Laughter is NOT the best medicine says comedian

[Music]

[Applause]

it’s 2 a.m

i’m in the yard with my mom

and the nurse comes in and tells my mom

that my brain is bleeding

now i don’t know if i’m gonna die in

five days

or five minutes

but i did not clear my browser history

if you laughed at that joke then you get

my dark sense of humor

i’m a stand-up comedian

and that’s just one of the jokes i tell

on stages all over the world and now on

a giant red dot

about that one time that i almost died

oh that

i’ll explain that later

or maybe i won’t i haven’t really

decided yet

my dad likes to play this game with me

at least i think it’s a game i’m not

really sure

he likes to watch a lot of documentaries

about comedians and he’ll pull me into

the dining room living room and he’ll

say

hey mimi

look at this comedian

they’re dead

now oh this one

overdose

this one

also overdose

and it goes on and on and on

maybe he’s on to something here

turns out in 2015 a group of researchers

out of the uk did a study

and it’s called

does comedy kill

not a joke it’s a real study the people

did

and they found that elite comedians

comedians who are really good at their

craft they actually have a higher chance

of dying younger than those who are not

as good at comedy due to mental health

issues and

trauma and things that probably make

them pretty good at comedy

it’s true comedians are pretty messed up

i won’t lie about that you won’t find a

single member of the snl cast

past or present rip

who doesn’t have some kind of trauma

going on

and comedians use their humor to deflect

that trauma

because if they can get you to laugh at

it it makes them feel just a little bit

better about what they’re going through

i do this too

yeah i’m guilty

when i got out of brain surgery i

woke up and found that i had a catheter

now that’s pretty common medical

practice but to a 22 year old that’s

pretty creepy

i was very scared but what did i do

oh i told my friends it was my secret

potty device

yeah yeah not a single person was

allowed to come in that room until i

told them about it

i was like hey

watch out for that bucket

i’m peeing in it

i don’t know if there’s a bucket i

really don’t have no clue

oh there was the time when

oh i lost 20 pounds of muscle mass

pretty much overnight got really skinny

what did i tell my friends i was on the

brain diet yeah ooh who is she

maybe it’s maybelline maybe it’s a

cavernous angioma i don’t know

and we can’t forget the fact that over

the course of a month i lost

functionality in half my body

and my friends had to

walk me around the block to keep me from

atrophying

and when i say walk i do me drag my

carcass down the street

and i figured you know it’s a great

opportunity to get them to role play

with me and replay that scene out of

forrest gump

from his running days right

i’m tired now i want to go home

and then i make them all go oh no we’re

in the middle of a desert how do we get

home

yeah we are at the mailbox

yeah

so that is what i chose to do

and some of my friends actually didn’t

know i was sick in the first place now

somebody gave this girl an oscar okay

i fooled them all

see while i was out there having fun

making those jokes i skipped about 95

percent of my trauma

just by getting some uncomfortable

sounds out of friends family and those

interns changing out my catheter

yeah

it’s pretty crazy

oh it was so crazy you guys i can’t even

tell you how crazy it is

see

the truth is

laughter is not the best medicine

yeah

it’s not

it’s actually a gateway drug

and like any other drug it is

crazy addictive

yeah see this whole talk this whole time

anytime you’ve been making any kind of

laughter i’m like yes

[Music]

it feels so good

i feel like i’m like just doing crazy

stuff out here

okay

it’s very addictive

yeah

and it’s interesting that my friends and

family didn’t know that i was

as sick as i was actually

actually as i was

because if i was up here on stage and i

was

snoring heroin or shooting cocaine

i don’t know if that’s how you do those

drugs okay i’m gonna be honest

if i was doing that first of all you’d

be like why are you doing that on a

stage that’s weird

but also you’d be worried about me

wouldn’t you at least one in the

audience would call up my mom who’s in

the first row and tell her that i’ve

gone off the rails

okay

now i

did not

always know that laughter was not the

best medicine

i actually found out pretty recently

so i’m a touring comedian now oh hold

your applause oh no i couldn’t possibly

okay

and i was i was headlining a show

that i went on a date

after the show and i was telling my date

about that joke right the one i told at

the very top of this talk the oh no i

hope people don’t find the weird stuff

i’ve been googling

joke

and i started ugly crying

that’s not right

ugly weeping yes

you know when it’s so ugly and your

chins are like a bit you’re like i

almost died i’m so scared

[Laughter]

yes that’s what i was doing and it hit

me then finally then

i’m not over this

not even a little bit

see that trauma i skipped while i was

busy becoming a comedian

it’s still here

it never really went away

yeah

crazy right now i got all kinds of

therapy

when i was in rehab not that kind of

rehab

i don’t do drugs

okay

i got all kinds of rehab

i got therapy physical therapy okay i

got occupational speech

the kind of therapy where they make you

do third grade math problems and ask you

why a train left the station at 10 am

why are we doing this

who even rides a train anymore

i would rather get hit by a train

than solve this math problem

i don’t know i got all kinds of therapy

just not for right here

my favorite story as a child was called

the monster at the end of this book

yeah you know yeah it’s a good one and

in it there’s this cute little blue guy

named grover

and he decides that he does not want to

meet this monster

he’s like oh no

i don’t want to read this book no no no

i don’t need to meet a monster why don’t

we just read harry potter okay no no

you don’t need to turn the page she’s

fine i don’t even know and you’re kind

of a jerk and you you don’t care about

monsters so you just keep turning the

page and turning the page and turning

the page he’s like no please stop

you’re gaslighting me

and you finally get

to the end of the book

and it’s not a monster at all

it’s just grover

cute little blue grover

he’s adorable he couldn’t hurt a fly

and it took me forever to realize this

but i think i’m actually grover

yeah i think i’ve been

terrified

of facing myself

of sitting with those really

uncomfortable

vulnerable icky feelings that are just

below the surface of those very dark

jokes i tell

i mean

talk about self-sabotage

now

i’m not suggesting

that we stop comedy

my jokes are funny even if you don’t

laugh at them okay

but i do think there’s some

opportunities here

and maybe some alternatives

if you’re going through trauma

a brain injury

divorce

you lost your house

maybe you got hit by that train that

left the station at 10 am

it is okay

to not be okay for a while

maybe a long while

it’s okay to ask for help it’s okay to

go to therapy

and it’s necessary to seek out community

you know maybe there are other grovers

out there

who are terrified

of turning that page

and maybe we can all hold each other’s

hands

and we can face ourselves

you guys want to see me put it on

[Applause]

it’s going to look weird i’m just

warning you

you guys want to clap while i’m doing it

[Applause]

now i’m not going to stop telling jokes

okay

but i am going to

keep going to therapy

yeah and i am going to start taking

myself just a little bit more seriously

as the kids say on tick tock thank you

for attending my ted talk

[Applause]

you