Episode 163: Writing autistic and ADHD characters – with Brianne Leeson

The episode transcript is below.

[Pre-roll]

Carolyn Kiel: Before I get to the episode, I want to take a moment to address the June 24th Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade. This decision stripped away the legal right to have a safe and legal abortion.

Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health and independence of all Americans. This decision could also lead to the loss of other rights.

To learn more about what you can do to help, go to podvoices.help. I encourage you to speak up, take care, and spread the word.

[Episode]

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

When you think about TV shows, movies or other media these days, you can probably name just a few autistic characters. You may even be able to name some more characters that are “autistic coded” – in other words, they seem like they might be autistic, even if it’s never explicitly stated that they are.

My guest today, Brianne Leeson, knows something about creating autistic characters. Brianne is a writer, artist, and voice actor from Dallas, Texas who created a show called “Today’s Lucky Winner,” which she describes as a queer, supernatural comedy audio drama. Brianne was diagnosed as autistic and with ADHD at age 30, and she has since become a passionate advocate for autism acceptance and representation in media. She started working on Today’s Lucky Winner before she got diagnosed.

After getting her diagnoses, Brianne then realized she had written her own neurodivergence into her show’s two main characters. One character is autistic, the other has ADHD. Once Brianne realized this, she made the important decision to have those characters mention and discuss their neurodivergence on the show, specifically writing it into the dialog and plot lines. They went from being autistic coded or ADHD coded, to explicitly autistic and ADHD characters.

Now, why is this important? Well, this change has helped find the show a neurodivergent fanbase and inspired at least one listener to pursue their own diagnosis. Even beyond that, though, Brianne feels it’s important to name autistic characters as autistic, so that autistic people can recognize themselves, and everyone can understand autism beyond the narrow stereotypes we still see portrayed in media. The same goes for ADHD characters and other neurodivergent characters.

Brianne talks about her audio drama on today’s episode, as well as what compelled her to finally seek her own diagnosis, how it made her reassess and reframe her past struggles with mental health and how she is unmasking and living more authentically now as an autistic ADHD person. If you’ve been wondering if you’re possibly neurodivergent, and how discovering your neurodivergence can change your life, then this episode is for you.

I’ve got lots of other episodes about neurodivergent writers and other creatives at my website, beyond6seconds.net and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you know someone who would really enjoy this episode, then please share it with them. This show is a labor of love for me, so I appreciate all your help getting the word out about the important topics we talk about here! Sharing is caring, as the saying goes — and sharing is also a great way to potentially help a friend and make the world a little brighter.

Ok, let’s get to the interview and welcome Brianne Leeson to the podcast!

Brianne, I’m so excited to talk to you today. Let’s start off by talking about how you discovered you are autistic and ADHD. When did you first realize that you are neurodivergent?

Brianne Leeson: Yeah, so that word had barely entered my vocabulary by the beginning of the pandemic. I’d say a couple months in, I started, I started behaving in ways that were really unfamiliar to me. I had all these routines in place to help myself focus, help myself not be late doing things, help with basic stuff to keep my life in order. And a lot of those were predicated on having people over to my house and stuff that wasn’t happening anymore. And without those in place, I couldn’t focus on anything. Like I couldn’t focus on things I enjoyed. I was having what I thought were panic attacks. And I had been told they were panic attacks my whole life, but I thought I was like, well, I’m just a jerk who has panic attacks because I just, and that’s what I told myself because they were just an undirected sort of anger to them.

And I was like, for the first time, I think I had the space to stop and go, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Like I, I had been depressed before and it wasn’t depression. It was as though, since I didn’t have my usual routines, I had become untethered. Like the whole Jenga tower of things I had to help me function had just completely fallen and I didn’t have the capacity to put it all back together in this new reality.

So I, I started looking at the possibilities could be, I started talking to my therapist. My therapist has ADHD and I was like, a lot of this, some of this ADHD stuff, like, I didn’t know. I, I only knew the stereotype of the very hyper little boy who interrupted all the time and was very loud. And in just educating myself, which is one of my favorite things about being autistic is that if I have interest in something, I will go down all the rabbit holes and go learn about it and it’s fun. But I was like, I think I have ADHD. And I talked to my mom, my mom was like, “oh yeah. A doctor actually diagnosed me with that like couple of years ago.” And I was like, that’d be real good to know.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, wow.

