There is a lack of support for professionals who identify as neurodivergent. Workspaces fail to accommodate the needs of neurodivergent people which leads to masking, overcompensating, isolation and burnout. Imposing neurotypical standards on neurodivergent professionals is oppressive. You are not alone; so many providers face similar challenges.
This is why we want to build a community of neurodivergent providers who support each other.
We want to build a community where neurodivergent people are celebrated!
We envision this space as the antidote to the "double empathy gap." They say that social "deficits" are nonexistent when we are amongst neurokin (and therefore were never really deficits are all) - but finding fellow neurodivergent clinicians who can relate on not just a neurodivergent level or a clinical level but both requires vulnerability that often isn't safe. Self-disclosure, unmasking, voicing controversial opinions based on living experience and asking for necessary supports often come with major potential consequences in our workplaces and even within general clinician support spaces. The Nest can be a space where we don't have to waste precious spoons on disclaimers and education and small talk to feel out who's an ally and who's virtue signaling and instead can re-generate energy by feeling at ease and at home in the company of like-minded clinicians.
Topics for discussion (to be collaboratively decided on by our community) may include:
Working through imposter syndrome
Trusting our clinical judgment
Navigating the buzzwordification of neurodiversity of the commodification of lived experience
Grieving the "productive ideal"
Self-advocacy in the face of ableism
This group will be facilitated by Stacie Fanelli. She is an AuDHD licensed as a social worker. This peer-led support group will be a space where hierarchies are broken down, and your facilitator will show up as fellow neurodivergent human. She will not be there to "educate", or to "offer advice", but instead to contribute her lived experience and to help co-create a space where ND providers can support each other.
I'm Stacie Fanelli (she/her)
I'm Stacie Fanelli, a thin, cis, ace, Jewish, autistic & ADHD woman. My late ADHD diagnosis came in grad school upon realizing all my classmates seemed to be able to decide to write a paper and simply do it. Wondering what was "wrong" with me I sought out information and due to my privileges, had a fairly easy time collaborating with a team to understand and support my ADHD. Autism was harder. It took many cycles of burnout and self-blame while gradually and accidentally building a caseload of mostly autistic folks to conclude that there was more to the connection I felt with my clients than simply "clicking." I love sharing this because I think it demonstrates the most important value I hold in my clinical work - taking off my expert hat and learning from my clients. In the meantime, I've undergone a tremendous amount of grief while existing as a professional in a field (and world) not built for my brain, and I feel settled in a place of acceptance thanks in great part to the community of fellow neurodivergent clinicians who have laughed and cried with me through our shared struggles with oppression. Thus, facilitating The Neurodivergent Nest feels incredibly congruent with my love of and gratitude for peer support.
My special interests are dogs, Taylor Swift, and (conveniently) radical mental healthcare. I facilitate a free monthly eating disorder support group for fellow autistic and ADHD adults, host Liberation Lunch meal support on Instagram, and volunteer with Body Reborn to support BIPOC eating disorder recovery. I live in Pittsburgh, PA on the ancestral land of the Adena culture, Hopewell culture, and Monongahela peoples and work on an outpatient basis with clients in California where I am licensed as a social worker.