Autism Spectrum Diagnosis Helped Comic Hannah Gadsby 'Be Kinder' To Herself

Growing up, Hannah Gadsby always felt she was different. She struggled to read social cues, she had trouble applying for jobs, and spent a few living in a tent and doing farm labor. But Gadsby, who's from Tasmania, had always been funny. On a whim, in 2006 she entered a stand-up comedy competition — and won.

"I'd never held a microphone before. ... I'd never even been to a comedy show — but all of a sudden, I kind of knew what I was doing," she says. "As soon as I told my first joke ... it really made people engage with me, and I held the audience in my hand."

Gadsby embarked on a comedy career in Australia, but she still felt out of place. It wasn't until 2016, when she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder that things started to make sense.

"It shifted the way that I understood myself," Gadsby says of the diagnosis. "I was always operating on the false premise that everyone saw the world like I did."

Gadsby's breakout comedy special, Nanette, which premiered on Netflix in 2018, earned her a Peabody and an Emmy Award and started a broader conversation about comedy and trauma. In it, she describes the abuse she experienced in the "Bible Belt of Australia" as a queer woman, and why comedy might not be the right venue to talk about trauma.