Hannah Gadsby: How to Communicate Better
March 29, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Hi everybody. Welcome back to, We Can Do Hard Things. Today, we are having an absolutely beautiful conversation with the incomparable, brilliant, honest, just funny, and absolutely wonderful, Hannah Gadsby. I have been wanting to speak to Hannah Gadsby for so long, ever since I laughed and cried and raged my way through Nanette. And then after that with Douglas.
Abby Wambach:
Which are her stand up specials.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, her standup Netflix specials. And we talk about all kinds of beautiful things today, telling stories and parenting and especially neurodiversity, which I know sister, you’ve been wanting to talk about on the pod for so long.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m so thankful that she came on and shared so honestly, and quite a lot about she has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. And I think it’s so important to hear from women about that. Her story is fascinating. She went through really hard times. She was unhoused, she was in terrible situations a lot of her life and was only diagnosed when she was 30. Basically, I think it was a year before Nanette came out. And a lot about her story has to do with living without this knowledge of herself, but just living in kind of an ill-fitting world. And it is a place where a lot of girls are. And it’s just so important that people learn about this and the way that girls do not exhibit the same science of autism that boys do.
Amanda Doyle:
We live by a male model of autism. So that means they’re looking for the same markers. That means when they’re ultimately diagnosed, they’re getting the same therapies. When in fact, the girl brain with autism looks different than the boy brain with autism. It results in a lot of real damage. 42% of girls are diagnosed with another mental disorder instead of autism when they go to get checked. And boys are diagnosed two years earlier. So there’s a lot of girls struggling out there with depression and anxiety. And like Hannah, not being diagnosed until they’re 30. And in her words, haven’t participated in life up to that point because they’ve been so sidelined by it. I really appreciate the way she talks about just even the little moments of how she has to navigate through them. This conversation can help a lot of us to understand ourselves and give us insight into people we love. And importantly, it can help us reframe neurological diversity as differences, not as deficiencies.
Amanda Doyle:
What Hannah shared about the exhaustive preparations she has to do to navigate everyday things, including this conversation today, was so important. It reminded me of something I read that explained how we all have a social brain, a network made up of multiple regions throughout the brain that help us navigate social interactions. And there’s a new line of unpublished research suggesting that in girls and women with autism, they keep their social brain engaged. But every bit of social interaction may be mediated through the prefrontal cortex, which means that whereas many of us are able to deal with social interactions instinctively, for girls and women with autism, processing every social interaction can be the equivalent of doing high grade math. So when she talks about being exhausted, having to prepare, how depleting it is, it’s because every social cue is essentially an equation of long division, which is the labor neurodivergent folks do in masking to be in relationship and community.
Glennon Doyle:
Masking is mimicking, trying to replicate what other people are doing, but they’re not doing it by instinct.
Amanda Doyle:
I just am really thankful that she goes into that detail for us, because I think it’s really important as empathy for people understanding the people that we love, that’s the work they’re doing every day, the work that we take for granted, just getting a feeling.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And it’s so important when talking about neurodiversity to actually be talking to who people who are neurodivergent. And with that, we’re going to give you Hannah Gadsby. Hannah Gadsby stopped standup comedy in its tracks with her multi award-winning show Nanette. It’s release and subsequent Emmy and Peabody wins took Nanette and Hannah to the world. Hannah’s difficult second album, which is also her 11th solo show, was named Douglas after her dog. Douglas covered Hannah’s autism diagnosis moving beyond the trauma at the center of Nanette. And instead, letting the world see the view from Hannah’s brain, one that sees the world differently, but with breathtaking clarity the show was an Emmy nominated, smash hit, and is available throughout the world on Netflix.
Glennon Doyle:
Hannah’s award winning shows are a fixture in festivals across Australia and the UK. Her first book, Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation, which I adored, is out now. We’re talking today to someone who I think on my list of top five humans, guests that I was dying to have on this show, was right up there.
Hannah Gadsby:
Number eight.
Glennon Doyle:
And that is her. Her name is Hannah freaking Gadsby.
Hannah Gadsby:
Thank you. Thank you for the middle name. Don’t have one. Got one now.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Hannah, your new book is so freaking wonderful. Abby knows. I picked it up and then disappeared from my family for three days because I just thought it was so wonderful I couldn’t put it down. Thank you.
Hannah Gadsby:
Did I mess with your head?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Hannah Gadsby:
cool
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it did. We’ll get into that. For sure it did. I love the whole journey that you take us through with your mom. I love your mom. You love your mom. Everyone who reads your new book is going to love your mom. And when you were a kid, your mom was harassing you so relentlessly about some dirty glasses in your room that eventually you blew up, exploded, started cursing at her. And she was happy because she said, “I just wanted you to feel.” And then later she said, “After you got your autism diagnosis,” I think you were 30.
