Living and Working with ADHD: Quenie Hubert

Quenie Hubert, an associate in the HSF Frankfurt office from 2017 to 2021, is now an ADHD coach. She describes the challenges, as well as the advantages, she has faced as someone with ADHD and offers advice to others in the workplace.

Eight years ago, when I first started working as a first-year associate in HSF’s Frankfurt office, I was diagnosed with the combined type of ADHD (inattentive and hyperactive). Because of the general stigma around this topic, I was not courageous enough to share this with my co-workers.

So began a journey of self-discovery, healing and self-acceptance. I had to look inwards and take a close look at how my ADHD affected my life since my earliest days. I realised that compensating and hiding had taken an enormous amount of energy and happiness. I also realised that my beautiful, creative ADHD brain had been a source of strength my entire life. These lessons were so close to my heart that I wanted to pass them on to people who were still losing energy by masking. I have since then trained as a psychological counselor and an ADHD-Coach.

I learnt that neither neurotypical nor neurodiverse brains are better or worse. They are just different “brain-operating systems”. But the biggest lesson was that I am enough and not “too much”. Self-awareness and self-acceptance are the key to using ADHD as a strength. 

Inattentive, but open mind

There is constant audio commentary in my head. The comments can, for example, be the recital of the entire lyrics of the song “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John - just because someone said the word “standing”. It’s like having a party in your head and then someone asks you: What did the person in the left corner of the room say? When I look at a tree, I have thousands of thoughts, feelings and association - a flood of data that needs sorting. 

This led to quite a few challenges when I was working as an associate: frequent mistakes like typos or a word missing, even though I had read the document 10 times accompanied by the fear of someone calling me lazy or careless. I had difficulties remembering verbal instructions, which is why I still write everything down. I often had to deal with disgruntled co-workers because they thought I didn't listen or was purposefully ignoring them. 

There were times when I was waiting for half an hour in front of the office because I had yet again forgotten my key-card and was too ashamed to admit it. I would then just wait for a co-worker to let me in and pretend I had just arrived: “Oh what a nice coincidence!” I would say to cover my embarrassment.

Nonetheless, there are definite strengths of having an open mind and processing unfiltered flood of data. I have a lot more information than the average person. This leads to creativity, versatile thinking, a wealth of ideas and access to solutions that others cannot see. I can drive innovation. I react flexibly to changing requirements and it’s easy for me to see and put together the “big picture”. I have strong empathy due to the lack of stimulus filtering. To compensate for my lack of attention, I have developed strong perception and extrapolation skills.