Tw // Blight Parents , Amity , abuse

Why Amity Blight has ADHD: a thread written by a medically diagnosed ADHD person

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 6, so I’ve been dealing with it for quite a while. Amity is one of my favorite characters in The Owl House, and I wanted to make a proper thread one why I think she has ADHD.

First off, let’s start with a fair warning: this is only my opinion. Everyone is not the same, so of course not everyone with ADHD will have the exact same experience.

I’m going to be reviewing and breaking down these specific symptoms that I've seen in her, symptoms that I’ve recorded from myself.

The symptoms in question are:

Masking
Daydreaming
Highly sensitive to noise and touching
Hyper-talkative
Stimming
Hyperfixation
Seems to get easily upset
Verbally/physically impulsive

Masking

Throughout the periods of time we’ve seen Amity’s character, I can say that, like me, she often masks. Masking is when you really don’t know how to process your emotions or how to show them, so you choose to put on a neutral face instead.

We’ve seen this on multiple occasions. In Hootys Moving Hassle, at the beginning, when Boscha is bullying Willow. Boscha starts teasing Willow, and Amity steps in in a rather cruel, but still way. She has a slacked face, eyes slightly raised, mouth relaxed, eyes slightly lidded.

This is seen again at the end of Hooty’s Moving Hassle, when Amity is seen sitting on her windowsill and looking out. Her eyebrows are raised, mouth relaxed, looking slightly annoyed. She’s masking her obvious disappointment at not being able to even conjure up a doll.

She’s obviously restraining herself from showing negative emotions on her face most of the time.

Daydreaming

Amity clearly likes fiction a lot. She likes Azura, and another theory I’ve seen is that she dyed her hair slightly more teal to match Azura’s. Due to the probable neglect and definite abuse from her parents, Amity probably wants to escape.

In Lost In Language, she explicitly says “I wish I had somewhere to go.” In that fact, I think she often daydreams about a simpler life with lower expectations. In AITE, she gets so distracted by Luz in a daydream-like manner that Edric manages to sink her entirely in snow.

Highly sensitive to touching

Starting through IWATA, Amity has shown that she usually does not like touching unless she incites it. This is a rather common thing for me, as it’s unexpected for me and unpleasant unless I’ve invited it/am expecting it.

When we first see her, she touches Willow when she invites it. When Willow takes her badge, the professor comes over to take it, and Amity recoils and reaches out in shock.

In Covention, when Luz bumps into her, Amity instinctively snaps at her, and looks disgusted at Luz even being there once she realizes who she is. When Luz sticks out her hand to shake it, Amity follows Luz’s hand with her eyes, looking disgusted and moving further back from Luz.

The touch from Luz was uninvited, so she was surprised and sensitive to it. When Luz challenges her to a witches duel, Amity steps so close to her they’re practically touching each other’s noses, and this is fine with her because Amity invited that touch.

The next instance we see in this is in Lost In Language. Amity gets shocked when Luz is standing close to her, looking once again, with disgust at her.

Even through Wing It Like Witches (though that may be added by the overwhelming troubles of being gay), when Luz is standing close to Amity, Amity quite literally falls over.

She stops holding hands with Luz in Understanding Willow, and recoils when Luz comes to yell at her for destroying Willow’s memories.

Hyper-talkative

Amity manages to quiet down this trait quite a bit through the show, as she only talks when invited into it with Boscha. In WILW, she blabs on and on around Luz, quickly realizing it with a “i’ve been talking for too long”.

She overshares with Luz about her background with grudgby, and opens up to Luz very quickly with over-sharing.

Stimming

This is another trait Amity manages to calm. I doubt ADHD exists in the Boiling Isles, so she probably never got diagnosed. I think that she thought of this as another imperfection that she needs to shun, so she probably learned to hide this.

Though, I have 3 instances of (probable) stimming. Remember that these may be a stretch and me wanting to project upon her.

First: Convention

In covention, we see Amity seem genuinely happy for the first time, and as she gets a rapid burst of excitement from Bump saying she was plausible to join the Emperor’s Coven.

She gets so happy that she leans forward, squeals happily and clenches her hands tightly together. This is a form of stimming that I use, making squeaks and clenching my hands.

Second: The first time in WILW

After Amity scores a goal for her, Luz and Willow’s team, She says, “Yeah-haha!!’ And jumps up and down happily- note, clenching her hands again. The rapid jumping and clenching of hands, along with the audible outburst, suggests she’s stimming.

Third: The second time in WILW

When Amity is injured by Boscha, and Luz and Willow run over to help, Amity turns to face Luz. As soon as Luz offers to help carry Amity, she she flaps her hands on her knees, which is another form of stimming that a few people I know use.

Hyperfixation

It’s safe to say that Amity is good at school. I would assume that, before she discovered Azura, she had a hyperfixation on school, which caused her to rise through the ranks.

When she discovered Azura, she turned her hyperfixation to that, which caused her to lose interest in school. Amity seems to like Azura, because it’s plausible she dyed her hair teal-green to match Azura (along with her mother’s pressure).

I think that Amity started to hyperfixate on understanding herself and her feelings along with Azura, and how to control her emotions.

I think Amity probably hyperfixated on grudgby, which is why she was so concerned with winning that she used a different move, (FROM AZURA) to win the game, without caring that her teammates could get hurt.

Seems to get easily upset

Even though Amity tends to mask her emotions very well, I can say that she probably feels things very deeply. In IWATA, she got upset over losing a badge, so much she tried to have Luz dissected and Willow get in trouble.

In Covention, she got so upset over Luz being there she challenged Luz to a duel which could have affected her status with the Emperor’s Coven. During Lost In Language, she got upset at Luz becoming friends with Edric and Emira...the list goes on.

Basically, Amity has a set of rules in her mind of how things should be, and tends to get upset over things not going exactly like that.

Verbally and physically impulsive

This is probably the thing I struggle with most myself, being verbally and physically impulsive.

In IWATA, Amity is so desperate to get the students and professor to like her more and present her abomination, that she interrupts the professor to show off. She later, very impulsively, quite literally jumps on a table and screams at Luz, shaking her rapidly.

Amity proceeds to order a barrage of abominations towards Luz and Willow, all because she lost a badge. In Covention, she impulsively agrees to a witches duel, and then runs off when she gets embarrassed.

In AITE, Amity locks Luz up in a magical cage to stop her from getting hurt, putting herself in danger instead of Luz. She goes after the Slitherbeast by herself.

In Understanding Willow, she gets so panicked that she burns herself out of Willow’s memories, and immediately regrets it.

In Enchanting Grom Fright, she runs off from embarrassment, again, and quite literally throws herself in-between Luz and Grom with no perception of danger for herself.

In Wing it Like Witches, she is shown to have impulsively used another (unplanned) battle attack, from Azura, in the grudgby match without thinking about how it would affect her teammates. She also joins the team with Luz even after having sworn off it for (presumably) years.

And finally, I think it would make amazing representation! Luz is (in my opinion) heavily-adhd coded, and having her end up with Amity would be two sapphic teenage girls with ADHD, which would be awesome!

Please remember this is all my speculation and I may have stretched a couple of things. I am not a medically trained professional, nor have never diagnosed anyone with ADHD. I am going purely off of my own experiences here.