The Hilarious World of Depression

CPR training has been widely available for many years now and offered in a variety of convenient ways. But what if the problem isn't physical but mental? A new wave of first aid training is rapidly sweeping the world and people are learning what to do and what not to do in a crisis. A driving force in this movement is the pop singer Lady Gaga, whose charitable organization, the Born This Way Foundation, has been offering the training in cities Gaga tours. We talk with that group's co-founder Cynthia Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga's mother, and Linda Rosenberg, President and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health.

Here’s a repeat of an episode originally aired last year. We’re offering this repeat because some things need repeating, such as how to get help for your mental health when you really need it. It’s a conversation with Dr. Ken Duckworth, Medical Director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and it’s practical advice. A lot of people will say “get help” for mental illness; here’s what you can do to make that happen.

The show busts out of studios and quiet intimate spaces for an on-stage performance at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. Comedian Mike Brown joins us for plenty of comedy and conversation. We even bust out a few games where you can play along and see if you can tell a Pokemon from an antidepressant from a weird food served at the Minnesota State Fair.

Although she comes across as confident and happy on her incredibly successful YouTube channel, Hannah Hart has plenty of experience with insecurity and misery in her life. Growing up, she faced severe poverty, hunger, and dealing with a mother who was mentally ill. Still, she made it into a good college where she had to confront issues about her religion and her sexuality on her way to getting two degrees and not being able to be proud of any of it because of depression. Today, she's a star, dispensing advice on life, relationships, and how to cook when you're completely drunk. Life is full of unexpected paths sometimes. This is our final episode of season 2, but stay tuned for season 3 and bonus placebo episodes between seasons.

It's hard to settle on a musical description for Ted Leo. We ended up going with "if The Beach Boys were '80s skateboarders" to summarize his melodic intense post-punk sound. Similarly hard to nail down is whether Ted's longtime issues with depression and anger stem from his brain's built-in wiring or from abuse he suffered as a kid and barely ever talked about since.

Rachel Bloom has never moved across the country to chase a boy like Rebecca Bunch did. Rebecca is the character Rachel plays in "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," the hit show she co-created and stars in on The CW Network. But Rachel does have a long history of messed up romantic relationships -- plus depression and intrusive looping thoughts. And her career really took off when she got inspired by another Rebecca: Rebecca Black. You, know. That 2011 song "Friday?" Yep.

In one of the last interviews he gave, Reggie Osse, aka Combat Jack, talks about the connection between the status of the African-American man in contemporary society, the changing role of masculinity in hip-hop culture, and mental health. Osse was an important figure in hip-hop as a lawyer, editor, podcast host, and thinker. This interview was conducted in October of 2017, and Osse died on December 20th of that year.

Before she was the host of NPR's popular Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, Linda Holmes was an attorney working at the Minnesota Legislature. Before that, she was a student living in squalor. And before that, she was the victim of some seriously messed up mean kid behavior. We hear about her unusual path to a better life, the older and very recent struggles she has had, and how the written word proved redemptive. We also hear about how Linda's weight was seen as a symptom of her depression when in fact the depression itself was the problem all along.

If you've ever heard this show before, you've heard singer-songwriter Rhett Miller. He wrote and performs the theme song about "the world's greatest clown." On this episode, Rhett tells of his teenage suicide attempt, a mysterious illness, his musical salvation, and his grandmother's owl fixation. He even brought his guitar along and performs a few songs.

New York comedian Mike Brown is a big fan of objective cause-and-effect scenarios. This drew him into playing video games, studying math and engineering, and ultimately getting on stage to tell jokes and get laughs. The thing is, sometimes you have to face events that are completely senseless.

New York comic Janelle James never even imagined being a comedian. She had grown up in the Virgin Islands, worked in fashion PR, had two kids, and was living in Illinois when she first walked on stage at an open mic night. She was 30 years old. But as soon as she hit the stage, she knew this was her calling and many years later she's headlining clubs all over the country and is a comedy star on the rise. She talks about trying to outrun her depression, dealing with depression-induced physical pain, and a therapy session that did not work out. Special guest: neuroscientist Daniel Levitin.

She's the author of bestselling books and an incredibly popular blog, but Jenny Lawson showed up to our interview wondering, at least a little, if her appearance on this show and her whole career, really, was part of some delusion. It's not. She's the real thing: an incredibly funny and honest writer with a legion of fans, a very old decapitated and stuffed boar's head named James Garfield, anxiety, depression, and a clear-eyed view of the world.

We’ve gathered up a whole lot of tips, tricks, ideas, and stories to help you get through this time of year when merriness and jolliness aren’t always in abundant supply. Hear holiday thoughts from Wil Wheaton, Margaret Cho, Jenny Lawson, John Green, Aimee Mann, and more. Plus, a story about a slobbering zebra.

You know those things that happened but that you don't talk about very much? Or even at all? Because they're too upsetting? In this episode, host John Moe and guest Ana Marie Cox put those things on the table. Ana is a journalist, pundit, and podcaster; she talks about the lowest point in her mental health, a horrible decision, and what came next. John talks about the event that led to this podcast being created in the first place. This is a re-broadcast of an episode from last spring that has garnered a huge response from listeners, and it's presented largely without edits.

