For a while, at least, Stephanie Kennedy was good at her job as a human resources manager. But over time, she started struggling. She'd prepare obsessively for meetings and go blank the moment they started. She’d push herself to finish piles of work, then burn out and feel incapable of a single task for weeks. Too much, then nothing at all.
With nothing else to compare them to, Kennedy first assumed her problems were personal failings – many women do. But when her struggles worsened, she finally sought medical help, receiving an ADHD diagnosis at 39 and autism at 41. By then, autism burnout had already cost her: she’d lost skills, become selectively mute, and when she did speak, the words came out disjointed and wrong. Her career was collapsing around her, and getting help turned out to be an obstacle all its own.
Once Kennedy understood her own neurodivergence, she started viewing her HR job differently. She now saw things like performance appraisals and disciplinary processes as punishments for people with cognitive differences, rather than addressing actual performance problems. Eventually, she couldn’t reconcile her values with the job requirements or handle the burnout, and she had to quit. That meant she needed to apply for government support in the form of the Disability Tax Credit (DTC).
The steps required to get government support are often directly in conflict with the conditions that need it.
But somewhere in the middle of the application process, Kennedy received a letter from the CRA asking for "clarification" – they needed more information from her before they’d move her application forward. If she missed the 30-day window to respond, the entire process would stall. Unfortunately for Kennedy, the letter arrived during what she describes as a total shutdown; she was barely leaving the house. By the time she finally built the capacity to respond, the CRA’s window had closed and she had to start over, adding months to an already gruelling wait.
"A lot of people deal with burnout because the system is burning them out," says Kennedy, who today works as a professional neurodiversity coach.
Executive dysfunction isn’t laziness; it’s a neurological difficulty initiating tasks, remembering multiple steps at a time, and managing time under pressure. A person with ADHD or autism can completely understand what needs to be done and still find it impossible to do, especially when the stakes feel overwhelming. And the steps required to get government support are often directly in conflict with the conditions that need it.
The $90,000 gap
In Canada, the Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP) is the only savings vehicle designed specifically to help people with disabilities build long-term financial security. The government can contribute up to $90,000 in grants and bonds, but since those funds can be invested, the account can grow well beyond that. For many, it’s the difference between a stable retirement and poverty in old age.
But to access the RDSP, you first need to qualify for the DTC, and that requires completing a detailed application, the exact kind of multi-step, deadline-driven process that’s made difficult by executive dysfunction. Some find the paperwork so overwhelming that it often ends up just sitting there while the money goes uncollected. A 2018 study by the University of Calgary revealed only about 40% of working-age adults with qualifying disabilities actually use the DTC. The other 60% are eligible but haven't accessed it – some never applied, some gave up partway through, and some were denied and lacked the capacity to appeal. Trying again often takes energy the first try already used up.
Without the DTC or an RDSP, Kennedy has no long-term savings buffer, and every unexpected expense has to come directly out of what she's managed to set aside on her own. A bad month could wipe out what took years to save.
Autistic burnout can strip away basic skills and functions, including the capacity to navigate the systems meant to help.
Pexels
Pay to play
Statistics Canada's survey on disability puts the median after-tax income for Canadians with severe disabilities at $28,110, compared to $39,490 for those without disabilities. That's an $11,000 annual gap before a single medical expense.
But before you can even submit the DTC application, you need a doctor's signature. That sounds simple enough, except that family doctors are scarce and many won’t complete the paperwork for free. Many applicants end up at walk-in clinics, where a signed form can run $200. Some spend months bouncing between clinics, searching for a doctor willing to do it at all; others just give up, filing it under "deal with later," and later never comes.
"Most disabled people are low income, and it's not their fault that there are not enough family doctors for everyone."
The application itself is a 16-page form requiring doctors to quantify, in precise medical language, how a patient’s disability affects specific daily functions – details like whether a patient can dress themselves or manage a meal without needing an unreasonable amount of time. The CRA approves applications based on whether a disability is 'markedly restricted,' meaning it severely limits a person's ability to perform basic daily functions. The criteria are strict, and applications are frequently denied not because the person doesn't qualify, but because the form wasn't completed the way the CRA expects.
Anne Borden, co-founder of Autistics for Autistics, a peer-led advocacy organization that provides direct support to autistic Canadians navigating systems like this one, says the income gap makes it worse: "Most disabled people are low income, and it's not their fault that there are not enough family doctors for everyone."
If you have the money, you can hire disability benefits advisors who specialize in DTC applications – they typically charge several hundred dollars or a percentage of retroactive credits recovered. If that’s out of your budget, the $200 doctor’s signature could be where the process ends.
Stop making people prove it twice
Some simple reforms could go a long way, starting with free, government-funded programs to help disabled people complete the application process. That also means ending the reassessment trap, where the CRA can request a "re-determination" years after someone has already been approved, even for lifelong conditions like autism or ADHD. Being made to prove your disability again and again, on a deadline, all while actively trying to manage that same disability – that’s just cruelty by paperwork. The government should approve lifelong conditions permanently and skip the re-determination entirely.
Then there's passporting: if a province has already recognized someone's disability for its own support programs, the federal government should just take their word for it without further documentation or review. It’s a simple solution that Disability Without Poverty, a national coalition of disability organizations, made a central demand in a January 2026 brief calling for urgent DTC reform. The federal government committed in Budget 2025 to reviewing the DTC process, but so far, nothing has changed.The gap
For Kennedy, that $90,000 is a buffer, retirement savings, and the ability to exhale. But the harder your situation, the more difficult it is to navigate the system, and that $90,000 is close enough to be tantalizing but too far to reach. Countless disabled Canadians are in that position: eligible but stuck. Disability support must be woven into the systems themselves, not just the dollar figure at the end, and the process shouldn't require the very thing the disability makes hardest.
