Neurodivergent Comics and Masking

Dear readers,

After my “Why I am a baby” comic, I got inspired and put together several of my ADHD comics and wrote about my neurodivergent experience on Medium. You can read the post by clicking on the preview picture below or here.

If you prefer a shorter read, below you can read my new comic “Masking” with a short commentary.

The comic: Masking

There is something about this situation that just doesn’t allow me to stay serious or genuinely ask what others find so funny. The social pressure is simply too high and I end up pretending to be like others, which is called “masking” in neurodivergent social media circles.

I don’t want to offend any of my friends when it comes to joke telling, so here is my explanation of the comic. Me not wanting to laugh doesn’t mean the joke wasn’t funny, it’s just I don’t find it THAT funny to laugh out loud. 

However, I do laugh naturally when the joke is about something real that actually happened, especially if it happened to me. And this is an explanation as to why all my comics are based on my autobiographical stories and why I find them funny (I wish they were a bit less true sometimes). To be honest, I don’t actually know if liking humor based on real events is a neurodivergent trait, but hyper-rationality is associated with autistic traits.

Another sad consequence of ADHD and the distraction that comes with it is that very often I don’t even hear the punchline, let alone process it before people start laughing… This is a very painful thing to admit, as I have been called “slow” whenever I asked the laughing crowd to retell or explain the joke. Maybe that is why I always end up masking.

To end on a positive note, if you relate to this at all, know that your sense of humor is not lacking, we just find different things funny!

Until next time,

Ana