Brianne Leeson: That would be great to know, because it’s hereditary. But my therapist has ADHD and he’s known me since I was a teenager. And he was like, “yeah, uh, Yeah. Why don’t you work on getting someone to, to like assess that and see someone, and I’m just going to treat it as though you already know. And we’re going to work on, on stuff to help you out in that capacity, understanding your brain better.”

So the first doctor I went to was a terrible experience. I got told I was severely depressed, that my only option was to go on antidepressants. And I was like, I’m not, “I’m not depressed though. Like, I, I, I know.” And that was a dead end and I had to kind of stop for a little bit cause I’m like, why, why does no one believe me? And finally my partner went looking and said, “Hey, you can start this assessment by filling out this info to give to them. And then they’ll say, okay, we think it will be worth your time to see you.” And I got a call the next morning going, “hey, we think it’s really worth your time to, to actually make an appointment for an assessment.” So I did, and there was such relief when I finally had the appointment and the doctor’s like, “you very clearly have ADHD. You have all of these complex coping strategies that you’ve learned to help sort of function. And they’re not here anymore because of the pandemic. Like a lot of them aren’t. So of course you’re having more trouble focusing.”

And that helped quite a bit. I chose to go on medication to help me, and there was a marked difference in things, and it gave me sort of the space to come up with new strategies to help myself just to function every day. I finally had that space to think about it. But that wasn’t quite, that wasn’t quite all the puzzle.

Carolyn Kiel: I feel like the pandemic probably uncovered or dot a lot of people questioning, well a lot of things, I guess in general, but especially around their neurodivergence, because as you said, your routines are disrupted or your life is disrupted. It’s interesting because you started talking about feeling or experiencing what you always thought were like panic attacks and things like that. So I guess in retrospect, do you feel like maybe those were more like autistic meltdowns or shutdowns?

Brianne Leeson: A hundred percent autistic meltdowns. And historically looking back at my life, I was far more prone to shutdowns because my meltdowns were seen as me misbehaving and I, it was not safe to have them. And I was like, I don’t quite understand why I’m having them now. But my therapist brought up a good point and said, “you’re safe. Your brain knows you’re safe.”

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Brianne Leeson: “You’re at home. You’re with people who love you. Your, your brain is safe to do the thing that it’s doing to let you know, Hey, there’s too much. I’ve taken too much. I can’t do this.” Which has been interesting cause I’ve, I shut down far less than I did for the other 30 years of my life, just knowing like, Hey, I’m, I’m safe. This is not a tantrum. Like it’s not a direction. Everybody here knows I’m not mad at them. I’ve just had enough. And having that support, it’s really changed because I rarely have shutdowns anymore. And that’s historically what I would have for 30 years.

Carolyn Kiel: That is interesting that it’s the whole safety. Because I think that it sometimes gets viewed as well, why is someone having the meltdown when they’re home? Is something wrong at home? It’s like, no. Home is like the safe place where you can actually release your feelings and express yourself and, you know, just sort of react. You don’t have to hold it in.

Brianne Leeson: Exactly. Exactly.

Carolyn Kiel: You got the ADHD diagnosis and started treatment for that. But you said that that wasn’t everything necessarily. So how did you kind of get on the track and start thinking about potentially autism as a possibility?

Brianne Leeson: Yeah, I started following a bunch of accounts that would share research about ADHD. And naturally a lot of them had information about autism also, since so many people have both. And the first thing that really had me going, ooh, uh, okay, was something about hyperlexia. And I was like, what’s this? Let me, let me look at that. And reading it was, it was like reading about my childhood. I started reading at least to some degree at two. By the time I got to kindergarten, I was reading at like a middle school level. And they were like, “cool. Nothing suspicious here. She doesn’t communicate with the other kids well while speaking, but she can read really well. That’s super.”