Growing up, actor and writer Julie Klausner was too busy battling depression and daydreaming about an imagined Merlot-sipping cosmopolitan adulthood to really engage in the world itself. It wasn’t until she entered the world of comedy and improv as an adult that things really started to click into place. That led to creating Difficult People, a show on Hulu, where she plays a much bolder, brassier, and more oblivious version of herself.

Long before Jeff Tweedy was the founder and leader of the enormously popular band Wilco, he was a kid in Illinois with severe migraines and a tendency toward anxiety and depression. He cycled through alcohol, marijuana, and, finally, opioids to try to get to the point of feeling normal and okay, even relying on a fan who worked at Walgreen’s to score him the pills he wanted. Finally, a stint in rehab and a return of self-confidence got him back on track. There’s a really sad and darkly funny story in this episode involving a teddy bear and a jar.

With one recent appearance on The Tonight Show, Patti Harrison went from being a well-regarded alternative comedian in New York to being a de facto spokesperson for transgender people. She’s proud of who she is and proud to give a voice to that community. But she wants to make it clear that her sense of humor is much darker, odder, and occasionally more disgusting than one might expect from someone at the forefront of a social cause. Hear about her journey to figure out who she is and who she’s not, and also hear her get horrified by a bird.

Although Gary Gulman has been a successful stand-up comedian for decades – with acclaimed specials, a loyal fan base, and appearances on all major late night shows – this was not his original plan. Gary is 6’6” and athletically gifted, he loved basketball, and had a full ride athletic scholarship to a Division 1 program. Problem is, he had no killer instinct. He had more of a comedian instinct. Hear Gary’s journey through a lifetime of deep depression, impossible standards, and some of the funniest and weirdest comedy out there today.

Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann has a reputation for making music that is raw, emotional, and sometimes not all that cheerful. In real life, she’s perfectly cheerful – thank you very much – and has traveled a long road of depression, anxiety, a difficult childhood, and writer’s block. Through it all, she’s taken a calm, considered, and creative approach to problem-solving that has served her well. Oh, and one time as a teenager she wrote a terrible song about hobos.

Author John Green had one of the best-selling books of the last 10 years with The Fault In Our Stars. The problem is, when you write an acclaimed smash hit, everyone wants you to somehow do it again. In attempting to write that follow-up, Green went off the meds he’d been taking for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, hoping it would bring him to a more vivid and imaginative place. Instead, the crash made him unable to write at all. Hear how Green later used those dark days to craft the protagonist in a new novel, plus growing up with OCD, being a public figure in the privacy of his own home, and what it’s like to read book reviews by people who haven’t read the book.

If you've enjoyed any comedy in the last 20 years, there's a good chance Neal Brennan helped make it. He's a veteran comic, writer, director, and co-creator, with Dave Chappelle, of the acclaimed Chappelle's Show. Over the past 20-plus years, he's also tried everything he could think of to tame his depression. Hear Neal's epic journey to feeling pretty good.

She’s one of the most influential and innovative comedians of the last few decades, but before all that, Margaret Cho was a Korean-American girl growing up in the 1970s in San Francisco. We hear about the sometimes very darkly humorous ways her family and culture dealt with depression and suicide, and how she harnessed her own depression to begin her comedy. Along the way, the keys to Margaret’s often-shocking comedic style emerge and lead to making people upset in New Jersey.

Wil Wheaton was a child star in Stand By Me, a regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager, and has been trying to figure out his role in show business for a long time since then. He was dealing with the pressures of fame and the fickle tastes of Hollywood, all while dealing with a chemical imbalance in his brain that made him prone to anxiety and depression. Wil’s better now thanks to medication, but despite his long IMDb page and regular work on The Big Bang Theory, his hit YouTube show, and a thriving and varied career, he sees himself primarily as a failed actor.

Season 2 of The Hilarious World of Depression starts on September 25, 2017. Get a jump on it by hearing from some of the comics, actors, authors, and musicians you'll get to know this season.

What if clinical depression was not just a thing in someone’s brain but an actual other person entirely? What would they look like? Act like? Who would they be? And how would you interact with such a person? It’s a mental exercise that many find helpful in isolating the disease from the self to better manage it. We asked our listeners to describe their depression. Most chose humans, one chose a very confused monster.

If you are having problems with your mental health, please get help. You’ve heard that before on this show and probably plenty of other places as well. But how do you actually do that? How do you go about finding professional help to get things on a better track? It’s a process that can be complicated and overwhelming, which means loads of people don’t get the help they need. On this episode, we talk with Dr. Ken Duckworth, Medical Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, about the simplest, best path to getting the help you need. Spoiler: it takes some work, but you can do it.

Depression can be really hard to define, making it difficult for anyone who doesn’t have it to be understand it. And that can make the people who do have it feel that much more alone. We asked our listeners what movie, TV show, artwork, or other piece of culture gets depression right. The answers range from John Cusack yelling out a window to Norwegian expressionist painting, to a cuss-filled bit of sour optimism in the Wild West.

