“A lot of times people may not want you to solve their problem for them, but all they probably want is just someone to make them feel seen and heard in a safe place.”
Flic Manning speaks with Ant Raje about his experience with ADHD and deafness in one ear, and how these shape his focus, communication, and sense of identity. Ant challenges common misconceptions, highlights the importance of empathy, and explains why creating spaces where people feel seen and heard matters more than having all the answers.
The Sunflower Conversations is a Podcast where we explore the experiences of people living with hidden disabilities and what the Sunflower means to them. It’s a space to share your experience and to empower and encourage more people to support invisible disabilities.
A big thank you to Flic Manning for conducting the interviews with compassion and respect and to Sandee Facy for the beautiful Sunflower song. You can follow Sandee Facy's music here. If you want to share your experience, get in touch with us by emailing us here.
Transcript:
(0:03 - 0:58) Flic Manning: We acknowledge and pay respects to the traditional custodians of the lands on which we record, and especially to those who may also be living with a disability. Welcome to another episode of the Sunflower Conversations, where we will explore a variety of disabilities, the way in which people experience their disabilities, and discover the opportunities for society to make access and inclusion improvements for everyone. My name is Flic Manning, and I'm your host.
Hi everyone. My name is Flic Manning, and like many of our guests on the Sunflower Conversations, I am disabled. Some of my conditions include Crohn's disease, lupus, and Raynaud's syndrome.
Today, I'm joined by a wonderful human from our vibrant community, Ant Raje. Ant, welcome to the show.
(0:59 - 1:02) Ant Raje: Hi Flic. Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here.
(1:02 - 1:15) Flic Manning: It's an absolute pleasure. Now, Ant, you've shared quite openly that you live with ADHD and are deaf in one ear. What has your personal journey been like navigating diagnosis and life day to day with these conditions?
(1:17 - 3:12) Ant Raje: Great first question to, I guess, start the conversation. Well, with the two, I guess, disabilities, I always knew about the deafness because that got picked up pretty early as a kid. So I always knew that.
So there's a lot of work that I have to do around my deafness to work with it. Again, being a hidden disability, I do a lot of things in order to where I sit and in social setups, in classrooms and whatnot. So I fairly knew how to manage that.
But then after getting the ADHD diagnosis as an adult a few years ago, that's actually helped me understand how the hearing or the deafness and the ADHD go together. So with the hard of hearing challenges or deafness challenges for myself, I have to pay attention to people to be able to hear them properly. And that's where the ADHD kicks in and it doesn't allow me to pay attention.
So that's where the brain has to, I guess, work extra hard to manage that. So it becomes a bit of a daily struggle. I still struggle with it, but then with the diagnosis and the medication with ADHD that I see has actually helped me a lot with the hearing and paying attention part as well.
Plus, there's been a bit of a journey being an international student coming in, so coming from a different cultural background. So getting, I guess, used to my disability, then also navigating a different cultural landscape made it, I guess, a bit more exciting. I like, I like challenges.
So, but what I think has really helped me through this journey is that the kindness and the support that I've got from people after moving here and that has now actually become the absolute core of my personal ethics and principles. So wherever I can, I want to help anyone who reaches out for help. And even if they don't reach out to me for help, I just make sure that I'm being kind to everyone who I come across.
(3:13 - 3:42) Flic Manning: Beautiful. And thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's very interesting.
Not a lot of people would necessarily know that it's the way that those two conditions could affect one another. So it's beautiful that you've shared that. I'm sure that somebody listening today or reading the transcript today will get a lot of benefit out of that answer, too.
So, Ant, in your experience, what are some of the biggest, I guess, misconceptions that society has about ADHD or partial deafness, especially in a professional or leadership capacity?
(3:43 - 6:21) Ant Raje: Yeah, so first of all, I think let me just talk about ADHD. So I think the most common misconception is around that, oh, you're constantly distracted or you're always distracted and you're fidgeting and you can't sit at one place and you're always bouncing off the walls. But I really have to remind people that for someone like me who's ADHD, listening does not mean to sit in one place and constantly maintain eye contact to give you the, I guess, assumption that I'm listening.
And it's funny because when I was dating my now wife back then, there was a moment where she thought I was not listening. And I had to tell her that, see, if I'm looking at you and it seems like I'm paying attention to what you're saying, I'm not. It's when I'm not looking at you and probably doing something else on the side is when I'm actually paying attention.
