Em Rusciano is comfortable with being uncomfortable

Em Rusciano runs across the stage, musing out loud at her chosen pace and the awkward stool before her. She takes a seat, jostling for comfort. 

Seconds later the Melbourne comedian and author is back on her feet. 

“Am I sitting too close?” Rusciano asks Future Women’s deputy managing director, Jamila Rizvi.

Rizvi is mid-sentence, halfway through introducing Rusciano as a keynote speaker to the scores of attendees of the 2023 Future Women Leadership Summit in Sydney. 

“It feels a bit,” Rusciano says, inching the stool across the stage. “Like I’m on your lap or something.”

Rizvi smiles, pauses, allowing her friend the time and space, before replying she’s comfortable.

Rusciano sits, again shifting in her seat before settling on a somewhat comfortable place. She has spent her whole life living uncomfortably.

“My earliest memories are feeling like an alien observing the human race,” Rusciano deadpans.

“Straight off the bat, I’m Italian, and I went to a very anglo primary school and as soon as my prep teacher read out Amelia Rusciano I was othered straight away by the Jades and the Jaydens.”

The host of popular podcast Emsolation says she spent her first week at primary school trying to fit in. When she felt she couldn’t, she funnelled her energy into the “Australian pastime” – sport. 

“I never felt like I fit in. I couldn’t understand why I was really good at hard stuff, and really bad at easy stuff,” she says.

“I was constantly told – and it was the four-horsemen of the apocalypse which undiagnosed ADHD are – if you only tried harder, you’re not living up to your potential, pay attention, stop distracting other people. I was constantly accused of not living up to all I could be when in reality I was trying so hard just to keep my head above water.”

The 44-year-old was diagnosed with ADHD or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder at 42. Last year she was diagnosed with autism.

Rusciano looks downwards, emotions welling.

“When I think about 10 year old Em, I feel really sad for her,” she says.

“I get emotional talking about her too because when we do therapy it’s about going back to the little person you were and saying, ‘Hey, look who you became and everything’s going to be okay’ and ‘I’m really sorry that people misunderstood you’.”

“I had to set myself on fire to do it but it was worth it. Worth it for 10-year-old Em, worth it for four-year-old Elio, worth it for anybody who doesn’t fit in to these systems and who feels like that makes them a bad person.”

She says these days, her inner child remains front of mind. Everything she does day-to-day and the kind of mother she’s become is all part of making good.

As for what drives her family roots, her crippling desire to fit in and her neurotypical-led search for dopamine. 

She pauses, looks over at Rizvi, then turns back to the crowd.

“It’s funny, we’re sitting here. Your outfit represents my autism,” Rusciano says gesturing to Rizvi’s sharp, tailored black pantsuit and crisp white shirt.

“And my outfit represents my ADHD.”

Rusciano is wearing a pink patterned sweetheart dress with puffy sleeves and glittery silver boots.

“It’s so perfect,” she exclaims with a wide smile.

“This is what goes on in my brain. I need order, I need to know what’s happening, if something is going to happen at a certain time it needs to happen. Then the other side of my brain is, ‘No, dopamine, let’s try something. Let’s swear and wear glittery boots to a corporate event. And they’re constantly smashing against each other.”

She says it’s this internal battle that has led her to make choices in her career from a contestant on Australian Idol to a mainstream breakfast radio host to an Australian stand-up.

Rusciano admits she’s been told her whole life that she might have ADHD, yet dismissed the suggestion because she only associated the disorder with hyper-active 10-year old-boys who bounce off walls. 

Instead, she filled away her “differences” as personality flaws while in reality she had fallen victim to symptom bias.

“It happens all around the world with neurodivergence, in that it’s all the male presentation that gets all the attention and all the funding,” she says. 

“The female presentation is often… we’re taught very early to ‘be a good girl’, ‘keep your head down’, ‘don’t speak up’, so we disassociate and we stay quiet.”

In August 2022, Rusciano chose to speak up in an address at the National Press Club in Canberra. 

She declined the offer three times before agreeing, realising the opportunity was “bigger than me.” She wanted to change the narrative around autism, around ADHD, around invisible disability and shift the cultural attitudes.

“My son Elio had just been diagnosed with level two autism, and I could already see how many ways the world was going to be harder for him. How things were stacked against him, that there were systems in place that would most certainly fail him if I didn’t give this speech, if I didn’t try and burn the path so it was a little bit easier,” she says.

“Yes, I had to set myself on fire to do it but it was worth it. Worth it for 10-year-old Em, worth it for four-year-old Elio, worth it for anybody who doesn’t fit in to these systems and who feels like that makes them a bad person.”

As for how workplaces can support neurodivergent (ND) employees, it’s all about engagement. She says so often autistic and ND people are left out of the conversation. Also, she’s not in favour of open plan work spaces.

“If you can engage the ND person at your workplace in their special interest topic or you can get them on board with a project they’re very good at, they will be unstoppable,” she says.

“We just need the support in place and we will be so invaluable to your company.”

For more from the Future Women Leadership Summit 2023, read about Annabel Crabb’s keynote speech on why ‘unlearning’ is the key to modern leadership. 

PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK BROOME