Em Rusciano on the reality of being a posterchild for neurodivergence

Becoming Australia's new posterchild for neurodivergence hasn't been easy for entertainer Em Rusciano, but she didn't feel she had a choice.

"When somebody asks me how's it been, I don't know where to begin," Rusciano, 45, tells 9honey.

"I didn't feel like I had a choice," the celebrity says. "I feel like I've spent so much of my life hiding who I am that when I found out the reason, not disclosing it felt like doing myself a disservice."

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Rusciano adds: "But what I didn't realise was how people would feel entitled to tell me that it was wrong or that I didn't meet their expectations of what a ADHDer or an autistic woman looked like or was," she admits.

"I wasn't prepared for people to tell me that I was wrong."

It was in 2022 that Rusciano shared her diagnosis, later that year fronting the National Press Club in partnership with Women in Media.

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During her speech, Rusciano spoke of the difficulty she faced to get her diagnosis but when she finally did at age 42, it left her with "an enormous grief for that precocious, curious and chaotic 10-year-old girl who desperately wanted to get things right".

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What is becoming increasingly understood is the number of parents of autistic children who are also autistic but haven't been formally diagnosed, particularly when they have more than one child with ASD (autism spectrum disorder), as Rusciano does.

She and husband Scott Barrow, 51, are parents to three children. Daughter Marchella, 22, is autistic.

Odette, 17, is autistic with inattentive ADHD. And her son Elio, five, is also autistic.

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"And I think that's probably been the hardest part about disclosing is, yeah, being challenged on who I am again," Rusciano tells 9honey.

"And that is why I continue to show up as myself and not hide it away because I knew the effect and the impact it would be having on other people like me, and I know how devastating that is," she explains.

"And I want my kids to be who they are proudly. And I want societal conversations and expectations around autism, ADHD, and disability in general to change and shift."

Rusciano is successful, despite the lifelong challenges she has shared. She explains this by saying: "I'm diagnosed ADHD and a desperate need to be loved."

"I ran myself into the ground trying to prove myself and trying to figure out how I fit in," she continues.

"I was undiagnosed and searching for dopamine and searching for approval," she says, adding that her achievements have come at a "great cost mentally and physically and personally."

Rusciano has learned to look back on herself with compassion, admitting she was "very hard on herself and felt very badly about herself for a long time."

"Now at 45 I get to go back to her and say, 'Hey, have a rest baby, look where we are, it's okay, it's gonna be okay."

Em Rusciano this week launches her new podcast Anomalous, a Mik Made production series you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Tickets are now on sale for her new tour Outgrown.

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