But a lot of how I spoke was mimicking phrases I’d heard. And I, I couldn’t use those words in isolation. I couldn’t. But I was, I was doing a lot of mimicry of stuff. At two, if I wanted to talk to someone, I would say, “we need to have a discussion,” because I’d heard an adult say it. I was like, oh, if I want attention and someone to talk to me, that’s what I do. But looking at that and looking at 80% of people who are hyperlexic are also autistic, those numbers certainly suggest that I might be autistic.

And I think the thing that really pushed me to is seeing a very well done Venn diagram of ADHD and autism and noticing just how much of the autism side I related to. Far too much to be coincidental. And now looking at it, knowing more about autism and knowing more about what repetitive behaviors look like, knowing more of, h alf of the things I do for hobbies are stimming. Knowing all of that, it’s the entire autism side. So that, that pushed me to say, oh, I need to look into this. Like I need to.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

And it sounds like what you’re describing is like echolalia or echolalia. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, but in terms of sort of repeating and learning those phrases from either books or hearing them, which is another very common thing with autism. And it’s interesting how that coincides with hyperlexia as well at a young age.

Brianne Leeson: That part has been so interesting for me. My degree is actually in linguistics. So the language learning part about Gestalt learning, where you’re learning the big chunks of, of phrases and stuff versus the small components first. I was like, oh yeah, that’s how I learn. And like when I’m learning other languages, that’s also how I learned those other languages. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that’s fascinating. I only recently heard about Gestalt learning. Like I had never heard of it until actually, you know, started learning more about autism and speech and learning language and like, oh, it’s like a totally different way to, to learn language. And I don’t think one that’s taught in schools very often. I mean, maybe more so now because I’m starting to hear about it. .Interesting.

So then what was your experience like getting the autism diagnosis? Cause I know sometimes that can be tricky too, to find the right service or provider to be able to do that with adult women especially.

Brianne Leeson: It was, it was hard. There wasn’t anyone locally who seemed to want to do screenings for adults that used metrics that weren’t just, “here’s the same test we give children, bring in your parents, do this. When you’re done, sign up with one of our ABA therapists.”

Carolyn Kiel: Whoa.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah, yeah. So I was like, mmmmmm, and I was getting really discouraged because I was like, I don’t know that I’m going to find anyone. But my partner helped, found someone who would do telehealth stuff. As all of it goes, it’s astronomically priced just because that’s the world we live in right now, but we saved up to make it happen.

For me, I sought an official diagnosis because I knew for myself, I think with my own trauma, I would not believe it without someone who is an expert and a professional telling me, “yes, like it’s not in your head. Yes.” So I chose to go that route for myself because I knew I would not give myself that compassion of being like, “Hey, this is true. You can make these adjustments” if I didn’t.

So we found someone and I started doing the vast, vast number of screenings and tests and stuff over a few weeks. I actually was having to stop in the middle of a lot of these to go, ” this is what everyone does, right? Like on this question, everyone works this way.” And it was emotional just going through those questionnaires. Because I’m like, “everybody does this, like, everybody does this, right?” And I was asking my husband who was like, “I don’t know, I do that too.” Well, since then we’ve discovered, oh, he’s autistic also. So he was not much help giving me, like, “I don’t know, I do that. It seems normal.”

And even with all that, I was having a lot of imposter syndrome during that. But, while I was working on it, we had a big freeze here in Texas. It was that February that it was all over national news, that the power had gone out. The power grid had gone down. We were one of the few lucky ones who still had power. But I was like, “ah, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not autistic. Maybe I’m answering these in a way to make it so it says I’m autistic, because I’ve researched too much.” And I was doing all of that.

And I found, so, I mean, it seems inconsequential, but I found myself out of hot sauce in the middle of this freeze and unable to go get more. I had trouble eating anything until we could get to the store again. Because when I would think of same foods, I was like, yeah, kid who eats like chicken nuggets, and someone who does this. But I’m sensory seeking. And without something being heavily spiced with hot sauce, I’m not going to eat it. So I struggled to eat for like four days during this freeze, because we couldn’t get more. And I was like, “I want to eat and I can’t make myself eat this. It is a sensory nightmare.” And I was like, that’s the moment I said, I’m autistic. Because I don’t want to be doing this right now, but like, I can’t help it. So that was really the moment where I accepted it before my diagnosis was even final.

