Meet the Comedians Bringing Awareness to ADHD

October is ADHD Awareness Month! If your social media algorithm hasn’t made you extremely aware of ADHD already, Stomping Ground Comedy Theater is here to give you some insight and celebrate some comedians with ADHD on October 19th at our stand-up comedy showcase,  “Oh, Look…A Squirrel!” 

At Stomping Ground Comedy Theater, we talk a lot about comedy as a tool for improving our mental health. People who live life with ADHD often get the message that they don’t fit in, and it can impact our self-esteem, but comedy gives us an outlet for letting our talents shine. 

Here are some of the stars of “Oh, Look…A Squirrel!’ talking about their own experiences with ADHD. 

Scott D. Altamirano
“I was formally diagnosed with ADHD at the end of undergrad because I had trouble focusing while reading and I would roll onto my classmates’ desks and be overall ‘distracting’. Looking back at it now, it was a pretty slam dunk diagnosis. With ultra quick processing, but extremely low follow through, I was typically labeled the smart kid in class who was struggling. I can’t sit still for movies (unless we’re talking), I forget steps in tasks that I’ve done for years, and I’m so forgetful that a common question of mine is, ‘That seems familiar… Are you sure I was there?’ God awful if I was a police witness, but amazing if I helped commit the crime! Now a days, I work as a mental health therapist who specializes in depression and sexuality, which is a major bonus in my field – the talkativeness is amazing for talk therapy, the distractibility always keeps us on the topic that’s relevant NOW, and the forgetfulness is a built-in GUAR-AN-TEE for privacy!”

Zack Terry
“I actually didn’t know I had ADD until a few years ago, since I wasn’t hyperactive on the outside. I was amazed to learn not everyone has an inner monologue blasting a million things at them every second. Traditional education systems aren’t really geared towards that way of thinking, I would zone out in class or just not show up in college. It took me a long time to realize I didn’t have to fit into the boxes I was always trying to force myself into. I learned we can’t always control the thoughts we have but we can control the things we say to ourselves and which thoughts we give our attention to. Now, I’m passionate about practicing mindfulness even if I still procrastinate every, single, day.”

Sara Jackson
“The start of my comedy journey was also, coincidentally, the start of my journey with discovering and understanding my own neurodiversity. ADHD feels so compatible with the craft of comedy to me. Before I was diagnosed, I was often analyzing my own thought process, relating how my brain connects topics or hops from one to the other to an intricate interpretive dance routine — it’s fast-paced, unique and you never know what’s coming next. I was surprised to find that performing improv and stand-up feels the same exact way. Today, with the power of acceptance and knowledge, I find catharsis in letting my ADHD run wild onstage, acting on all of the random ideas and impulses that I have, and being celebrated for it.”

Brandon Enriquez
“I was asked to share a blurb about my experience with ADHD. What I can tell you is that behind my wildly expressive face, spring loaded yet laid back body language, and the forced casualness of my tone of voice, is a mind that I struggle to keep in check everyday. I may look calm on the exterior (or maybe I look like a hot mess, I don’t know how any one individual in a myriad of people perceives me on any given day), but my mind can be a torrent of thought that will overflow quickly with creativity and idea juices. And at other times that gushing spring of energy and focus will slow to a crawl and the map to my teeming imagination gets blurry.

I was simultaneously diagnosed with depression and ADD in my 40’s. I pleaded to my primary care doctor in Canada to help me control the flow of my thoughts which consistently got the better of me, leading me to dark, scary thoughts, and over-thinking decisions long after I’ve made them. When I try to focus my brain on a task like reading or writing, my eyes would soon glaze over and I’d fall to sleep. With the power of Adderall to help me focus and Prozac to keep suicidal depression, anxiety and OCD in check, (while increasing the potentially fatal risk of developing serotonin syndrome) I can give myself these too brief windows in my day where I can manage to focus long enough to write this purposeful and wordy blurb.”

Chris Eisterhold
“I was diagnosed with ADHD at a very young age. My parents were very supportive around the challenges I have that lead to the diagnosis. I personally struggled with admitting to myself that I was different. I’ve been on and off of medication through my entire life. Recently (in the past several months) I have finally found it in myself to ask, “What even is ADHD?” Since then I have sought to question this label I have been carrying my whole life. Increasing my vocabulary and understanding has given me more confidence in building myself tools for success. Although ADHD changes the path I take through life, it does not define who I am.”

Michelle Thompson

“Being a senager – a senior who’s a teenager at heart – has been challenging to say the least. It is fun to have the freedom to travel and try new things. The challenge is I have many symptoms of ADHD. It turns out after all these decades I am not a bionic woman multitasker, but probably an undiagnosed ADHD senager instead. I am still trying to convince my neurologist to do further testing, but after 2 ½ hours of grueling cognitive testing I will just continue to run around looking and saying, ‘Oh squirrel, cat, dog…and where the hell are my keys?!'”

Tanner Hudson
“I was diagnosed with ADHD before I could remember. Kind of counterintuitive right? How did they know a young child had ADHD? I have no idea but were they right. I go into rooms and forget what I went in them for. I start a million projects that I don’t finish. I disappear without a trace for two weeks and then text like I never went away. I get frustrated with people who talk at a normal speed. I interrupt my own sentences with other— One time I flooded my house because I started running a bath and walked away, expecting to remember that I had the faucet running. I did not remember. Anyway… What was I saying?”

Jen Small
“Finding out I had ADHD was a bad mix of wonder, surprise and all-out embarrassment. At the ripe old age of 46, a much younger and positively adorable psychiatrist told me that he thought I needed to be tested for ADHD. I smiled and told him that I was too old for that diagnosis. He cheerfully replied, ‘We’re never too old to learn something new about ourselves!’. After getting this diagnosis I freaked out at the thought of spending the rest of my life spaced out stimulants and drawing on walls with permanent marker—what I believed were the hallmarks of ADHD. Turns out my beliefs about ADHD were misguided; us ADHD’ers are not Tasmanian Devils that can only be tamed with hard-core drugs while leashed to furniture. And when we get creative, we don’t turn into uncontrollable feral cats. We find the joy to laugh about our divergent brains.”