“I would start my days waking up in physical pain because of the level of anxiety I was feeling,” he adds. “I had a lot of suicidal thoughts,” reveals Chris Gethard, who says in the documentary he spent two years “physicalizing” anxiety dreams in his sleep by clenching muscles or punching. The country’s suicide rate has also increased by 31 percent since 2001, NAMI reports, and it’s now the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 34. “The increase I’ve seen in anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation has skyrocketed,” Wilson says. That’s backed up by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which reports that one in five people will experience some sort of mental illness each year. “I think a lot of people find humor in the darkest places,” she says. In the film, Silverman says it’s not just comedians who are at risk. You create a false front and a mask and you are almost like a performing monkey and you’re expected to be funny. “I hear about people all the time in the comedy world that are really struggling with this issue,” Wilson says. It’s happening under our noses.’ - Rainn Wilson “I became a comedian because I needed to be funny to be liked.”Ĭomedians have long struggled with mental illness, the documentary points out, from the 1997 drug overdose death of Chris Farley - who suffered from depression - to Robin Williams’ 2014 suicide, which shocked the nation. “One hundred percent of comedians become comedians because somewhere in their childhood, they needed to be funny in order to survive,” Silverman says in the documentary. “Oftentimes, people that are funny experience some great trauma as a child or feel tremendously alienated or suffer some kind of depression,” he says, “and this kind of like almost forces them to find comfort in humor.” When he learned he was able to make people laugh, he says it became the “catalyst” to seek a career in comedy, something he believes other entertainers relate to. “I felt incredibly isolated, alienated like I would never fit in.” “I had a lot of family issues growing up - seemingly normal-looking family from the outside but very dysfunctional and extremely unhappy,” Wilson says. Wilson says his own anxiety stems from being abandoned by his mother in Seattle when he was just 2 years old, which is why he calls himself “off” and someone who “doesn’t really fit in.” “They have often dealt with anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideation.” Rainn Wilson Laughing Matters “It’s hard to find a comedian or comic actor or improv actor that hasn’t struggled with these issues at some point in time,” Wilson tells The Post. Released on Mental Health Awareness Day, the documentary presented by Funny or Die is the brainchild of digital media company SoulPancake, which was founded by “The Office” star Rainn Wilson. “Laughing Matters” offers unique insight from stars like Silverman, Neal Brennan, Wayne Brady, Chris Gethard and others about their issues with fame and mental illness. “I mean, I can’t just skate by that - it’s crazy.”īehind the scenes, it isn’t always butterflies and rainbows for the funniest among us. “The psychiatrist who originally put me on it hung himself,” she says. The comedian, who has been open about her battle with depression, reveals that things took a dark turn several times in her life, one of which involved suicide. “They just upped the dose … until I was taking four Xanax four times a day.” “I was put on Xanax at 13,” she says in “ Laughing Matters,” a new documentary that digs deep into the journeys of 12 comedians as they juggle telling jokes and their own struggles with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. When Sarah Silverman was in her teens, she was taking over a dozen Xanax tablets a day.
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