Carolyn Kiel: I mean, it’s interesting because even with the concept of same foods, I guess people tend to think of autistic same foods as like very bland foods. Like those tend to be my safe foods. I always eat like the same soggy, bland cereals, or like, that’s the type of stuff I like. But I guess that’s part of the reason why they say autism is a spectrum.

Brianne Leeson: And also learning that a lot of the concepts are like, very Anglo centric too. So I’m a quarter Puerto Rican. My grandma lived with us growing up. Like my same foods are like rice and beans, like Puerto Rican rice and beans. And like, I always have it in my fridge. Like I make it every week, all the time. And to me, I just thought, that’s how I was raised. You always have it in the fridge. I do have to have it, or I’ll have trouble finding anything to eat. But even a lot of the ideas about what same foods look like, what these repetitive behaviors look like. It’s very plugged into one type of person.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And that’s what sometimes makes autism so challenging to diagnose. If you’re working with someone who isn’t like a little white boy, like, like middle-class, or you know, that, that demographic that most of the research has been based on for so many years.

So you wound up getting your autism diagnosis after, after that. Yeah. I mean, how has life changed since then? Have you been able to make, you know, either adjustments or accommodations for yourself? Or has it sort of changed the way that you think about yourself?

Brianne Leeson: It has changed absolutely everything, just absolutely everything. I’m restructuring my life to be more friendly to my brain. Because there are so many things where I thought I was just, I was just bad at doing stuff, like grownup stuff that’s easy for other people. I got told that like, “well, everyone hates doing that. Like everyone hates doing this, but you just have to.” But no, learning that, no, it is actually harder for you than the people who are telling you that it’s just an annoying thing and you have to live with it.

So there’s so much that I’ve changed. Like I’ve, I’ve restructured how I do things. I’ve lost a lot of friends since then, because I’ve set boundaries that I said, “Hey, I, I dealt with this for a long time. I thought it was not a big deal.” And I’ve lost friends, but I’ve also grown a lot closer to the ones who, who are like, “yeah, no, I get that. Like, I understand. I understand why you need that. I’m going to do my best.” So yeah, everything’s changed. And some days I think I have a better handle on things. And then other days I remember something that happened and I go, oh, that was, that was because I’m autistic. Like they did this because I’m autistic or they didn’t listen.

Or I didn’t understand that they got subtext out of this. Like learning, I learn all the time, like there are things that I thought like, “oh, I’m just, I’m saying this.” And then I learned from someone who’s allistic like, “no, when we say that, it’s never a good thing.” So, uh, I think the one example is like me learning, when I want to know why someone’s doing something a certain way, because maybe I’m not understanding everything, I’ll ask, “so why would you do it this way?” And someone got upset. And I said, oh, now understanding about subtext, I go, “do you think I was asking because I thought the way you were doing it didn’t make sense? No, I want to know why, so I can learn more. I want to know why this is the way you do this.” And they were like, “oh, for allistic people, that’s almost always telling a person that you think the way they’re doing it is bad.” And I was like, “oh no, oh no. This explains three or four different situations that I can recollect at the moment. All right.” And I, I keep finding myself learning things like that. So I thought I was really good at masking and really good at sort of interpreting things, but I, I was not as good as I thought.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. The social interactions are just, there’s so many challenging things around it. Like for me, it’s like everything is like mapped out in my head. Like I tend to be very sensitive to that. So I’m probably like over in the other direction where like, I just literally don’t talk much at all in social situations. I’m like, I just will sit here and listen, because I don’t know what to say or when to participate and sometimes I’ll just completely say the wrong thing. That whole intersection of like the words and the tone, and then like some people take it one way. I dunno, it’s, it’s very complicated. I spend a lot of time like thinking through like, all right, how am I going to have this conversation?

Brianne Leeson: Constantly, and that’s another thing. I thought everyone did that. And I think the best way I’ve described it to people is. It’s like I’m being given these math problems to solve while I’m talking to you. And I suck at math. And when you start adding more people into the setting, you have all these other people giving me more math problems. And again, I thought it was like that for everyone.