Hannah Gadsby:
Spoiler alert.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Hannah Gadsby:
Spoiler alert.
Glennon Doyle:
She said, “I thought there was a lot going on inside you. You were like a tin of baked beans and my tin opener wouldn’t work on you.”
Hannah Gadsby:
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 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, “Mom, you don’t like baked beans.” And she said, “No, no I don’t.”
Hannah Gadsby:
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, the feelings thing was, because I’m not typical, it’s frustrating I think for neurotypical parents to connect with neurodivergent children. But you get there.
Glennon Doyle:
So what was that like as a kid growing up as you, without a diagnosis?
Hannah Gadsby:
it’s difficult. I think it might be worth just clearing up what autism is exactly because there’s a lot of, we’ll just call it misinformation. 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. And your divergent people, it is what’s interesting. And that can vary. There’s a saying is like, 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 a sensory processing disorder that. Now, people can have sensory processing disorders and not be on the spectrum. That’s an 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.
Hannah Gadsby:
And then there are two others, vestibular and proprioception. So I’m hyper aware of my space, clutter distresses me. The vestibular is a balance issue. So I don’t know where my head is in space. So I fall over a lot. 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. I’ve currently got a broken leg because I fell, but didn’t know that I was falling until it’s too late. And so I broke my leg. It’s fun times, good times. Last year I had a total knee reconstruction. Same thing, was falling before and it was too late. Gravity was already my bitch. And so my knee busted. And the year before that, I busted my nose open, and then it was a broken toe.
Hannah Gadsby:
If someone were to dig me up, after I was dead, hundreds of years of time, they would dig me up and go, “Wow, I think we found a warrior princess,” because my skeletal system, it’s got remarks of war. But really, I fell over walking. Yeah. So I’m playing a long game really. Not knowing these things that I have sensitivities, was kind of a lot as a 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 I have an oral processing disorder, so I can’t tune into noise very well and sort it out in my head.
Hannah Gadsby:
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.” So I have to focus really hard, which made learning very difficult. I was very lucky my mom made all my clothes, though there is a dark side to that. Haberdashery abuse is real.
Hannah Gadsby:
I never had the tag issues because there was no tags on my clothes. And she always used nice fabric in the texture quality, not necessarily patterns. No child needs to wear harlequin sweaters. 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’m a 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.
Hannah Gadsby:
And so it’s really windy. And so I was always confused because wind throws sound around. And so I was perpetually confused as a child. I was always given names like dithery or vague or dopey and 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 on the next breath I could be incredibly intelligent. And not knowing and not being able to contextualize all that confusion for me, was difficult.
Glennon Doyle:
You talk about social situations, like social, and you describe it as thinking that everyone’s just saying what they mean. Fix this for me. You think everyone’s just saying what they mean and that’s how you’re operating. But you realize there’s an undercurrent of things that people are communicating in ways that you’re not picking up. Is that-
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah, yeah. There’s no subtext for me. Blows my mind when people were saying, “I was just being polite.” But really the person they were being polite to leaves and they’re like, “Hate them.” I’m like “You were so nice to them. How are they supposed to know?” I didn’t know, and I was nice to the person I’m supposed to not like. And then you’d hear people deconstruct conversations and then they said this thing and that meant this. And I’m like, “Did it?” I learned so much. And then once I was diagnosed, I was like, you know what? I don’t actually care. You go talk amongst yourselves. I’m going to rearrange my furniture.
Glennon Doyle:
So was it freeing? Was it freeing? Tell me about getting diagnosed. Did it feel like something had been wrong with you that you didn’t understand and now it didn’t feel wrong anymore, it felt like its own thing?
Hannah Gadsby:
It felt like an exfoliation of shame.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Hannah Gadsby:
Because once you understand that you have ASD, you understand that there’s not a lot in your control. Then it’s less about being, you’re 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? Neurotypical people interact and connect face to face. It’s like direct, whereas I’m into parallel play. You want to get to know me? You go over there and do what you are 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.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, you said when people come up to you individually to talk about your life or your feelings, you say, “No, I do that in bulk on stage.”
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. I’m like the Costco of human interaction, is just like we just buy in bulk and just a certain line of products. Just one of each. I’ve never actually been to Costco. That sounds like a nightmare to me.
Glennon Doyle:
It is.
Hannah Gadsby:
Is Costco even a thing here?
