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
um
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
no
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
uh
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
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
so
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]
oh
you