Stay up-to-date with the Neurodiversity movement and Neurodivergent research and news with our blog. Keeping you and your organisation at the cutting edge of all things Neurodivergent. Blogs are published weekly, subscribe here to make sure you never miss an article.

Content Warning: This article deals with grief and parent loss

I am sat waiting for my first PhD meeting since my Father died in June. Grief comes in waves, sometimes you swim and sometimes it crashes over you and all you can do is gasp for breaths between the sobbing. Right now, unable to call him for a pep talk, it comes like a tsunami and I feel like I might drown. This is of course a joyful topic for a professional blog and whilst I am now the master of Dead Dad Jokes, there is a point to this pityfest. 

This is the context. I’ve been a young carer since I was 14 and one fine day in the middle of the night I woke up to save my mother’s life. That has been all I have known. In the two years running up to his death I was on a rolling 24 hour call to jump a flight back home to take care of both my parents. At its worst this went down to 6 hours, constantly packed, constantly with a passport in my pocket, ready to go at a moment's notice. Then the worst happened while I was alone in Venice at summer school, I got the call I never wanted to come. 

In the middle of all of this I was working, either for myself or start-ups and I was studying for a PhD. I have had to send so many apology emails it is frankly embarrassing. The jobs I had to turn down. The work left unwritten. The emails unread. I’m sorry I’m currently in France with an ill parent. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. 

Then Dad was gone with sunflowers on his coffin and somehow the world kept turning, the clocks didn’t stop and the skies only went dark for me. The day jobs still needed doing and now there were no I’m sorrys. You can get back to work now, it’s all over, time to pick up what you dropped.  

Then something different happened to my steady stream of heartbroken apologies for my lack of time and resources. Editing this the day after the aforementioned PhD supervision and my supervisors were supportive, caring, offering advice and encouragement - this has become a welcome novelty in a time of grief. 

It made me rethink this piece which had been on my experience of grief as a Neurodivergent person, their kind words had not been my experience of work and schools past. I felt grateful for all their kindness and I found myself wondering why? Why is my supervisors’ response so novel? Why in so many workplaces is the very real and human side of grief forgotten? 

Grief is experienced in many different ways and Neurodivergent people are no exception to this rule. This said the ways in which Neurodivergent people experience grief may not match societal expectations. Delayed responses or low externally expressed emotional responses lead those around us to think we are fine. By limiting the grieving process to the funeral date Neurodivergent people are forced to speed run emotions that may not have even started to occur. I organised my Father’s funeral, I was overwhelmed with responsibility, paperwork and decisions - there was no time to cry and wail and gnash my teeth. Now my family and I are back at work and well the death was 5 months ago and now is not the time to cry. There is work to be done. Life moves on.  

Whilst yesterday my grief was met with kindness, more often than not I have experienced my grief and responsibilities viewed as a deliberate attempt on my behalf not to work. My need to care for my parents was an attack on work ethos; I remember one conversation where I was told if I wanted to succeed in this world I should just let my Father die. I have worked across many sectors, many industries and our caring responsibilities we keep hidden. Grief is a private affair that has no place in the workplace. Take the mandated time you need and then let’s not think about it anymore. We have to keep it professional, don’t mention the ill parent, don’t mention the miscarriage, don’t ever, ever mention the diagnosis, don’t mention your humanity. 

This is the point of this pityfest. 

A week ago I sat at an Offspring gig in London and during a heart-breaking rendition of Gone Away, phone torches went on in memory of those we’ve lost. Hundreds of modern-day lighter substitutes filled the O2 area. We have all felt the ice cold, pit of the stomach, sucker punch that is grief. So why do my supervisors feel like striking emotional gold? Why when grief hits, like a sledgehammer on a wave of a ton of bricks, on Monday morning are we expected to go to work as if nothing ever happened? Where is there space to mourn those lost in the time of capitalism?