Disabled villains and fighting imps

Welcome to Hey look a Squirtle! Adulting with AuDHD

Kia ora everyone,

Welcome to Hey look a Squirtle! I’m Anna Kirtlan, a 40-something writer from Aotearoa New Zealand. I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD and autism and am in the process of learning to drive my brain in a different way.

I decided to start this Substack after publishing a blog on my website about learning this later in life: ADHD at 43 - annakirtlanwrites.nz (I may do an edited highlights version here some time too.)

I had lots of feedback from awesome people and discovered there are a bunch of us out there who are new to this all. Being a giant nerd, I am hoovering up all the information I can, and I thought this could be a good opportunity for us all to learn together.

What I also really like about Substack is that there is an audio option for folk who find that easier than reading text. Once I work out the easiest and most accessible way to DIY record, I definitely plan to take advantage of that.

Why Squirtle?

We don’t have squirrels here in New Zealand, and I am easily distracted by Pokémon. I know there are mixed feelings around the whole ‘hey look, a squirrel!’ trope about people with ADHD being easily distracted, and I have already drafted a post on why I chose to stick with a variant - so watch this space for that.

If you are a fellow spice-cadet starting from scratch, or you want to learn more to support folk in your life who are, you have come to the right place. I want use this as a space to share my ‘aha’ moments, and learn about yours.

Fighting imps

I had grand plans to go through some of the great subs? stacks? (gonna need a bit of help with the lingo) of folk I read on here, to see how they did their first posts. Then I quickly realised I’d compare myself to them, decide I had no business being here, and not start at all.

This is because I am host to a very vocal imp. His name is Ortant, he’s my imposter syndrome, and he is a total dick.

I wrote a short story about him for Mental Health Awareness Week a couple of years ago:

Ortant the Invalidating Imp (annakirtlanwrites.nz)

Image of said total dick by the very talented Shaun Garea

LitCrawl

That small skirmish with Ortant made me think of a larger scrap I’ve been having with him over an event I am taking part in next month.

It’s part of LitCrawl, which is basically a bookish version of a bar crawl that happens during Wellington’s Verb festival.

I have done a Verb event before with a group of writers from the Witchy Fiction collective I published Raven’s Haven for Women of Magic with. The funniest part of that was the randoms who popped into Schrödinger’s Books, where it was hosted, to warn them about holding an ‘occult event’ – they thought were actual witches! That’s more cool points than I’ll ever be able to claim in real life.

I was a bit nervous about that one, but nothing compared to this upcoming event, which has Ortant jumping up and down with glee. So I figured it would be as good a topic as any to write my first post on. It will either shut him up or give him a megaphone – I guess I’m about to find out!

Disabled villainy

The event is called I’m disabled … of course I’m a villain and it looks at the tropes around villains and disability.

Of course, now I have decided to do it, I feel like a big ol’ fraud.

You count

When I saw the call for participants in one of my writer chats I jokingly responded with “does having bung eyes and raging ADHD count?” and one of my awesome friends responded with a gif of Count von Count from Sesame Street and the words ‘You count’.

This was doubly meaningful as I am a Muppet tragic. It was enough to get me thinking though. Despite the fact my vision is so bad the government pays for my glasses lenses and contacts (thanks government!) and I no longer drive because my peripheral vision is shot, and despite the fact I have been having robust exchanges of views with my mental – and I now understand neurological – health since my teens, despite the work I have done with disabled folk around the barriers we all face, I still didn’t think disabled was a word I could claim for myself. It was a word for people who deserved much more help and support than I did.

Of course this is the kind of dumbarsery that keeps us isolated from each other and not reaching out for help when we need it. It’s not necessarily the condition that disables us (I would argue my neurodiversity enables me to do a lot of things others can’t), it’s the world around us that does by not being accessible to us.

Just because you might be ‘high functioning’ (oooh boy there’s a whole other post brewing on that particular term) doesn’t mean you can’t and shouldn’t ask for help when you need it – be it support for vision, or hearing or the need for quiet space and time if things get overwhelming.

You count. And if I am telling you that, then I have to accept that I count too and that I have every right to get up and speak at an event as a disabled writer.

Stick that in your impy pipe and smoke it Ortant!

Masked villains

So on November 9 I will be joining Andi C. Buchanan, Casey Lucas, Alice Mander, Erin Donohue and Rem Wigmore to talk about disabled villainy. I will be delivering a monologue called I wear a mask … of course I’m a villain which talks about the masked villain trope (yes there will be Darth Vader impressions – RIP James Earl Jones) the masking neurodiverse folk have to do to get by in the world, and how my go-to humour mask is reflected in my writing.

From Richard III to a vampire with an excellent ethos, there should be something to meet all your evil needs.

Our session starts at 7.15pm at Te Auaha on Dixon street. The venue is wheelchair accessible and there will be sign language interpreters. 

You can find all the details here: I’m disabled … of course I’m a villain! (verbwellington.nz)

Come and watch me blather nervously and listen to some talented writers. It should be highly entertaining!

For those not in Wellington, I will post the text for my piece here after the event – and maybe have a play with some audio.

If you want to know more about Verb – the programme details are here:
Verb Readers and Writers Festival 2024 (verbwellington.nz)

And the LitCrawl events and map are available here:
LitCrawl Wellington (verbwellington.nz)

Thank you for joining me!

To the folk who have already subscribed – thank you so much for coming on this Substack ride with me. I have a lot of plans (not all of them evil) that I’m looking forward to unveiling. I sincerely promise I will not stay on topic so your guess is as good as mine as to where this ends up!

If you have stumbled across this and it has caught your interest, I would love it if you would sign up – or share the link with anyone you know who might like to join us. I would love to build a safe and supportive community of like-minded people, and I will definitely be joining you in the comments.