The Neurodivergent Employment Burnout Cycle

For most neurodivergent adults, holding down employment takes everything out of them. It’s not that they’re lazy or incompetent – on the contrary, many brilliant thinkers and doers struggle to maintain work because they have to work so much harder beneath the surface to meet the expectations of others around them.

It’s not surprising that unemployment rates for neurodivergent adults are 8 times higher than the general working population (Work Design, 2025). And if you’ve experienced “burnout” more than once in your career, chances are you’ve experienced some variation of the Neurodivergent Employment Burnout Cycle.

The video above is the first lesson in Misfit to Master Plan: How to Build a Sustainable Work Life, created and delivered by neurodivergent career coach, Veronica Yao. You can learn more about this online course here.