Well, obviously, I don't really know about jobs I didn't get. And entertainment is much more lenient, liberal and understanding about mental health issues than any other industry. (My manager said when I called him from the psych ward- "Oh! I have two other clients with bipolar- call me when you feel better!") If it has, I don't care- I didn't have much to lose by being open about it and it turns out, weirdly, it's been a cash cow, haha.
Related posts tagged 'Mental health'
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Related posts tagged 'Mental health'
It hasn’t always been this way but I feel really lucky that I’ve been able to get here because when you’re in the trauma, you’re just seeing red. You have no idea what’s going on but comedy has really helped me get to this point. I can’t imagine another job that could’ve helped me the way that comedy has helped me work through all of this. I think my trauma response is telling jokes and that is what’s fun about comedy. I can take these really tragic events and I just can’t be mad at what happened because I have this creative outlet that I might not have had if I was sitting in math class paying attention. It’s the dents you have that make you unique and I love being able to do comedy about a...
Ooof, still figuring the mom stuff out! The weird part is, when you grow up with something odd you just think everyone else has it the same way. Around 12 or 13 I realized something was wrong and spent less and less time at home. By the time I was 30 I got my ass into therapy and really figured it out. And yes, separating from her was a huge help. I recommend everyone get their ass into therapy if they feel something is off. It saved my life.
Every few seconds. Yes, of course. OF COURSE. What helps me is community- which means I belong to several 12-step groups, I call people, I've learned the name of every barista at the coffee shop (Brooklyn, Jeremy, Sarah, Angel, Gabby, Lydia, Anja, Matt) and I ask my friends for help A LOT. I need to "bookend" (checking in with someone before and after doing a task) in order to do the simplest 5 -minutes of rehearsal. For reals. It is sometimes setting a timer for 5 minutes, calling my friend Alex and telling him I'm going to rehearse and then rehearsing and calling him again when the timer goes off. It is sometimes EXCRUTIATING to get myself to do things and then, even when I do things, I am...
i really hope so dude. sane people don't try to kill people en masse. theres a mental health epidemic in this country and its very distressing that there's still such a stigma around it. i also hear a lot of misdiagnosis i.e. doctors conflate ADD with schizophrenia, which is a very dangerous mistake. in this book i wrote about my mental health struggles in an attempt to do my part to help remove the shame around mental health challenges. i was harming myself and possibly could have harmed others due to my adrenaline addiction. i really hope one day people won't have to hide or feel ashamed about mental health challenges. its so much more common than we think, and so unfair to the people who ...
I'm pretty happy being me.
That's not to say I don't have my own little demons, but I don't foresee myself going anyplace dark right now.
My kids save me from that stuff. I'm good.
i felt compelled to share my mental health challenges to help take the shame and stigma off it, but i couldn't do it on stage-was just too insecure and nervous. i wanted to write the book that i wish had been available to me when i was suffering--self help books are usually very boring and i wanted to write a cool, funny one! i also wrote about getting my ear getting bitten off and almost getting arrested in guatemala which i couldn't really do while making eye contact with humans
You’ve said you learned in therapy that your compulsive behavior – eating, sex – is just self-medicating your anxiety. Does having that insight help?
Oh, definitely. Once you say that to yourself, “Oh, this is anxiety,” you get to say to yourself, “Why am I anxious?” because when something’s bothering you, you don’t name it, you just start eating something. I’m still going to eat the two Twinkies, but when I start opening the second packet, I say to myself, “What’s going on, buddy?” That will get me to two Twinkies instead of eight.
Q: According to the book The Chris Farley Show, Beverly Hills Ninja depressed Chris Farley a fair amount and put him back in to a bad place that spiraled into his death. Is that accurate? Any sense of that on set?
A: There was no sense of that on the set. I mean, we all were depressed on Beverly Hills Ninja. So we were ALL depressed. It wasn't a great representation of anybody in it.
Related posts tagged 'Success'
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Related posts tagged 'Success'
I suppose I am most proud of the fact that I am still here working in comedy and doing what I love. In life there are a lot of forces that can try to bring you down, but if you stick to your vision and keep at it, you will find success.
I am amazed at my career trajectory. Very seriously. I am a midwestern guy from a family where television and showbiz were not valued in any way and the whole notion of being a part of this business was very strange and hard to conceive of. Having said all of that, I love sketch comedy but I always thought I might actually have more to offer as a performer, in a slightly dramatic context. My favorite sketch performers; Chris Farley, David Cross, Dana Carvey, have a simpler, more likable energy than I do. I can't believe anyone "likes" me. But please, keep putting up with me!
[not remembering his own success] is good, because what that’s allowed me to do is have a vantage point about my own life that’s accessible to people still. I could see a guy walking down the street and be like, Even though I’m famous, I got more in common with this guy than, like, Brad Pitt. You know what I mean? Like, as a comedian, there’s a certain closeness you need with people. I listen to some of Richard Pryor’s shows as an adult, and it’s more remarkable—moments when he’s talking about freebasing and Jim Brown, staging interventions, and just these kinds of bits. Or the one where he says, "He took me in the basement and showed me the monster." I mean, I get chills thinking about that...
You never "make it." That is a mentality that guarantees you'll never be happy. If you are doing it in any capacity, especially for money no matter how much, you are making it, you have never "made it." Trust me. It's one of the many things I'm right about.
I still have the same freedom because i don't care, when I'm writing, that I"m famous. It doesn't help or hurt.
When we did Freaks and Geeks I remember sitting around Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, the four of us was just like, THIS IS IT! WE MADE IT! HOLLYWOOD HERER WE COME! Even though that show was so good, when it first came out a not a lot of people watched it, so we kind of had that moment and it kind of was taken away, and then it was given back to us when it played reruns
It hasn't changed at all. I have an idea, I act it out in my head, and then put it into a dictaphone, usually playing all the parts. The only thing that's changed is expectation. It was nice to come from nowhere. But you just have to put all of that out of your mind, and write like this is your first breakthrough job. And always write about what you know.
Actually most comedians who's success really sticks come to it late in life. It takes a long time to make a really successful comedian and I've known that from the start, truly. I always expected that I'd work in obscurity for a long long time. It's waht it takes and to me it was worth it. I have also alway found new and fun ways to make a living, writing for others, ect.
I don't really think about it. I do my act and tell my stories and the rest just happens. I've done with varying degrees of success and failure and been okay with all of them so I don't worry about how I'm doing i just do what i'm doing.
But I also had this thing where, when I was growing up, I got picked on a lot and I also beat some kids up. [Laughs.] I had a nice balance. I also felt like a freak because of how I looked. And I thought that if I became a comedian, people would see me on stage and go, “Oh, he’s a great, funny guy,” and then everyone would stop fucking with me. I thought that becoming a comic was going to fix these other problems. Of course, it didn’t. I just believed that it would for 15 years.
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