Hannah Gadsby discuss her autism diagnosis in her new standup show

The New York Times

Gadsby says she learned about her autism diagnosis before she put Nanette together, but she is now comfortable talking about it in her follow-up standup show Douglas, which is named after her dog. "Autism is overwhelming," she tells The New York Times. "So people see the distress of it. But often in a lot of those distresses we’ve been dragged out of our little thought orgies, having a great time in our heads. Nobody sees that, and I don’t see that celebrated. It is different and it is not all sad. Gadsby, who now lives in Los Angeles following her Netflix Nanette success, was also asked about her original plan to quit comedy. "Quitting was always a theatrical device, and I’m delighted everyone took it so seriously," she says. "It was basically to defuse the obvious criticism: 'That’s not comedy.' But that theatrical device, as I relived trauma night after night, felt really good to say it and mean it. I think I meant it and still mean it in the sense of the strictest definition of what comedy is — yeah, I’ve quit that."