I have three heavy hitters in the world of mental mixology. OCD, depression and anxiety: The long island iced-tea of chemically imbalanced cocktails, except instead of waking up and worrying that I got thrown out of a Wetherspoons and said something hurtful to my dog, I lie in bed and cry a little bit. Okay, a lot. They all set in when I started here at uni and I imagine they’ll still be there when I graduate.
My family must have thought I had clambered even further off my figurative rocker when I announced I was doing my first comedy gig. I was hilarious around the dinner table but I couldn’t make small talk with cashiers and would rather peel my own eyes than make a phone call. My last role was in a nativity, and even then I had to have six wees and a Panda Pop before taking to the stage.
This time, I couldn’t even rely on the Bible to provide my material and I would be performing to fellow students instead of doting parents. What would happen if I was awful? A very real concern. Life with a mental illness is like teetering drunkenly along an emotional knife edge trying really hard to stay upright and get as few cuts on your feet as you can along the way.
To spread this tenuous metaphor even further, to the point where it may yield, I found that comedy stabilised me somehow. My brain is still very much like a child’s crayon scribble on a sheet of paper but when I’m onstage I manage to leave it in the dressing room (if i’m lucky enough to get one). I’m a different me. The me I want to be.
I could do with getting everyone I know to fill in a feedback form after every conversation we have to check I did everything right, so when people come up to me post-gig and tell me how much they loved it, it is the best feeling in the world. Every laugh, and they’re never polite laughs in comedy, is a tiny block of validation that builds up the wall of confidence that I never really managed to construct for myself. It’s the same affirmation i get when someone invites me to a thing or messages me out of the blue. For a little while, I’m the things my illness tell me I’m not.
Most of my material isn’t about my health, I’m still working on ways I can make it funny to others, but whether I’m a character or I’m giving an opinion I’d probably feel silly giving in a real life conversation, comedy is now as much a part of my health as my Sertraline, or whatever SSRI i’m forgetting to take that week.