Glennon Doyle:
It is.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a nightmare.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a really bad metaphor for me because I hate big shopping places. But we’ll keep going with it. So it’s sort of… I’ve lost myself.
Glennon Doyle:
Hannah, my ex-husband, when I was married, used to sit down and say… I know, it’s a whole thing.
Hannah Gadsby:
No, sorry. I do know.
Glennon Doyle:
Used to sit down and say, “I read that your depression is back. I read it in a magazine.” And he would try to talk to me about it. And I would say, “But just read the article again.” I wrote about it. I did it in bulk. I did that.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. I feel like I kind of get where he’s coming from there. It’s sort of like, maybe he could have seen an advanced copy, maybe a heads up.
Abby Wambach:
We’ve altered that in our marriage. Right? Before things go to press, we have the conversation.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. Can I help you edit your bulk, declaration of situation. It is a tricky thing. I think you just have to work out, like with any relationship I guess, you have to just meet people where they’re at. When two neurodivergent people communicate, it’s fluid. When two neurotypical people talk to each other, it’s fluid. It’s just when the two meet, it can be really, really awkward. And I’ve experienced that often. But the thing is, I have learned the ways of the neurotypicals.
Hannah Gadsby:
I have studied these people. I prepare for neurotypical engagement. I’m trained in the art of small talk because I know it’s important. The problem is, is the privilege of neurotypical people is they don’t have to learn how to parallel play. What happened is you pathologize. You’re like, you’re not communicating correctly. Therefore, you are less than, you are not doing this right. You are weird. Back in the day, they’d burn you at the stake, totally think I’m a witch. I think that’s what witches were, just neurodivergent women. I’d totally float if you threw me in the river.
Amanda Doyle:
That blew my mind because I heard you say ultimately what I’m in the business of is to demand people be more aware of how and why they think, not what they think, because that’s the reality of autism. You have autism, you have to think about how you think. That’s what you do. And neurotypicals don’t do that. They just assume the way they think is right. I live with people who have some-
Hannah Gadsby:
Sprinkling?
Amanda Doyle:
Sprinkling. It’s a veritable cornucopia over here.
Hannah Gadsby:
Carnival.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. And that thinking, turning that lens on myself and thinking, no, this is how you’re thinking about it and that is why you’re out of sync, not necessarily there’s something wrong or broken about the way they’re thinking. And how do you think that people who want to balance that hierarchy as it’s set up right now, who want to connect with people who they love, who are neurodivergent, how do we begin to understand about how we think that is building those barriers?
Hannah Gadsby:
I think a really great place to start is not to take things personally and just move past it to the next thing. It’s really difficult, I think with the parent/child relationship, because children don’t have the language yet. They’re learning the language in order to then communicate what issues are, what the problem are. What might look like as a tantrum is probably a sensory overload and it looks like a small problem. So a parent might go, “I’m taking you seriously, but really, come on. You don’t like that cup? Come on, clam down.” But what’s happening is perhaps there’s something about the sensory part of this process that seems insignificant to a neurotypical, but is a war zone for someone on the spectrum.
Hannah Gadsby:
There’s an expected bond that’s supposed to happen with parents and children that neurodivergent children are always going to disappoint. And I think one of the first things is, yeah, you got to stop taking that seriously. I mean you got to take it seriously, sorry. Words are my gift. Personally, like try and sort of meet people where they’re at. There’s always going to be a lag with children because especially if you have difficulty with language, it’s going to take a while to get to that place. But in the adult world, it is difficult for women on the spectrum. Men, there is a certain place on the spectrum that is reserved for the great white geniuses. And they’re allowed to hyperfocus on their special interest and be terrible at interpersonal communications, and they’re held up as the best of men.
Hannah Gadsby:
But it’s much more difficult for women because of the expectations in the social network, but we’re supposed to uphold. And when we fail, that is a failure of character and it’s really difficult to convince people that this like, I can’t do it any differently. My brain is not wired to do what you want it to do. Now what? But we get stuck on this, you’re weird, you’re doing this wrong. I camouflage and mask a lot and that’s an incredibly exhausting process.
Hannah Gadsby:
So for this podcast, I had to prepare a lot. I had to listen to your, it wasn’t a chore, love your podcast. Well done. Keep up the good work. But it was really active engagement with it because in order to talk to three people at the same time, I felt like I had to make sure I understood the way that you speak, the cadence, your pitch, as of way of familiarizing myself. So when in the moment hoping that I could hear what you’re saying, process it, and then turn it around with reciprocal speech takes a huge amount of effort for me. So what might look like it’s just a casual chat is a marathon for me. And so then that depletes your energy levels. I have meltdowns, I shut down mostly, where I just stop communicating. And that’s hard for people if they don’t want to believe that it’s not personal. It’s great. It’s a good life. Love it.