I usually find myself talking a lot in the social situations and usually being put in charge of things, even though I don’t want to. Like learning I’m autistic explains why so many people were like, “you’re really assertive and you’re, you’re kind of blunt and kind of mean.” It’s those thin slice judgements of like, “this is your face. You’re not looking at me like this. You were really direct about something.” And it’s like, “I was direct with you because I respect you. And it’s the truth. And I, I thought that was better.”

And I was very concerned for a long time. Even like with my clothes, my clothes have changed because I’m like, I didn’t actually like doing all these things cause they’re uncomfortable. But one of the big things whenever I got clothes was okay, make sure you’re making yourself look more approachable. And I was like, Hey, a lot of people don’t think about that. But I always got told, I look scary. I look mean, so I was very like, very focused on trying to look approachable. And just a lot of stuff, I was like, why didn’t it ever click to me that that’s not what everyone else was doing?

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And part of the challenge is that the whole concept of, you know, every time you say something, it’s like, “oh, everybody does that. Or everybody feels like that.” Which is people trying to make, I guess they’re trying to make you feel better? But at the same time it makes you like, “oh, well I guess everybody does that.” But people don’t realize it’s not to the same extent. Like “everybody feels nervous in a social situation where they don’t know everyone.” It’s like, well, okay, maybe? But not everybody has to like script out the conversation and have like all the topics like pre-planned before they get there, you know, so that they can function at this thing.

Brianne Leeson: Not everyone is Googling it.

Carolyn Kiel: Yes! Not everyone’s like hanging out in the bathroom, taking breaks like every 20 minutes. Yeah, even for me, like I had a certain degree of imposter syndrome around my own autism diagnosis and still do sometimes. It’s like, well, maybe everybody feels that way. Maybe that’s normal.

Brianne Leeson: I was having a particularly bad imposter syndrome night the other night. And I was like, maybe the doctors were wrong. And then one of our smoke alarms chirped, and I immediately was like, if it chirps again, I’m going to pull out my spine and throw it at the wall, I swear to God!

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Brianne Leeson: And, uh, one of my partners was like, I’m on it. I’m on it. I’m on it. I’m on it. I’m on it. I got it. I got it. Don’t worry. And I was like, All right. That made my spine go eeeh. And I’m definitely autistic.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s the worst with the chirping . Because we had a situation like that years ago, where for some reason at our house, like our smoke detectors were like, they were like too far up for me to reach, to like easily change the battery. And like, it was going off like intermittently for like two or three days. And I was just like, totally beside myself, like not even like functioning!

Brianne Leeson: I would rather, I would rather the smoke alarms just scream, feed me batteries! I would rather it just scream that.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, yeah, that would be easier to handle, I think, than that like randomized cheeping noise. I relate specifically to that one. Oh my gosh.

And so you are a voice actor, you do a lot of podcasts and audio drama work, and you created the show called Today’s Lucky Winner, and it has a main character who is autistic, which is interesting. Because I think you started the show before you got your diagnosis, from my understanding.

Brianne Leeson: So in getting my diagnosis and like working things out in therapy, I realized, oh my God, the two main characters are very clearly my autism and my ADHD, like, like very clearly. And I said, well, I have to put the name on. I have to give them those names to describe them. I have to do that now. Because there are so many characters that I latched on to, so many comfort characters I had growing up that are very, very clearly coded as autistic with autistic traits, but no one ever called them that. And I think if there had been a single time where someone had said, Hey, uh, Willow from Buffy is autistic. Or, you know, hey, like, oh, this character is autistic. I would have known earlier. I would’ve known far earlier because I would see people that reminded me of myself, that weren’t just a straight white little boy being called autistic. So I, I was like, yeah, it’s important that I put the names on it. It’s very important.

So I decided to just casually mention in an episode like, that character’s autistic. And now, I’ve had her have a meltdown in a situation and had the ADHD character help her. I’ve very deliberately, very deliberately shown that. And then also shown she’s not just a list of deficits. This is part of why she’s so great.

