26/03/2022
I thought it might be time to talk about mental illness from a personal point of view.
I was always so ashamed about my depression, feeling so self-indulgent with nothing physical to show for it. If you have a broken heart or leg you get flowers, with depression you just get a few friends telling you to ‘perk up’. ‘Perk up’, like you never thought of that.
So with mental illness you get a double whammy. The very brain that makes the assessment of what you've got wrong has gone down, so how can you tell what's the matter? It’s like a demon has come in the night and stolen your old personality, leaving a gormless lump locked in a mind numbing frozen hell. If you had a spare brain it could tell you something was wrong, but you don’t.
That’s the bitch about mental illness, you’re always the last to know.
People say to me they can’t believe I could have depression with the fearlessness I seem to have to stand on stage or they think those who run a business or seem to have their lives together surely can’t have something mentally wrong... Let me say this once more, depression or any other mental illness doesn’t care who it hits: rich, poor, old, young, any class; really it’s not picky. I particularly hate when people ask me if comedians have more mental illness than anyone else? I just remind them it’s 1 in 4. There aren’t that many funny people. It’s like saying that all weather girls have shingles.
The idea that this is some exclusive disease keeps the stigma flag flying. Do they think we made it up because we had nothing better to do? “Yeah, I was thinking, should I go to the Bahamas, take up tennis or have a mental illness?"
If someone doesn’t believe you have a mental illness, drop them and walk away. Remember, if it’s not them who has it, it’s a relative or friend so let them figure it out.
Mental health is how you think, act and behave. It’s who you are inside of your skin and decides how you’re going to act outside of your skin. Even when you fake it, it's you.
It's what's running this whole machine, not some lightweight thought bubble. Mental is physical and physical is mental. Mind and body are a onesie.
If there’s too much stress overload going on in the mothership, it will work its way down like a berserk pinball machine. Cortisol (the stress hormone) doesn’t just burn out neurones in the brain, it can burn every organ in your body and is one of the causes of certain cancers, diabetes type 2, heart disease, infertility and premature ageing. So if you think mental health takes second place next to the BIG DISEASES, think again – it could be the cause.
Even though the world is like the worst real life horror show probably ever witnessed in our time, try to walk away from your screens, for a moment, and look out at nature trying to push life back. It knows more than we do. But we are nature and also need light.
You need a mind that thrives if you're going to change the world.
Above the clouds the sun still shines.