Amanda Doyle:
What you just shared is so, is such a gift. That’s so important to understand that the work that you put in to showing up in a space, I just feel like that’s a gift for people to understand that. And thank you for doing that for this.
Hannah Gadsby:
No problems.
Glennon Doyle:
Hannah, can you talk to us- No problem.
Hannah Gadsby:
No worries. There’s a lot of worry, but no, we’re cool. Thanks.
Glennon Doyle:
How does ASD affect relationships? What challenges and if there are gifts, what are those? Because you’re in a relationship now.
Hannah Gadsby:
Nailing it.
Glennon Doyle:
Nailing it?
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. There’s a disconnect. When I mask, I’m fine. People are like, “You’re normal. You’re a little bit quirky, but you’re normal.” But you can’t maintain that. That’s exhausting. And so once you’re spending your private time with someone, I begin to melt down. So it will be reactive. I struggle to regulate my emotions when I’m under stress. And I have a lot of trauma, big Ts and little ts. So that also affects your ability to regulate. I can frighten people when I’m just trying to set devastatingly simple needs. But if those needs aren’t met, then I can be snappy in a way that is not pleasant for other people. And so I was laboring under the false idea that perhaps I was borderline abusive. But what was happening was my boundaries were not being respected.
Hannah Gadsby:
And so I’d be a snappy Tom. When I’m fine, I’m very easy going and like, “Okay.” So it just seemed like I was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One of the really interesting ones for me is touch because it’s overwhelming for me. And then, in a lesbian relationship, that, what? How are you supposed to do that? It’s all about the touch, isn’t it? Ah, touchy feeling. And I’m like, “Oh, do we have to talk about our feelings again?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Hannah Gadsby:
Just a light touch, like that’s a universal standard, isn’t it, for intimacy. Its like just a nice soft touch. And I’d flinch because that is a really horrible sensation for me. Not knowing that, people take that as rejection. It’s like, “You find me repulsive.” It’s Like, “No, just that touch.” Generally, lovely. But it’s really hard to communicate that when you don’t know. Even when I did know, I struggled for a while because it seems simple. It doesn’t seem like much. If people kept not touching me with a firm touch and just a light touch, I kept flinching, I kept flinching. It builds up. It’s a really easy fix. But the other person has to want to believe that I don’t want like a light touch. I don’t know if I’m answering your question. I’m trying real hard.
Abby Wambach:
I have kind of a follow up question, if you don’t mind.
Hannah Gadsby:
I love follow up questions, Abby. So thank you.
Abby Wambach:
In terms of neurotypical and neurodivergent, it would be, because I think… Actually, since we had our pre-call, I’m like, I think I want to get tested because I just feel like we all are somewhere on a spectrum. Right? And I think I’ve had learning stuff throughout my life that I want to just understand more. But I think it’s the role, like what happens is neurotypical people want to fix this part maybe in you. So let’s go through a process, Hannah. Is this common? Like let’s go through a process and work on this touch.
Glennon Doyle:
Like exposure therapy?
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s beat this out of you or pray it away. Has that ever happened in your life?
Hannah Gadsby:
All the time. And I do it to myself before I was diagnosed too, because I have a problem solver’s brain, like this is a problem. I want to fix it. And then so I experiment with fixing it and this ends up, I’ve had so many major depressive episodes, it’s almost funny again because it’s that overwhelm of putting yourself into these situations that are overwhelming and detrimental to your central nervous system. And then you just can’t cope and then it’s like broadcast out. And I will say this Abby, if you feel like there’s something that I’m saying that is connecting to you, and I’m been speaking very vague and specific terms here, and it is a very complicated thing. But do, get yourself checked out. Because if you are, it’ll be a game changer. And I will also say this. There is a very large crossover between all autism and gender ambivalence. I’m going to call it gender ambivalence.
Abby Wambach:
I love it.
Hannah Gadsby:
Because left to my own devices, like whatever. But neurotypicals demand that front on, like what are you? But in inside, it’s just like, well it’s just coming out how it’s coming out, isn’t it? You need to deal with your feelings on this. But there are a lot of non-binary folk, trans folk, gender queer folk on the spectrum because yeah, I think there’s something about the gender binary that does not make sense.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Hannah Gadsby:
It is illogical, it is what is important, not what is interesting.
Abby Wambach:
Interesting. Cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Why is it so hard for girls to get diagnosed? What is that about?