So there was a bit of a process there to understand. So that again helps in the work context as well. So I don't think that if I'm doodling or making notes or something that I'm not paying attention to the conversation that's happening in the room, ask me a question and I'll prove you wrong.
And I think, like I said, I realized that I can pay attention if you make the subject and the topic interesting. And when I reflect back on my time in school, I realize all the subjects that I struggled at, I just think the teachers were pretty boring. No offense, but the teachers who make the subject interesting, the content interesting, I was boring pretty well.
So now I try to do that in my work is where I can even make my projects and work a bit more interesting, give them a bit of a pop culture, nerdish spin to it so that I find them interactive and engaging. And with the two combined, I mean, even the hearing as well, there's, I guess, again, because people can't see it unless I'm wearing my hearing aid, which I tend to forget because of ADHD. That's another challenge, but this side overcoming that stigma as well of having one on you and stuff.
So how people respond to it. And then they probably, I think what happens is it projects an image to say that, oh, because of this thing, this person may not be suited to be a leader. But what I think I have to tell people is that you need to realize that our capability to be strong empaths and the fact that we can take you along the journey and the fact that we can do a lot of creative thinking and come up with ideas is what actually makes us good professionals.
And I guess at least thought leaders, if not actual managers, and that's, we just need a bit of support and that's all it is.
(6:21 - 7:02) Flic Manning: Yeah, I really, really appreciate your answer there. I think that's so true. Particularly what you talked about of being such strong empaths and those different sort of capabilities and capacities really actually are a direct tier into leadership and people management in particular.
But again, that misconception can prevent people from perceiving that that's even a possibility for somebody like yourself. So again, such a beneficial answer that you've given there. So you work really at the intersection of disability inclusion and multicultural access.
What are the areas of overlap or convergence for those listening who may not actually be aware of how those two things go together?
(7:03 - 9:30) Ant Raje: Yeah, that's a great question. And I keep reminding people that I am not ADHD in one conversation, Deaf in another conversation and Indian in the third conversation. I'm all of it in all conversations collectively.
But what I'll do is I'll probably start with the challenges. So I think the most obvious one that's an overlap is, and statistics are there to prove it, that people from these two marginalized communities do experience more or even significantly more discrimination and harassment and bullying in the workplace and even in their personal circles as well. And again, I feel a lot of it can also come from the fact that people around them either are not aware or are not educated on what their needs and requirements are, or it's just a fear of the unknown.
So they see someone who doesn't look like them or doesn't have the same attributes and they just don't know how to react. I feel that that one common overlap that is such that the experience they have or the negative experiences they have are very similar and the trauma associated also similar. So they share that same kind of similar trauma.
But on the plus side, I feel that the support that is needed for these two communities and what we can provide is also fairly similar. So it's not a very complex problem that we're trying to solve. So if you think about it, people say with disabilities or even with like who are neurodiverse and people who come from a different cultural background for whom English may not be their first language, they just need clear written instructions in plain simple language that helps both those groups.
So just put that in writing, make like set up clear expectations. Let's all be on the same page, literally written down, noted down. That helps both those groups to understand what we are trying to achieve.
And I feel that again, not making an assumption about someone just by the way they appear or present themselves and giving them a safe space to actually share their stories will help you to understand them better, will help you to know what works, what doesn't work, what they find OK, what they do not find OK. And then you just kind of build on it. So that's what I think is like that's a very big overlap between those two marginalized communities and from my lived experience as well.
(9:30 - 10:22) Flic Manning: Yeah, beautifully put. And I just love that. If we could just sort of take that little moment of what you said, let's be on the same page, literally gold standard, everybody.
I think this is such a beautiful, simple way to clarify what how how easy it is to actually bridge what people would see as a gap between different communities when as you've clearly identified you can be in multiple all at the same time. And that that's actually a fairly normal part of being a human being is to have multiple levels, sometimes of diversity, as people would put it together in the same group. It doesn't have to be that hard to bring it all together.
So thank you for that lovely clarification there. So and how has your lived experiences then of neurodiversity and hearing loss influenced the way you approach your work in inclusion and diversity in your current role?
(10:22 - 12:19) Ant Raje: Yeah, that's a great question. So just for context, I work as a manager for inclusion and diversity, like I was mentioning, and I in my current role, I look after the disability and the multicultural portfolios. It's kind of like I tick all the boxes, literally.