So I actually had someone who listens to the show reach out, and they’re 17. And they said, “Hey, like I went to go get an assessment, and I got diagnosed with ADHD. Up next is the autism assessment, but with everything I’ve read and everything I’ve done, like I know I’m autistic. And I see myself in Dawn,” who’s the autistic character. And then they thanked me and they’re like, “this is probably one of the most important podcasts I’ve ever listened to in my life. Thank you.” And I was, I was weeping, of course. I was weeping. But it’s like, this is why I wanted to name it. Like, that’s why it’s important.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. I feel like the only autistic characters in media, and I don’t even know if I’m even familiar with that many that are explicitly named as autistic, just throughout the decades of media I’ve been consuming. They’re all like that very flat sort of singular stereotype. Like basically the Rain Man stereotype.

Brianne Leeson: Or a robot or an alien.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Brianne Leeson: Because I’m a, I’m a Trekkie and I’m like, I love Data.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh yeah.

Brianne Leeson: Data’s the best. And then, like a very common joke when I’m watching Star Trek with my partner, if Spock’s involved, Spock will say something and my partner will be like, “okay, Bria. Okay, Bria.” So yeah, we, we don’t get to be human a lot of the time. And when we are human, it is the Rain Man stereotype.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And then meanwhile, there are so many other characters that are autistic coded, or that the autistic community tends to regard as this is likely an autistic character. But yeah, it makes a difference to come out and say it, especially so that you get other representations of what autism and ADHD look like in people. So that, you know, listeners like yours can recognize themselves and be like, oh, this is what autism looks like. Because it wasn’t until I started reading blogs about women who were writing about what it looked like in girls and in women. And it’s like, well, was this your experience as a girl? And it’s very different from the stereotype. Like I never thought of being like called very sensitive and intense as like autism characteristics. I’m like, well, I guess I’m just like too sensitive. But then I’m like, oh, okay, well that could be autism.

It is really important to have that, that kind of representation. And I feel like there are all these shows centered around autism with like more autistic characters. I don’t watch them. I hear about them. I am not sure that I would even enjoy a lot of them. Like I’m like, I don’t know.

Brianne Leeson: Love on the Spectrum, I tried. And I’m like, this is made for allistic people.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Brianne Leeson: I forget what it’s called. There’s a new one on Amazon, and in an article from the creator, he said, well, I consulted with Autism Speeks and I was like, I’m out.

Carolyn Kiel: No!

Brianne Leeson: So, yeah, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of media that actually names autism.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And a lot of shows are trying to do the right thing by like, you know, having a consultant, let’s say they’re not from autism speeks, but like somewhere else who are like actually autistic consultants, and maybe even autistic actors. But if you don’t have autistic writers and producers, like you’re still gonna have that bias because whoever’s writing the lines, even if the actor’s autistic, it doesn’t come out the same.

Brianne Leeson: Right. Right. I think having an autistic person using language the way we do, I think it very clearly changes, changes how things are. I think it’s so easy to make someone a caricature of what the writer perceives autism to look like when they’re not autistic.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Oh, definitely. And so your show, you’re a voice actor on the show and you’re, you write the show. So you have a lot of creative direction into the show. So yeah, I mean, that’s really powerful to be able to, to explicitly name those characters and say that one is ADHD, one is autistic and just have people identify with them.

Tell me a little bit about the show. Cause we described it, I think, as a queer supernatural audio drama. So tell me about like how you got the idea for the plot and how you put that together.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah. So one thing, being both ADHD and autistic, things never come to me in order. I have notebooks that, that look like ramblings of, of just someone who you’re like, did someone write this while under the influence? No, it’s just, I have random scenes and random thoughts, and I write them down. Some of them are drawings.

I also learned what hyperphantasia is after my autism diagnosis. That is when the picture in your head is very vivid. So when I picture something, it’s extremely vivid, like I can see it. I can imagine what the smells and the sounds are like. And I, I got on the elliptical one day because exercising is one of my stims. And a little bit in, I had the very first scene of my show pop into my head. And then I went, oh, well, this drawing I did of this crusty punk lady goes with this. And this little concept I wrote out goes with this. So I got done working out and I was like, go write all this down. And yeah.