Hannah Gadsby:
We present differently. So the idea of what autism is, is being based and studied on young men. White men, if we want to get specific. The biases that exist in science, everywhere, in all parts of science, medicine, research, exist in this. So there are women of color on the spectrum and a lot of them are running around not knowing it, because it will be different again. Because women are expected to behave in a certain way. And as a culture, we’ve been trained to pathologize women who don’t behave in the correct way in the that it is a character flaw. It is you’re going to hell, you’re not doing it right. It is that shaming. If a young boy doesn’t interact with his peers and he wants to identify every single dinosaur there is, fine. That seems normal in a way.
Hannah Gadsby:
But if a girl was to do that, often their peers will identify it as wrong before parents will observe it, and they begin masking. So the masking thing in girls, because you’re watching your peers and you’re like, “They’re doing these things, I should do these things.” And so I think a lot of the time, not so much now, it’s opening up now, but I think women of my generation, that’s what is happening, you’re masking. And you’ll find people in their 40s having breakdowns all the time, women on the spectrum, undiagnosed women.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s similar to even our model of heart attacks, how women present very differently than men. And so women are dying of heart attacks because their symptoms don’t match. Girls typically have often a different presentation than boys. It made sense when you said the exfoliation of shame because girls are kind of in this lost period of masking and not being identified. Then they’re going through adolescence. Then they’re being diagnosed with depression and anxiety as the primary reason for their struggles, and oh, that’s so hormonal. And then they spend their whole lives thinking their lives aren’t working out because of their depression and anxiety and not they’re depressed and anxious because they’ve never been identified and understood for who they are.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. I always like to frame it as I always thought that I was struggling because I was depressed and anxious. But then I realized, I am depressed and anxious because I am struggling. And so I never identified that I was struggling. I didn’t understand that I wasn’t looking people in the eye, because I would just watch their mouths move. I didn’t understand that I couldn’t hear properly. I can hear properly. My hearing’s, as my mom would call it, 20/20. That’s sight mom. But I do, I watch people’s mouths and that helps me put together what they’re saying.
Hannah Gadsby:
And so it’s a lot of compensatory techniques that I use to get through that. But also, it’s about how trauma presents in neurodivergent people is not the same. So getting therapy is fraught, particularly if the therapist doesn’t know or you don’t know, so this let’s talk about this thing again. Let’s talk out this thing again. And that is so stressful. It is so stressful to be front facing to these things because the central nervous system is not cut out for that sort of onslaught. Things compound. And a lot of people, women on the spectrum, have complex PTSD because these small traumas are just daily.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you talk to us about your decision to stop using self-deprecating humor about your body or about your sexuality or about your gender, any of it, in comedy? How did that come to you and what does it mean to you?
Hannah Gadsby:
That’s a long process. When I first started doing comedy, I was quite monosyllabic and I had to train very hard to modulate my voice and things like that. But I was very dead pan and just worked with people’s assumption on who I was and then subverted. In order to subvert people’s assumption, you have to play on that field. You have to play that game. And even if you’re trying to subvert it, you’re still kicking that ball around, you’re still kicking the stereotypes around, you’re still engaging with stereotypes. And as I matured as a performer, I got bored with that. That was no longer interesting, even though it was important to an audience. And I began to feel very disconnected.
Hannah Gadsby:
So about eight years into my career, I started going, “I don’t make sense on stage anymore.” And part of that was early on, I do stand up and then during festivals I’d work with a gallery and do comedy art lectures. Now we worked out, I wanted to do comedy art tours, but turns out I’m not a natural leader. So I’d be going, “We’ll go and look at this painting now.” And I’d go over there and I’d stand. And everyone’s like, “What have we got over here?” And I’m like, no one’s following me. So I learned quite quickly that people have to be seated facing me, stuck.
Glennon Doyle:
Stuck.
Hannah Gadsby:
And then they’ll be, “Oh, you’re actually quite interesting. All right.” So I do comedy art lectures. And what I discovered there is I became what’s known as a high status comic, when I was talking about my special interests. Because I’m passionate. I’m talking with my autism first. It’s like, this is what I’m interested in. And people love these, they’re really popular. And I love doing them and I felt good on stage. And I’m like, “This is me being autistic. It’s me being funny without masking.” And in my comedy though, when I’m trying to explain myself and go, it’s very hard for me to do observational humor, because I’m not looking at the same things. Everyone’s just like, “You know what it’s like?” And people are like, “No, no. What you’re speaking of is not familiar.” So you have to do a lot of explaining.
