Comment, Features

Clowning Around: Why Comedy is the Best Medicine For ADHD…

November 15, 2022

Lorelei Mathias

‘ADHD’s very popular now isn’t it,’ quipped Fin Taylor in his Edinburgh Fringe show this year. Tongue-in-cheek or not, there’s an unfunny truth here: thousands of people have been mis-diagnosed half their lives with anxiety, only now finding the proper explanation for their struggles. As Cameron Gott tweeted, “The Covid pandemic was a giant ADHD reveal party.” (@CoachCamg). Of course, we didn’t choose to have it, it’s been there all along in our brains. But in lockdown, many of us came out of hiding, caused in part by all the online comedy about ADHD. When the butt of the joke is in the right place – comedy is an amazing tool for understanding neurodivergence.

No more wearing masks

As we’re now realising, female ADHD is much more nuanced than the cliches we great up with. It’s not just about disruptive little boys, and you can still be a high-achiever with it. But it’s near-impossible to get diagnosed. My friend Hannah was told by her doctor: ‘You can’t have it. You’d be on that window sill’. I was told by mine: ‘But you’ve had books published and got a First. I can’t tick the box on the form’.

A comedy of errors

Now those laughable misconceptions are exposed, we’re finally free to talk and joke about the hilarity (and horror) that is female ADHD. Little wonder more full-length shows than ever were about or by neurodivergents this year – and I for one am here for them all! Highlights from ADHD’s stage-time this year: Marjolein Robertson – whose story about a suitcase of meat had us in stitches at the Funny Women final; Tessa Coates – whose anecdotes about going for ‘weird choices’ are cringeful and hilarious in equal measure; and if you’ll indulge me – the waffly Lola in my short ‘Creative Writing 2.1’ who to our honour, opened the show at this year’s Funny Women Finals.

The struggle is clinical

When you have An ADHD brain, there’s no inner editor or Satnav to keep you on track. We don’t just see what’s in front of us, we see what’s in front of us and the connections between them. So like Lola, we’re always veering off into side roads – which can be a great asset creatively – but when writing texts or making tea, less so.

Pre-Frontal Vortex

Our Pre-Frontal Cortex – the part that should handle focus, organisation and navigation – is deficient in dopamine AND under-developed. Think of it as: your brain has no air-traffic-control, so all the thought-aeroplanes keep crashing into one another. Or, like you’ve perpetually got too many tabs open… in Chrome, Safari, even Internet Explorer… on your laptop, ipad, phone…and there’s random music playing from somewhere in an old Firefox browser you forgot about…. Or it’s like you’re editing a comedy show and this happens:

Comedy is the best meds

Luckily, as my best friend and now co-creator Lauren taught me – ADHD can also be funny AF. It’s the closest you can get to everyday clowning without a Gaulier diploma. Leaving the house takes minimum five re-entries. You lock up. You forget something. You go in to get what you forgot, put something down. This goes on and on, ad infinitum. When I arrive anywhere, it takes five minutes for me to untangle from my coat, scarf, cables. This used to be a source of shame but now, rather than worry how weird I’m looking or how annoyed my friend is, I picture my alter-ego clown Lola, lost in her own exaggerated tangle. Then I laugh and reassure myself I don’t look quite as ludicrous:

For my co-creators of Life in ADHD, learning to laugh at ourselves – and at the perception of ourselves in others reflected back at us – has turned into the best prescription. And we should know. We’ve tried everything else on the NHS.

We never expected that our own coping mechanism would end up resonating with people worldwide. I’ve been messaged by old friends, colleagues, exes – all suspecting they have it after watching it! Modules from Life in ADHD have been taught in universities, and we presented it at the global ADHD Foundation! This is testament to the fact that ADHD-ers do get stuff done, and have many strengths among the chaos. For balance – someone also messaged me to say they too, once washed up a cake.

But…Wait… Don’t we all lose things sometimes!?

Of course… NTs (neurotypical people) may be thinking – hang on – I relate to a lot of ADHD symptoms! Starting too many projects, poor attention span, putting your phone in the fridge. We all experience this sometimes! Of course! But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have it. When there’s too much on your plate, you’ve not slept enough, or when you hit burnout, your executive functioning fails and mimics ADHD symptoms. The thing is to imagine if you felt like that all day, every day, to an overwhelming, omni-shambolic extent… like a square-peg clown in a round-hole world…

Luckily you don’t have to imagine. We made a show about exactly that…

‘Life in ADHD – a comedy from the neurodiverse universe’ (Best Web Series Finalist, Edinburgh TV Festival New Voice Awards) is out now at Loreleimathias.com/LifeInADHD.

Meet Lola in ‘Creative Writing 2.1’ (Funny Women Best Comedy Short runner-up)

Follow Lorelei on Twitter, Instagram & more sketches at MelonComedy.com.

Lorelei Mathias

Lorelei Mathias is a Comedian, Author & founder of MelonComedy.com. She works in various TV & Radio writers rooms and as a puncher-upper for sketch & comedy drama scripts. A top 3 Funny Women shorts finalist for ‘Creative Writing 2.1, and Ed TV Fest for 'Life in ADHD', she's won awards from Comedy 5050 to British Comedy Guide Pro, and nominations from Chorts to BBC Writers Room. But her proudest achievement is that she once lost a burrito while she was eating it.

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