So the show follows Dawn Menendez, who after a freak hair straightener, smoke alarm, sprinkler accident, dies and finds herself at the DMV, which is the Department of Mishaps and Violence. She is the 777th soul reaped by her Reaper that day. So she has won a year back on Earth in a different body to do whatever she wants before she goes to her place in the afterlife. And she is chaperoned by her Grim Reaper, who I voice. But before Dawn is sent for her year as a lucky winner to go back to Earth, she learns that she did something in her life that means that she’s going to go to a hell dimension after her year is over. And she can’t imagine what she did. So her first night back on Earth, things happen and her Grim Reaper Rita says, hey dude, I think you were actually murdered. So. If she can prove to the DMV that she was murdered, she gets to be reincarnated and avoid hell. So it is her and her Grim Reaper, Rita, who I voice, who is ADHD incarnate. All of my self-medicating ADHD behaviors, she encapsulates. But they try to solve her murder before the year is over.

It’s funny. It constantly gets described as chaotic, whenever anyone talks about the show. The fantasy of it that I tried to kind of show now is, Hey, what if we lived in a world where if you are ADHD or autistic, people understood you and didn’t see you as a list of deficits and did their very best to be the best friend to you they could be? So the show’s all over the place. There’s a pharmaceutical company run by vampires. The guy you meet in the afterlife is named Kyle. There are shape-shifting demons. There’s a goat man who sings songs. It’s all over the place, but it, it brings me a lot of, a lot of joy and I make it with my cast of friends, including one who composes original music for the show. It’s really fun.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s cool. And so does it take place, and you mentioned demons and shapeshifters, is that the spirit realm or does it take place on Earth?

Brianne Leeson: It takes place in Dallas, Texas. Yeah. I, I kind of also wanted to show sort of like, here are a bunch of queer people who are the people who are here in Texas, who regardless of what gets voted in, regardless of what happens, like these people live here too. So it’s showing, it’s showing people like this is, this is the part of Dallas that I’m in. Like, these are my sort of people.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that sounds really like creative and fascinating and that’s such a cool story. Cause it’s like, it’s like a little bit of true crime and like a lot supernatural and like a lot of different themes.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah. I think one of the most succinct descriptions I’ve seen someone on Reddit describe it as was, ” like Buffy, but for stoners.” So. I was like, that’s fair. That’s totally fair.

Carolyn Kiel: Does it run in seasons or how do you structure the show?

Brianne Leeson: It does run in seasons. We’re about to put out episode 10 of season two. There are 30 episodes for season one. I, yeah. I originally had planned this as a comic book and I switched gears to audio drama. But I hadn’t really listened to audio drama when I had started doing it, apart from a few like BBC radio plays. So I was like, yeah, I’ll just write this many episodes for a season, which is not the number people usually do for a season of audio drama. But I think one of the gifts of writing being my special interest is like, no, I can pump out a bunch of scripts and get this written without a lot of problem. It’s fun. If I don’t get to spend an hour or two on it every day, it’s like, ugh, it wasn’t a very good day, was it?

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, wow. That’s great. Yeah. That’s great to be able to write so much and to have it come so easily and just really energize you as well.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: So it sounds like you’ve gotten really good response from the show. I mean, you mentioned that one listener who started going for her ADHD and autism assessments after listening to that. I guess any other responses? Like, do you have a lot of fans kind of contact you or, or follow you?

Brianne Leeson: We have a Patreon now. And part of the Patreon rewards is getting access to the discord for the show and most of the people are ADHD and or autistic. They were listening before I even named the characters that. And it’s like, we really do find each other. Like we find stuff that resonates with us.

Like I know there are a lot of artists and writers that since my diagnosis, I’m like, oh, Hey, they were autistic too. Like, I love the Talking Heads. Oh yeah, David Byrne. Like, like just thinking about things I enjoy and thinking about those people are very likely autistic. And that’s been really cool just to see people who are the kind of people that wouldn’t have been represented otherwise, like interested in the show.