Hannah Gadsby:
So in that I folded in a lot of masking and then that becomes confusing as you get older and more mature and you like who you are, you’re just like, this is not a true representation of how I see the world or how I think people… I’m softening myself, I’m apologizing. I’m like, “Hey, it’s weird that I’m like this, isn’t it?” And they’re like, “Yeah, it is.” And then eventually I just broke. I said, once, it’s weird that you don’t notice that people are different. And that very much informed my desire to stop being self-deprecating because I just wanted to be autistic.
Hannah Gadsby:
I just want to go, “Hey, I’ve got some stuff to talk about and whatever feelings you have about what this is, you need to get over it because I’ve got things to say.” And that is part of the reason. The other part of the reason is come on. Particularly women, why do we have to put ourselves down in order to speak in public? It hasn’t changed. I still get all the hate mail that you want, like take your pick. Men have been trained not to like women who speak their mind in public. It’s a thing, we’re not going to change it soon. We’re going to have to grin and bear it. But I may as well grin and bear it being confident.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So I just want to talk about-
Hannah Gadsby:
Bet you do.
Glennon Doyle:
I just want to talk forever, but we only have 15 minutes. So here’s what I want to talk about now.
Hannah Gadsby:
Fast money round.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, this is what’s interesting to me, is the journey that you and your mom have taken, but that in terms of the journey you’ve taken to figure out what comedy is to you. You had a moment with your mom where she was talking about not having regretted anything. And you said, “Is there anything maybe?”
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. Well she said this thing, she’s like, “I’m really proud.” I like impersonating my mom. “I’m really proud that I brought my kids up without religion. I really am, because I’ve raised five children with minds of their own. I’m really proud of that.” And I’m like, “Well done on you mom. You can pat yourself on the back. Good on you.” And I was just sort of like, she’s having a moment and I missed it because I think we know why. And so I said, “Oh yeah. What parenting decisions do you regret mom?” And there’s a laundry list, I thought she’d go. And we talk like that a little bit. Like I’ll say to mom, “Mom, you used to scare the bejesus out of me, when I was growing up.” She said, “Good. I didn’t like you that much.” And it’s funny, we’re being funny. It’s quite Australian. I think this horrifies some American audiences when I say that it’s fine.
Hannah Gadsby:
But she wasn’t going there. So she was being thoughtful. And then she just said a thing that blew my mind, and it was the seed that became my show, Nanette, where she’s like, “The thing I regret is that I raised you as if you were straight.” Because the coming out story is all about, will people accept you? And mom just did all this work and I didn’t know. She went way back, and she went to a place that not many people are at now. She’s like pushing 80. And she’s like, “I shouldn’t have assumed you were straight. And I wasn’t your friend, and I should have been.” She said, “I knew.” I’m just committing to mom’s voice here. She’s like, “I wanted you to change because I knew the world wouldn’t.” And she’s right, the world didn’t change.
Hannah Gadsby:
And I was just sort of like, because when you’re coming out, it’s overwhelming. You’re just ready for the rejection. And it is all about you, it has to be all about you. But the telling of our coming out stories, telling of a lot of trauma stories, we are freeze framing on that moment of trauma. And we don’t then have a lot of public discussions about these moments. Because we live in a punishment society. We don’t give room for restorative justice, let’s call it.
Hannah Gadsby:
And the art history informed that part of me. So mom said this to me, but also because I was thinking a lot about Proto-Renaissance, I made these connections. And this is the gift of autism, you make connections. Your brain has more connections going on. And so in art history, I don’t know if you know this, but it’s a myth where people are sort of like, “Back in the day, not everyone could read.” So they learned from painting and pictures. And that is not correct, they learned through oral storytelling. Stories would be told, stories that are familiar. And the art played a purpose of freeze framing the stories into familiar parts of the stories, points of the stories.
Hannah Gadsby:
So the most famous one, I guess, is Christianity has been frozen to the crucifixion. Now there is a big story, but that is the freeze frame is on that moment. That is a big decision. Because from that freeze frame, you can leverage a lot of shame and guilt because that’s like, that’s your fault. But there are some great stories in that whole narrative, but that freeze frame. In mythology, it’s the same thing. It’s like a lot of stories are freeze framed at the moment. A woman happens to be nude. That is a strong freeze frame there. So art history has this tendency to freeze frame, and I think generally our story telling sort of circles trauma, and then solves it in a who done it kind of way. And then we don’t have stories that then talk about, “Hey, I went through trauma, but I’m all right. This doesn’t define me.”
