Working Pieces: When ADHD Goes to Work - A Memoir About Pesola Bikes, Email Graveyards, and Learning to Build a Career with the Wrong Operating System (The Jigsaw Mind Series Book 3)

As a psychologist with ADHD diagnosed at fifty, I’ve spent twenty-six years being brilliant at my work while my workplace systems collapsed around me.

This is a memoir about ADHD in the workplace—the gap between potential and performance, the exhaustion of masking at work, and what it means to be genuinely good at your job while catastrophic at having a job.

For most of my career, I thought I was just disorganized. Other psychologists managed patient files, billing, and report writing without their admin systems imploding every few months. Why couldn’t I?

Then came my late ADHD diagnosis at age fifty, and my entire professional history made horrifying sense.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “not living up to your potential” in a performance review...

If you’ve sat through meetings that could have been emails while your brain screamed for escape...

If you’re really, genuinely good at the actual work while simultaneously terrible at workplace organization...

This memoir is for you.

What nobody tells you about ADHD in the workplace

Working Pieces isn’t about “crushing it” in your career or “leveraging your ADHD superpower.” I don’t believe in superpowers. I believe in neurodivergent brains trying to survive in systems designed for neurotypical minds.

Through raw stories from my career as a practicing psychologist in South Africa—the Pesola bike I rode between psychiatric wards while dissociating from terror, the email graveyards that haunt me, the deadlines I’ve missed despite caring desperately—I explore executive dysfunction in professional settings, workplace masking, and the specific challenges adult ADHD creates at work.

You’ll find: • The exhaustion of masking your ADHD at work (and why it’s unsustainable) • What executive dysfunction actually looks like in professional settings • The shame of missing deadlines when you’re brilliant at the work itself • Why neurodivergent professionals excel at some tasks and fail at others • Honest talk about admin collapse, forgotten meetings, and workplace survival • The both/and truth: You can be really good at your work AND terrible at workplace systems

This is Book 3 in The Jigsaw Mind series, exploring ADHD through different life domains. Book 1 (Puzzle Pieces) covers late diagnosis and self-discovery. Book 2 (The Jigsaw Hearts) examines relationships and family. This book focuses on professional life and career challenges with ADHD.

Written by a psychologist with adult ADHD who’s made every workplace mistake

I’ve missed important deadlines. Forgotten meetings. Had filing systems implode. I’ve also built a career I’m proud of, helped hundreds of patients, and delivered training that changed practices. Both things are true.

You’re not lazy. You’re not failing. The workplace was just never designed for brains like ours.

Welcome to the workplace edition of The Jigsaw Mind.