How I drew a friend’s AuDHD as five talking squirrels

by | Jul 29, 2026 | blog, comics, content strategy, illustration

Part of a comic strip. A woman surrounded by chatty squirrels.

I drew a comic strip based on a friend’s lived experience with AuDHD.

According to The Cleveland Clinic, “AuDHD is the term used to describe life with both autism and ADHD… In short, having ADHD means it’s harder for you to direct your attention to certain tasks. Autism is more a matter of how you behave and socialize.”

Two years ago, my aforementioned friend, Penny Farrell, sat in on my Draw Your Stutter workshop at STAMMAFest in Nottingham, where I taught participants how to turn their stuttering into a cartoon character.

Although Penny doesn’t stutter, she is a leader in the stuttering community as a speech-language pathologist and facilitator of camps for children who stutter for the Irish Stammering Association. She decided to draw her AuDHD. And she drew it as five squirrels all competing for a podium, a metaphor for her attention in her “brain control centre”.

A pen drawing of 5 cartoon squirrels competing for a place at a podium named "Brain control centre".
Penny’s drawing of her AuDHD as five squirrels competing for the Brain Control Centre podium.
Posted here with permission.

I used Penny’s cartoon concept for the basis of my comic strip. Except instead of a podium, the squirrels pop-up around her peripheral vision and start talking at the same time causing her to lose focus on the person she is talking to.

I worked with Penny throughout the comic strip’s development process. I fleshed out the workplace plot, asked Penny questions on how the squirrels should behave, and made adjustments according to her suggestions until the comic strip accurately conveyed her experiences.

A comic strip in eight panels. A woman is trying to talk to her colleague but five squirrels grab her attention by talking all at once about random things. In the end, she realises she agreed to help her colleague with a project that turns out to be a lot more work than she ever imagined!
The comic strip in its final form. Little did I know two years ago that I’d be collaborating with Penny on a comic strip featuring her creation!

One thing I kept in mind while creating this story is this comic is not a general depiction of the AuDHD experience. It’s a depiction of Penny’s AuDHD experience. As the saying goes, “If you meet one person with AuDHD, you’ve met one person with AuDHD”. The same goes with anything else. It’s important to keep this in mind when developing a story about something that isn’t your lived experience. Which is why I enjoy collaborations like this very much. It’s also a great way to learn something new!

I think this would make a great series. In fact, I have a sequel in the making. If you’d like to publish this series, let’s talk!