Hannah Gadsby:
Fucked me up for a bit, sorry for the language. But older women have these stories where they can put into context in their entire life. And I was just missing those stories in the public sphere. I know so many old ladies and they’re just like, “Yeah. Yeah, he’s an idiot. They’re all idiots, but they’re fine.” And I just wanted to put that breath into my own story. In my comedy, I made a lot of comedy out of the way my mom reacted. And it was a way of like paved the way for my own healing, to be able to make fun of it. You need the jokes, but then it stops our ability to talk about the evolution on both sides. And we are obsessed with trauma points in our storytelling culture. Like news is nothing but scatter, gun, trauma, porn. We always know what’s going wrong, but we never know how stuff resolves. And I think public displays of resolution are important and missing.
Glennon Doyle:
Can I read you one quote from your book that you said about your family?
Hannah Gadsby:
Sure.
Glennon Doyle:
That I think is so important.
Hannah Gadsby:
Be weird if I said no.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it would be weird. But I would honor you.
Abby Wambach:
We would respect it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You’re very fine.
Amanda Doyle:
Pass.
Glennon Doyle:
This is about your mom having a very hard time with you coming out at first. But you said, “Our family unit had been collateral damage, nothing more than pond porn for the juvenile and toxic political games being played out well above our heads. That is the shit that ruined my life.”
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah, and that’s happening now. Right now, to particularly trans kids now, because we’re not talking about their humanity, we’re talking about whether or not their gender is right. We’re talking about whether we can solve gender right now. And that’s, it’s a political point. I see it’s doing my head in, it’s breaking my heart. It is excruciating to watch. We, as adults, are making the same mistakes. The way we speak about the subjects are in terms of like, I am right, you’re wrong. It’s just like, can we just agree that we don’t know what the hell we are? And just give people what they need and not pathologize, but it is happening now as we speak. The trans kids are being politicized. That is exactly what happened to me.
Glennon Doyle:
Some families are reacting badly to their humanity. And I think your point is so important that those families, those parents, are pawns.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
They have been duped, they have been tricked. They have been preached to by higher powers that have taught them to fear their children.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. So how is it going with your mom now? How does she feel about your new book? Did she read it?
Hannah Gadsby:
“It’s all lies, I’m not going to read it.” She’s a bit scared and fair enough. Fair enough. It’s her story too, and I’ve got complete control over it. She’s good, she’s great. Both my parents are good. Dad was really sick when I was going through the Nanette of it all. And one of my last edits of the book, I think I forgot to tell people that he’s fine, because he’s dying of melanoma and he got some experimental treatment and it turns out it was a good experiment. Who knows? I don’t even know what it was, could be warm bat blood. We don’t know, but he’s fine now. My mom and my dad are talking cheese, which I didn’t say that explicitly in the book. He’s just so accepting. He’s like, “Oh, yeah? Go on.” But mom has a reaction. Then she goes away and then she has to think about it. Then she has another reaction and then she has to think about it. That’s what’s happening now. She’s having to think about it. Having reactions, having thoughts. It’s why we love her.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you feel, she called it, well, you called it in the book, and by the way you did say your dad was okay. There was one little part. I searched for it.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah, I had to add that in. They’re like, “We need to know because there is no resolution there.” I’m like, “Oh yeah, but he’s fine.” There, fact.
Glennon Doyle:
It was a very small sentence, just so you know. But it was there.
Hannah Gadsby:
Wasn’t important.
Amanda Doyle:
Or interesting? I don’t know.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. It wasn’t interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
Your mom, you called it pinning butterflies, the freeze frames of people’s relationships or lives. Do you feel scared of that now that you have that understanding that telling stories about other people is kind of pinning butterflies? I’m just wondering if you feel scared about your work going forward. Because I do, I feel scared about telling stories about people suddenly.
Hannah Gadsby:
Look, I think it’s important to tell stories. I think it’s important to leave flexibility in the wave. The problem comes when people hold you to things and go, “You’re not allowed to evolve.” That is the receiving of the story and is like, but I think there’s an enormous amount of healing that goes into the craft of a narrative. And that’s what I do. I spend a lot of time working out how to tell stories. And through that, I learn what part of the story is important to me. And working on stage a lot, my stories evolve, sometimes to their detriment. So my coming out story for instance, was designed to make people laugh. And that’s where the issue was because the punchline was enough. But I think telling stories, I’m not frightened. I operate on the premise that it’s okay to recede into the background and no one remembers who the hell I am, and I just work on the craft and then everything else will work itself out.
Glennon Doyle:
And with that, Hannah, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for all of the work that you did.
Hannah Gadsby:
No problem. I would just like to acknowledge that I don’t think I answered many questions directly, but I said a lot of information after you stopped talking.
Glennon Doyle:
And interesting information and important information.