And I work in one of the largest public sector organizations here in New South Wales. And we have over 30,000 people working and our team support all of them. So I think for me, the biggest advantage is that having that lived experience and like being that strong impact, I have, I guess, the ability or I at least try to put myself in the other person's shoes to actually understand, you know, what they're feeling.
So that gives me, I guess, a good starting point. It also helps me build a lot of trust and a bit of safety with that individual because I can try to empathize. And when I say I know how that feels, they know that I'm kind of coming from an honest place.
So I constantly reflect on that, on my lived experience. Like I said, I migrated here 15 years ago. So all the experiences that I've collected helps me to bring that into the role.
So I have that humanized approach to what I do at work. And I also feel that what I've understood is a lot of times people may not want you to solve their problem for them, but all they probably want is just someone to, sorry, just someone to make them feel seen and heard in a safe place. And again, I reflect on the people who made me feel safe and how they helped me and what I can learn and do that.
And I just pass that on forward. So I try to do that to the best of my ability. I do have to acknowledge in the role, it does come at a pretty heavy emotional, personal cost.
But what I make sure is I have my support mechanisms in place so that I can then come back and then help the next person.
(12:20 - 12:38) Flic Manning: Yeah, absolutely. I really understand what it is that you're saying with that too. So important to be filling up your own cup when you're doing this kind of work, particularly when this work can take in order to give.
So yeah, what a beautiful thing that you can help people to feel safe and seen.
(12:38 - 12:52) Ant Raje: I always look at the aviation industry and the whole thing around, put your own mask first before you help others. Yeah, so if you don't have oxygen flowing into your own system, you're probably not very helpful to the others. So I keep reminding myself that.
(12:53 - 13:24) Flic Manning: Yeah, that's a really good way of looking at it, and I think everyone can benefit from that too. I think we have a tendency to not do that a lot of the time. It's obviously critically important for so many people in our community, but I think actually everyone can benefit from approaching things that way.
I think we would make things much nicer in the world. Thank you for sharing that. So, Ant, just to finish off, what are two improvements that you believe society could make which would create a more accessible world for someone like yourself?
(13:25 - 13:26) Ant Raje: Just, yeah, that's a hard question.
(13:27 - 13:29) Flic Manning: Yeah, if you could just wheel the list down to two.
(13:30 - 14:47) Ant Raje: Two, right. OK, cool. So first of all, I would say that I'm a big Hamilton fan.
So I think I would say that bring us into the room where it happens. And include us in the whole process of doing what you're doing. And like I said, everybody says nothing about us without us.
So like include us. So let us be in the room where it happens. But when we are there, do listen to us as well.
So it's just like, not just invite us for the sake of inviting us. But that's, I guess, really important that bring us in, but listen to what we have to say. That's really important.
And I think the second biggest thing, and I might be oversimplifying this, so I apologize if it's not a very, I guess, intellectual response. But I just feel like, just be kind. If we can just try to do that.
And I always reflect back on the quote from Robin Williams. And I see there's a beautiful irony there when he says that everyone you meet is fighting a battle. You know nothing about, so be kind always.
So I just feel that if just we can be kind to others and to everybody we meet, I think that those two things will definitely help us to create a more accessible world.
(14:47 - 15:45) Flic Manning: Yeah, I completely agree with you. What great answers. I mean, it's, again, it's very simple stuff when you really boil it down, isn't it?
It's not overly complex concepts that we're sharing here. But I think sometimes that clarity and that simplicity of it really helps to bring everybody to the table together when we're talking about diversity and inclusion. And I think kindness and just being included in the roles and all the different aspects of it is so important and goes such a long way to showing that people care and reminding us that we all have value.
So thank you very much for that. And really just thank you for sharing your time for the work that you do as well. It's so important that we have people like yourself out there in the world doing the kind of work that you do, taking your lived experience and transforming that into something that makes a difference in the world.
So thank you for doing that in your day to day. But also thank you for sharing your story with us on the show today too.
(15:45 - 16:00) Ant Raje: And thank you for having me. Like I said, I was also dealing with imposter syndrome because I thought my responses may not really be very helpful, but I hope they are. But I really appreciate your, I guess, invite to come and speak to you and share my story.
So thank you for having me.
(16:01 - 16:32) Flic Manning: It's been an absolute pleasure and you have shared so much value today. So again, thank you for being on the show.
Thank you for joining us for another Sunflower Conversation.
Please keep the conversation going via our website, hdsunflower.com/au on Facebook @HiddenDisabilitiesANZ, or on Instagram, @hiddendisabilities_ANZ