What makes work sustainable for adults with ADHD? Interpreting workplace strain and support through Reddit data

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is increasingly recognized within organizational research, yet workplace scholars often examine isolated challenges or strengths rather than situating these experiences within perceived patterns of work design and support. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework as a sensitizing lens, this qualitative study examines how contributors to a large ADHD-focused online community describe workplace strain and support within online community discourse. We analyzed 277 workplace-related discussion threads from the Reddit forum r/ADHD using reflexive thematic analysis. Across accounts, workplace features such as meetings, deadlines, and disclosure were not described as either inherently demanding or supportive. Instead, contributors emphasized that these conditions were experienced differently across contexts, particularly regarding autonomy, performance management, structuring of work, and identity-related dynamics. The findings suggest that workplace strain and sustainable functioning were patterned around concepts such as the social impact of disclosure, work design aspects and invisible labor. Importantly, these results reflect collective meaning-making within a large online ADHD community rather than direct representations of organizational structures or causal mechanisms. The study provides a contextualized, discourse-informed interpretation of JD-R processes in ADHD-related workplace narratives and offers hypothesis-generating insights for future empirical research.