Hannah Gadsby:
Time will tell.
Glennon Doyle:
We won’t listen to time, regardless. But please also thank Jenny.
Hannah Gadsby:
I will.
Glennon Doyle:
And just again, thank you, Hannah.
Hannah Gadsby:
Absolute pleasure. Keep it real guys. Keep on trucking.
Abby Wambach:
You’re the best.
Amanda Doyle:
Thanks.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you.
Hannah Gadsby:
Yeah. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Um, what I want to, for our next right thing today, it’s not really a thing. This is a next right idea. Okay. I, one of the things that I connect so much with Hannah on is that her major sensitivity and her, um, she has incredible soundaries.
Glennon Doyle:
Sounds are important to her. She has offered me strategies about how, when Abby sneezes loudly, I can be startled because there’s no way I can not be startled. I will always be startled. But Hannah described for me a way that I can decide in my own self what’s next after the startle, I don’t have to become furious after the startle. I didn’t know that, sister, I didn’t know that. Like she told me that when Abby sneezes. Okay. So let’s, let’s play this out. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Here I go.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Sneeze.
Abby Wambach:
A-chew.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Well, that’s not how it sounds, but. it’s not the way it sounds. That’s
Amanda Doyle:
That’s not the way it sounds. That’s a false representation of the Abby sneeze. It’s an Olympic gold medal sneeze.
Abby Wambach:
I’m just being polite here.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like an alarm has gone off in our home. So let’s say I’m doing the dishes or something, and that sneeze happens out of the blue. And I immediately, my entire body reacts. My body freaks out.
Abby Wambach:
You’re going to freeze.
Glennon Doyle:
I am startled. Hannah taught me after that. I can just go with it. I’m startled. Ooh. Ooh, I’m startled. Ooh.
Glennon Doyle:
Like there’s an energy of startled can just go to like, I’m on a roller coaster. Like I don’t have to then become utterly furious that this thing has startled me. So,
Amanda Doyle:
Oh
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. So like, it’s
Amanda Doyle:
A transmutation of the energy.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. It’s like, I can’t control.
Abby Wambach
Go with it, she said.
Glennon Doyle:
I can’t control my startle, but I can control what happens after the startle. And that comes with time. So I’m gonna work on it. Okay. I have no idea why I started tell that story, but here’s the next right idea. Okay. This is just one quote from Nanette which daily I think about it. Okay. And I just feel like it’s very important for all of our pod squaders. Many of whom are sensitive human beings. Like all of them are here. Okay. Listen, Hannah Gadsby says, when people say I’m too sensitive, I feel a bit like a nose being lectured by a fart. We’re just gonna leave that with you. Okay. Do not let farts tell you that you are too sensitive.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
I’m so impressed that you just said fart twice.
Glennon Doyle:
I know I said it. I don’t say fart. I don’t say fart.
Abby Wambach:
She doesn’t say it.
Glennon Doyle:
But I’m saying fart, fart, fart, because it’s so important to the message.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I have another thing that I had a moment when she was speaking. And when she was talking about how her mom said, “I’m so sorry that I raised you straight.”
Amanda Doyle:
And I think, think that that’s something that we can think about and be like, oh, that’s right. But then she talks about how, when she was growing up, right. You know, she’d be playing by herself she’d say, “I don’t wanna go to that birthday party.” “I don’t wanna”, and, and as a parent it’s, but you’re sad. You’re sad if you don’t go to the birthday party and she’s like, I’m not sad. And I think sometimes I, although I would never raise my kid with the assumption that they’re straight and look at them that way. I think that I can very easily raise my kids with the assumption that they’re neurotypical.
Amanda Doyle:
So if I see my daughter playing a group of kids playing and my daughter playing separately on her own, I feel intense pain. And I project on her loneliness and sadness and, um, separateness. But that’s raising her like a straight kid. That’s raising her, like a neurotypical kid. I just really got that from today’s podcast. I want to let my kid be exactly who they are without projecting what the world will see them as. I just wanna see them through their own eyes and their own experiences.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen. That’s the next right thing. It’s like what Hannah’s mom said. I wish I had been your friend.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Meaning like, I wish I hadn’t been a fixer of you. I wish I had just been a friend to you,
Abby Wambach:
So beautiful y’all.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. And the thing that she, her mom said, I thought the world wasn’t gonna change, so I thought I would have to change you. It’s like we get so scared for our children. And we bring to them the very fear that we’re afraid that the world will bring to them. We bring it to them. Sister, thank you for that.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ll see you next week on We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
Love you guys.
Amanda Doyle:
Love you.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.