Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: The Doctor (Doctor Who)

*Note: For pronouns, I’ll use they/them when talking about the Doctor in general, then he/him or she/her for specific regenerations.*

This is the first nonhuman character to show up on Neurodivergent Alley, but they won’t be the last. Personally, I’m not opposed to alien/robot/otherwise nonhuman characters being neurodivergent-coded if it’s done well and honestly. As I’ve been getting deeper into exploring my own mind and traits, I’ve naturally been spending a lot of time processing that through fiction and pop culture, as is my wont. I’ve been looking to neurodivergent folks online for direction on finding canon and (especially) headcanon autistic and/or ADHD characters, as well as looking back over various characters who’ve meant such a great deal to me over the years. And surprise, surprise, many that I’ve felt really strongly connected to? Just so happen to have a bunch of neurodivergent traits.

The Doctor is an interesting case, since they’re one continuous person but have also been many people over the course of their lives. As with my (Sort-Of) (Possible) Asexual Sighting for the Doctor, their neurodivergent traits look different depending on the regeneration, but 1) pretty much all of them ping for me in some respect, and 2) when you put all those various presentations across the regenerations, to me, they add up to someone that I’m definitely headcanoning as autistic and ADHD.

Obviously, there are certain traits that are common to all the Doctors. They’re brilliant but easily bored, continually seeking new adventures and living a life that’s far outside the realm of “normal” or “conventional.” They’re intensely interested in visiting new planets, discovering new things, and helping people. Although they rarely have more than two or three friends at once, the bonds they form with them are incredibly strong. They have a passion for justice and a tendency to question rules that are unfair, seem pointless, or simply don’t make sense to them. Their mind is often racing with a million things at once, processing complex problems at lightning speed as they take in all the information around them.

Each of the classic Doctors has their own particularities that work for them. There’s One’s bluntness, Five’s stubbornness, and Seven’s talent for working patterns. Two plays his recorder when he needs to think, Three has little use for authority figures and doesn’t hesitate to tell them so, and Eight giddily stims over how well his new shoes fit. Four is quite simply unexpected in the most delightful way, and Six doesn’t let anyone else’s opinion of him deter him from anything.

Then, of course, we have the new Who Doctors—I’m going to spend the brunt of this piece looking at them, because why not?

Nine can be blunt and dismissive towards those who don’t impress him, but he also has this honesty and intensity that, while off-putting to some, can be thrilling to those who are pulled into his orbit. When Rose asks him why he doesn’t “dance,” he’s focused on the problem at hand and awkwardly replies, “Rose, I’m trying to resonate concrete here.” He’s dealing with a lot of huge emotions as he struggles to process the trauma of the Time War, and he doesn’t always know how to handle that. But when he’s happy, his joy is pure and infectious.

Ten has bundles of energy and boundless enthusiasm for his companions, helping people, and new experiences. He explores the worlds around him in a very tactile, sensory way—in one scene, he licks a door to figure out what it’s been varnished with, and in another, he literally follows his nose in search of missing persons. When he gets going on his special interest, traveling the universe, he could talk for hours and never get tired. He’s more likely than the Doctors that follow him to be taken for simply “quirky,” but that can get him tangled up in social situations he isn’t always sure how to handle. He gets slippery at Rose’s tentative attempts to more clearly define their relationship, and he completely misses that Martha is into him.

Eleven has very little understanding of social cues, whether that’s being bewildered by Amy trying to kiss him, popping out of the cake at Rory’s stag night to explain that Amy kissed him, or not picking up on a single hint when a couple wants some alone time. He feels the most overtly ADHD of all the Doctors: even though he can hyperfocus intently, he gets excruciatingly bored when he’s forced to wait for something and will run around looking for absolutely anything to do. Shortly after his regeneration, he’s trying to figure out what foods he likes now—“new mouth, new rules”—and he cycles through a good half-dozen options before landing on his safe food of fish fingers and custard.

Twelve is exceptionally blunt and can be rude. He occasionally refers to humans as “pudding brains,” and although he’s actually very empathetic, he can struggle to express it in a way that other people recognize—Clara has to remind him not to get so visibly excited about an intriguing mystery when it’s one that people have already lost their lives over. He’s frank about telling you when he doesn’t like something, he often talks aloud to himself, and he gets obsessed when he’s trying to solve a particular problem. He’s the Doctor who seems to have the most difficult time navigating neurotypical society, both in recognizing the cues around him and in the way other people react to his autistic traits.

Side note: even though I don’t think the show intended it this way, you could view Eleven’s regeneration into Twelve as an analogy for unmasking. Especially in his early episodes, it’s clear that Clara doesn’t think of Twelve as the “proper” Doctor and tries to get him to conform to the way he used to be. Not that Eleven seems neurotypical by any stretch, but his neurodivergent traits present in ways that are often more palatable/acceptable to those around him.

Last, for now, is Thirteen. She’s honest about her “social awkwardness,” admitting when she doesn’t know what to say in certain situations. While this generally doesn’t bother her and she charges ahead regardless, it can make her anxious or uncertain at odd moments. She’s exuberant when it comes to describing things she loves, she gets super into tinkering/building stuff, and she can get fixated on deciding what word to use (“Gang? Team? Fam?”) She makes spectacular faces when she’s bored or unimpressed.

With any nonhuman character, autistic-coded traits in particular can sometimes be explained as a result of the character not being human: their ways are literally not our ways, so they might take things overly literally, be unaware of social cues, etc. And again, as long as it’s done well, I don’t mind that. Metaphorical autistic characters are fine with me! But with the Doctor, I want to note that they don’t really fit into their own society either. Stealing a TARDIS and running off to see the universe, and especially “interfering” by helping other people, is completely antithetical to everything Time Lord society is about, but the Doctor couldn’t live any other way. Not to mention, they’re canonically brilliant but barely managed to scrape a passing grade at the Academy, which is big AuDHD energy.

The Doctor couldn’t abide the societal expectations of their world, so they created a radically different new life for themselves where they’re constantly feeding their desire for curiosity and their strong need for justice, all while cultivating a found family in the process. You love to see it, and I can’t wait to discover what all that looks like in the next Doctor!