Hannah Gadsby
speaker
778 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard 10 Sep
Hannah Gadsby’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yeah, to just give that some context, my mom is a very distinct character. And in my performance life, I impersonate her. So just to give that how it really was for me, she said this, oh, yes, I always knew you. There was a lot going on inside you. You were like a tin of baked beans and my tin opener was broken. I just couldn't get in. And I said to her, I said, mum, you don't like baked beans.
And she said, no, no, I don't. No. Yeah, yeah. She's a very funny lady, very funny lady. But, yeah, I was a bit locked up as a kid. I didn't have great language access. And also, you know, the feelings thing was, you know, because I'm not typical. It's frustrating, I think, for neurotypical parents to connect with neurodivergent children. But you get there.
Well, it's, you know, it's difficult. I think it might be worth like just clearing up what autism is. Great. Exactly. You know, because there's a lot of, we'll just call it misinformation. And I think, so what it basically is, like if you want to boil it down to its bare bones minimum, is it's what animates you, what drives your central nervous system.
In neurotypical people, it is sort of what is important. So what drives your behavior is what is important and where you are in the social tribe. In neurodivergent people, it is what's interesting, and that can vary. The saying is like whoosh. You've met one person on the spectrum, you've met one person on the spectrum.
The particular place that I am on the spectrum is I have sensory processing disorder. Now, people can have sensory processing disorders and not be on the spectrum. That's important. distinction to make. But where I'm at, I do have that. I am turned all the way up to no filters. I'm very heightened. Some of them cross over a little bit. My taste and smell are kind of sometimes indistinct.
And then there are two others, vestibular and prosuception. So I'm hyper aware of my space. Clutter distresses me. And I have the vestibular is a balance issue. So I don't know where my head is in space. So I fall over. I have a lot of accidents. I hurt myself a lot. So it's just like this invisible disability that becomes very visible because I break my leg.
know that I was falling until it's too late. And so my, I broke my leg. It's fun times, good times. Um, last year I had a total knee reconstruction, same thing was falling before, you know, and it was too late. Gravity, gravity was always already my bitch. Um, and so my knee busted and the year before that I busted my nose open and then it was a broken toe.
Like I have, you know, if someone were to dig me up and, you know, after I was dead, like hundreds of years of time, they would dig me up and go, wow, I think we found a warrior princess. You know, because my skeletal system is, you know, it's like got the marks of war, but really I fell over walking. Yeah. So I'm playing the long game really.
So these are sort of, you know, not knowing these things that, you know, I have sensitivities was kind of a lot of the kid because, You see people behave in a way and interact and socialize in a way and you try and do that and I would get completely overwhelmed or disassociate because, you know, I have an oral processing disorder so I can't tune in to noise very well and sort it out in my head.
So it's very easy for me to just tune out and listen to people who are speaking English and go, wow, that's a foreign language.
Um, so I have to focus really hard, which made learning very difficult. Uh, I was very lucky. My mum made all my clothes. Though there is a dark side to that. Cappadashry abuse is real. But, um, so I never had like the tag issues cause there was no tags on my clothes. Um, and she always used nice fabric in the, in the, in the texture quality, not necessarily the patterns.
No child needs to wear Harlequin sweaters. And then so there was a lot about my childhood that protected me from the worst of my ASD. I grew up in a really small town, and I was part of a large family, so I had a ready-made social network. I just fit in. But it was windy there. I grew up on a really small island on the northwest coast, and it's famous for its fresh air. Who knew? I did.
I just told you. And so it was really windy, and so I was always confused because wind throws sound around. Right. And so I was perpetually confused as a child. Like, you know, I was always given names like, you know, dithery or vague or dopey and, you know, these sorts of things. And I used to confuse people because on one hand I could be incredibly intelligent and then as dumb as bricks.
And the older I got, the more people would read into that, the less adorable I became and people would see it as willful or manipulative because I could – misunderstand what's going on and accidentally hurt people's feelings. But it would be an honest mistake on my behalf, but it would be difficult for people to believe that because, you know, on the next breath, I could be incredibly intelligent.
And not knowing and not being able to sort of contextualize all that confusion for me was difficult.
Yeah, there's no subtext for me. It blows my mind. when, you know, people are saying, I was just being polite, but really, you know, the person they were being polite to leaves and they're like, I hate them. I'm like, you were so nice to them. How are they supposed to know? I didn't know. Now I was nice to the person I'm supposed to not like.
You know, and then, you know, you'd hear people deconstruct conversations and then they said this thing and that meant this. And I'm like, did it? I've learned so much. It's so much. And then, you know, once I was diagnosed, it was like, you know what, I don't actually care. You go talk amongst yourselves. I'm going to rearrange my furniture.
It felt like an exfoliation of shame. Wow. Because once you understand that you have ASD, you understand that there's not a lot in your control. It's less about being a bad person for not caring about small talk. And then you understand that it's not how you connect to other people. It's not how you connect to the world. I connect through my passions and my interests.
And when someone who's neurodivergent wants to connect to the world and to people, it's through those things. It's like, what is interesting? And neurotypical people, it's like, what is important? And neurotypical people interact and connect face-to-face. It's like direct interaction. Whereas I'm into parallel play. You know, you want to get to know me, you go over there and do what you're doing.
I'll be in the same room doing my thing and haven't we had a great time? Not if they want to talk about their feelings.
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