At PGConf EU last week I was part of a panel on mental health and neurodiversity in the open source community and at work. I'll try and summarize the discussion here.
We were all quite moved by the audience participation during the panel. People shared personal stories and the ways they get their best work done. We're trying to get their stories summarized so those can be shared too, as we've opted to remove them from the recording to protect people's privacy.
The panelists
EDB colleague, PGDay Lowlands co-organizer, and my close friend Boriss Mejias took on the role of host for the panel.
Jimmy Angelakos, Staff Software Engineer at pgEdge, has been part of the PostgreSQL community for over 15 years and open source community for over 25 years. He's a member of the PostgreSQL Europe Diversity committee. Introducing himself, Jimmy says: "There were strong indications I displayed some autistic traits but I chose to ignore it because the depictions of autism growing up were significantly different. My suspicions were confirmed a few years ago when I found out I am actually on the Autism Spectrum."
Karen Jex is a Senior Solutions Architect at Crunchy Data / Snowflake, which she arrived at via 20 something years as a database administrator and database consultant. She's on the PostgreSQL Europe board, and serves as the Chair for the Diversity Committee. She says: "I'm autistic. I didn't know until a few years ago, and I wasn't formally diagnosed until very recently. A lot of people don't know (I suppose they do now!), partly because I mask, or hide, my autistic traits most of the time. It's a defense mechanism, a way to blend in, but it's exhausting and is one of the reasons I'm often close to burnout."
I recently started the "NeuroD @ EDB" ERG - short for “Employee Resource Group” which is basically an internal community. At EDB we have similar groups for women, a LGBTQ+ group, and the “Amigos” group that Laura Minen talked about in her session at the Community Organizers Conf last week as well.
Like Jimmy and Karen, I’m a member of the PostgreSQL Europe Diversity Committee, I'm a newly appointed chair of the PostgreSQL Code of Conduct Committee, and PGDay Lowlands organizer. I'm chronically too busy, and “powered” by ADHD, which sometimes will make me feel like I'm on top of the world, and sometimes terribly inadequate.
Challenges, misconceptions and expectations
To break the proverbial ice, Boriss asked us to choose a song that represents our "unique brains". He himself picked "Nebraska", by An Pierle.
Karen: My literal-thinking brain has difficulty with the idea of describing itself as a song, but I definitely identify with Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping": I get knocked down, but I get up again!
Jimmy: It would probably be the Nyan Cat song or Happy Tree Friends in terms of vibe. (not linked on purpose, you're welcome)
Me: the lyrics to "Free" by Florence + The Machine come close to describing how I feel. If it would be a genre it'd be free jazz played at twice the speed, by a punk band.
“You don't look autistic” is a phrase that Karen could do without. "Like it's a compliment!" I know that I struggle with the stereotype that people with ADHD have unlimited energy, and people assuming I can always take on more work.
Talking about work, neurodivergent employees can struggle when there's sensory overload - lights, noises, people, constant distractions and context switching, small talk, implied expectations rather than explicit instructions. Jimmy adds that what other people perceive as welcome bonding or socializing at work can be unwelcome distractions for him. "Open plan offices are a nightmare". As are KPIs/OKRs/Best Practices that are meant to “work in every case”, but don't account for the neurodivergent brain / ways of working.
The feeling of feeling seen
When Boriss asked about positive experiences in the workplace and the community, I shared how a former manager (who also has ADHD) helped me map tasks on a urgent vs important table, helping me avoid to "parallel-track" everything.
Karen really appreciated being asked by her fellow PGConf EU organizers whether or not she felt comfortable with a certain task that involved a lot of social interaction. "They didn't assume I could or could not do the task, they gave me the options." She also mentioned the wellness rooms at Snowflake that can be used to decompress when necessary.
Jimmy says that the fact that it's so accepted to work 100% remotely is a blessing. He also mentioned the unrestricted time off allowance at pgEdge is a life-saver. "I'll get the work done anyway". I thought I heard "unlimited time off", which I found doesn't work for me at all because I will not track it and always think I'm not doing enough even when I work while I'm holiday. And during the weekends. And. A defined number of days a year that I need to take, and a manager who encourages me to take time off, is the only think keeping me from burning out.
Other ways in which managers and colleagues can support is by having a good, current photo as your profile picture on Slack/email. Jimmy says that it's crucial for people who are not good at recognizing faces, and that turning on your camera once in a while during meetings further helps as well.
While he had the mic, Jimmy pleads to avoid sending messages when you know the other person is working on something, and to avoid using @all, @everyone, @here in work chats unless something REALLY requires the attention of EVERYONE present. On the topic, I have bursts of energy, not typically within the bounds of "working hours". To at least appear to have a healthy work-life balance (and maybe it will manifest one day?), I schedule messages to be send later.
Boriss asked the group about accommodations to make work… work. I schedule (virtual) “body doubling” time with colleagues to get the tasks done I have no actual interest in doing (expenses). Just the pressure of having a peer there doing something they don’t want to do either, but doing it anyway, helps me avoid the "ADHD tax" (also: late fees, missed return window).
Jimmy requests two sessions for everything—one at a different time of day—which perfectly illustrates how accommodating one group can benefit many others. By scheduling meetings at varying times, people across different time zones have the opportunity to participate. And people in different time zones might have other productivity hours too!
Karen asks to make documents concise and clear to read, and only include relevant information to help comprehension and reduce anxiety about what you could mean.
More discourse, please
Jimmy, Karen and I all got our diagnosis later in life despite suspecting something was "different". That means we developed coping mechanisms that work for us, but also that we've all done an amount of "masking" in order to fit in.
My diagnosis has enabled me to give myself more grace, instead of beating myself up over my terrible time management or misplacing my key/phone/wallet, again. I know that the panel sparked many conversations, in-person and privately as well, and if you were thinking about reaching out but haven't done so yet: please do, here or on bluesky / mastodon / linkedin / ...
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