As Bridget McDermid read through the 28-page psychoeducational report which included a diagnosis of ADHD, something fundamentally changed in her as she realized that for her entire life she had been working against the natural strengths of her brain.
At 41 years old, it was a moment that was long overdue for McDermid. Growing up, she never imagined she would be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and then Autism spectrum disorder at 42.
But as she thought about it a bit more, it started to make sense. Throughout her life, she struggled to fit in at work and in social situations, and often felt like she was faking her way through life.
Her first diagnosis in 2023 was the beginning of her journey to self-acceptance and becoming an advocate for other neurodivergent people in the workplace.
"That first diagnosis was like a weight had been lifted," McDermid said. "It was like I finally had the words to describe why I felt out of place for so long."
McDermid is a Product Group Owner at TD, where she leads the reimagination of the colleague onboarding experience. Through TD Invent, the Bank-wide umbrella effort to power innovation, she is a patent-granted inventor who has won dozens of industry awards for her human-centered design innovations.
McDermid is one of approximately 1.8 million Canadians who has ADHD, which is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder impacting both children and adults.
While many would consider McDermid the definition of high performing, she says her success has come at a cost.
"I was that kid alone on the fringes of the playground lost in thought and my inner world of imagination," McDermid said.
"Crowds were suffocating and the fluorescent lights in the classroom gave me headaches. Social interaction has never been easy - I learned how to fake eye contact by staring at a person's ear when I spoke to them, and I uncontrollably interrupt people during conversations."
Surviving the corporate world
When McDermid entered the workforce she lived every day in survival mode - scared to make mistakes, afraid of falling short, wondering if she was "enough."
Shortly after starting her first corporate job, overwhelmed by self-doubt, discomfort, and paranoia, she found herself alone and crying in the parking lot on her lunch break one day.
From then on, anxiety became, what she described as, "my unwelcome companion."
"Despite the value and quality of my work, my traits were often seen as flaws. I have been criticized for working too fast, for not wearing the right clothes, for being 'too energetic,'" McDermid said.
McDermid pushed through the years, a high-performer at work, yet at the end of each day feeling utterly depleted - all the while she was plagued with the thought that she was misunderstood to her colleagues and even to herself, but things began to change a decade ago when her first child was born.
She started to notice that her kids were struggling in school and life in similar ways that she had. Unlike the world that McDermid had grown up in, there was now a framework for understanding the broad spectrum of how people think, learn, and behave, called 'neurodivergence.'
Both of her children received early diagnosis of Autistic and combined ADHD, providing insights and clues into her own personal history and challenges.
Getting the right support at TD
After taking a medical leave in 2023, McDermid remembers reading a memoir about a woman who lived with undiagnosed autism and thinking 'this is me.'"
McDermid underwent highly extensive and costly psychological evaluations and testing over the next two years, resulting in a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, combined presentation, auditory processing disorder (APD), and sensory processing disorder (SPD).
"After my assessment, something clicked. I wasn’t broken. I had been working so hard to fit into a world not designed for me that it had been ruining me, day by day," she said.
What had previously been diagnosed as a major depressive episode was in fact autistic burnout. Being overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks, lights, and noise, was her sensory processing disorder that caused hypersensitivity to the constant stimulation.
"It was like going through a grieving process" McDermid said. "Forty years of struggle, of anti-depressants I didn't need, of emotional dysregulation that others saw as defiance, of feeling bad or less than, but all I needed were lifestyle changes to help me thrive at work."
McDermid can now work at home in a dark, quiet space, and has adopted the TD Accessibility Adapter when web browsing using the dark mode feature, as well as its focused reading pane view and feature which stops videos from playing automatically and creating startling sound blasts.
"I no longer have headaches and have much more energy during my workday because of these simple changes and innovative TD tool," McDermid said.
From stigma to superpower
McDermid has become a passionate writer, advocate, and spokesperson devoted to de-stigmatizing and educating those around her on neurodivergence, hoping to help others better understand their challenges so they don’t have to go through the same long journey she did.
McDermid shares her story through her personal LinkedIn blog series and was nominated as a TD Disability Changemaker in 2024.
"I am angry that I spent 42 years struggling, and so this is why I speak out about it today and share my story. To not only help myself but both my children who are also neurodivergent," McDermid said.
The traits that once made life so difficult for her have now become what she calls, her "superpowers."
Her need to avoid crowds she now knows is because she is so-detail oriented and perceptive to her environment; her lack of productivity in an office is because sensory overload inhibits her ability to process at her speed, while solving problems and innovating quickly. Now that she no longer has to "mask" her neurodivergence to pretend to fit in, she is much less exhausted.
"We speak openly in my TD team about neurodivergence, and we celebrate, encourage, and leverage everyone's unique talents," McDermid said.
"Don’t be afraid to be you, and don't apologize for being different. There are different brains in the world, and we need to embrace them all. That’s what's going to drive innovation and forward-focused thinking, and that’s what's going to make the world better."
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