orders are coming soon!
This article was originally published at jodicarlton.com. Visit the blog to read other articles about neurodiversity and complex relationship dynamics, including abuse.
Great article! As another therapist I have also noticed how the question "What do you do for a living" puts disproportionate pressure on neurodivergent and/or disabled folks. It presumes they have a job, and job that they also want to talk about, which for a lot of people is not the case. I like to use other questions (like 'what they have been up to lately') to get to know others and then if they mention their work specifically I ask a follow up.
Me too totally get it!