Things have gone so well that my partners and I started a production company, so we could do more audio dramas, more podcasts. So I have, I have a new idea that my brain is stuck on. So I’ve also been writing a second audio drama lately. But yeah, the show’s going really well and the response has been way better than I could’ve ever imagined. I think writing the show helped me sort of process what I needed to, to even come to my own autism diagnosis.

Carolyn Kiel: Interesting. Yeah. So is it sort of the act of writing? Because if you’re writing an autistic character, even if you, maybe you’re not aware when you start out that the character is autistic, but I guess sort of writing in your own experiences and seeing it reflected in this other character, is that helpful to help process it?

Brianne Leeson: Yeah. Cause even toward the beginning, I described her as like: didn’t have really a lot of friends, not because she’s not likable at all. It was just almost easier not to, because people were kind of exhausting and she would rather focus on things that she likes, like playing video games and like whatever her special interests are . Tardigrades, and just a bunch of stuff that I’m like, oh, I, I was writing about how I feel about a lot of things. Like basically for her she’s like, I could go try to connect with people more, but that doesn’t usually go well. So being lonely is a little easier. So I was like, oh, I was working on some stuff, wasn’t I? So now when I write something I’m like, uh oh, no? No, I don’t think that’s actually me! I think I’m just writing that. Okay. Cause sometimes I have to go, hold on.

Carolyn Kiel: It makes you more aware as you’re

Brianne Leeson: I was like, where does that come from, Brianne?

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Wow. Well that sounds, that sounds great. So where can people find your audio drama, Today’s Lucky Winner, and listen to it?

Brianne Leeson: Yeah, it’s on all the podcast platforms. Our social media, it’s just at luckywinnershow, but we’re on, we’re on all the big platforms. We’re 10 episodes in, it’s hard for me to remember how far in we are, cause I’ve written so far ahead. I’m like, hold, hold on. Wait, which one are we actually on? Episode 10 will be out as of June 1st.

You have to start from the beginning. Our sound quality gets better as we go, because it was five different people in five different places, trying to all sound like we’re in the same room. And everyone has much differing equipment, but we’ve, we figured that stuff out. Everyone’s been so great, working on sound quality and learning.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. That’s definitely a challenge with editing. And then with, you know, with audio dramas you obviously have, like, you know, the music that gets put in, like sound effects and any other sort of things. And it’s a lot.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah. So much, so much stuff. I’ll see other podcasters show their editing sort of screen. And it’s got like, ah, here are five tracks and I’m like, oh. Five! Ah, okay. But both of my partners work on the show with me and my husband does the sound design and he’s also autistic and picked it up so quickly. He’s like, yeah, this is like the Nickelodeon Movie Maker I used as a kid. I can figure this out. And now he’s like, Hey, I simulated a car crash. Or, hey, I did this. And I’m like, how did you do that?

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well that sounds fantastic. Like a lot of really great work goes into it and it sounds like just a really, really great show. So yeah, I’ll put a link in the show notes to the main website for it, and obviously you can get it wherever you find your podcasts.

Brianne, I really enjoyed talking with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your story about, you know, ADHD and autism and sharing your experiences around creating just such a unique audio drama that’s really inspiring and, and, and really helping a lot of people, it sounds like, which is really, really awesome. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Brianne Leeson: I just always, whenever I talk about autism is that if it resonates with somebody, the autism or the ADHD part, please, please look into it. Maybe not an official diagnosis, cause that has its own hurdles, but please look into it. Because it’s, it is very freeing to know that there’s nothing wrong with you. And I think it would save a lot of autistic lives if more autistic people knew they were autistic.

Carolyn Kiel: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, self-diagnosis is valid, we always say that in the community, because there are so many obstacles and challenges a lot of times to diagnosis, but yeah, absolutely look into it. Just learning about it is really eye-opening because it’s so different, likely it’s very different than any perception you have in your mind before you learn anything about it.

Brianne Leeson: Yeah, exactly.

Carolyn Kiel: Well, thanks so much, Brianne, for talking with me today, it was so fun.

Brianne Leeson: Thank you.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.