When we asked listeners about their favorite songs to listen to while battling depression, The Mountain Goats’ music kept coming up. We caught up with the band’s founder, singer, and songwriter, John Darnielle, to learn about what goes into his process. We also find out about the music he listens to and the other ways he copes with the depression that has dogged him for many years. Special bonus: a brand new John Darnielle poem.

There are many ways to address depression: therapy, meds, exercise, music. And then there are our own thoughts. We learn the mantras, reminders, and rituals that some of our listeners use to get through it when Clinny D flares up.

When clinical depression, the ol' Clinny D, starts getting the best of our listeners, a lot of them reach for the headphones to fire up some choice tunes. We take another spin through the therapeutic playlist and hear from The Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead, and a Taylor Swift cover you simply must listen to.

We asked our listeners to tell us about the songs they use when depression is hitting hard. Take a listen to some of the responses, both the songs themselves and the stories behind them in this highly musical trip through the jukebox that is Clinny D. You won’t often find mix tapes with Doris Day, hardcore punk, and Foghat all in one place but we are here to provide just that.

More ideas from listeners for unusual methods they used to address their depression that actually worked. We’ve heard a wide variety of ideas from all over the world, including Jonna Nummela of Helsinki, Finland who tells about her clown alter-ego who takes lumps so Jonna doesn’t have to. We also hear about what Jonna brings into the sauna that confuses and alarms other Finns.

It’s a crossover conversation between The Hilarious World of Depression's John Moe and Ana Marie Cox, host of the podcast With Friends Like These. Both shows traffic in the idea of having more conversations about things that don’t get talked about very often. In that spirit, John and Ana Marie open about some events that drive them and that they have never discussed much in public. If you need immediate help, confidential help is available for free in the U.S. at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK.

We asked listeners for the strangest ways they’ve tried to treat their depression that actually worked. And boy, did they ever come through. We hear musical solutions, efforts to enumerate animals, and some clandestine harmless vandalism on the streets of Ottawa.

Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! was our guest on the very first episode of our podcast. He used the occasion to break a long silence and tell the world that he’s struggled with depression, the first time he had told anyone other than a doctor. On this placebo episode, we check in with him to find out how sharing that information went over.

March is #trypod time all over the podcast world and we’re getting in the spirit by offering an episode of another American Public Media program. Terrible, Thanks for Asking explores the sometimes difficult answers that people avoid giving when asked, “How are you?”

THWoD stops by to say hello with a mini-episode. A not-really-an-episode. A placebo. Instead of talking to professional comedians, host John Moe talks to some listeners of the show about their surprisingly amusing tales of struggling with depression. We hear about the power of a pair of concert tickets, a very special friend who isn’t really carbon-based, and depression hangs a door.

Comedian and actor Paul F. Tompkins is known for being friendly and delightful both on stage and off. And that’s pretty surprising given that he grew up in a home where his parents slept in separate rooms, each likely struggling with undiagnosed and untreated depression, and conflict and anger were all around. Hear how comedy and acting gave him some of the support he craved but couldn’t get anywhere else. Hear also how, as is the case with many depressives with complicated childhoods, he struggles to figure out good, healthy ways to spend time with other people and with himself. All this plus tales of Paul’s bleak time working in a hat store called Hats in the Belfry.

The life of a professional comedian and actor can be glamorous at times. You get recognized, go to the occasional celebrity party, maybe have a lot of strangers know your name. But it didn’t feel all that swanky to Baron Vaughn when he was holed up in a Vancouver apartment for days at a time, eating Cheerios and bathing in Dawn dish soap, all as a result of a severe attack of the depression that had been chasing him down for years. Baron shares those moments and how he got out of them as well as tales of being raised by his great grandparents in a small New Mexico town, dealing with the after-effects of his mother’s addiction, and how depression is perceived and ignored among black Americans.

Before she was a successful LA comic with a new Netflix special, Jen Kirkman was a somewhat confused kid growing up in Boston. Hear how she got screwed up by nuclear war anxiety, found her calling in comedy, and ultimately learned to leverage her creativity and imagination to take on depression and anxiety.

When it comes to struggles with depression, everyone’s story is different. But a lot of the time, the stories can be pretty similar. In this episode, we point out some common themes that seem to rise up in a whole lot of conversations with comedians. Join us for a journey through feeling awful and trying some things to feel better with Michael Ian Black, Aparna Nancherla, Mike Drucker, Jordan Carlos, Jenny Jaffe, Jake Weisman, Sara Benincasa, and Bill Corbett.

It’s not exactly normal for a 5-year-old kid to listen to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” over and over and over, but Andy Richter didn’t know that. It felt natural to him. The actor and longtime comedic accompanist to Conan O’Brien relates his childhood in Illinois, the impact of divorce on his nascent depression, and how he plugged away at finding both an effective treatment and who he really was. Also, are ALL people who go into comedy at least a little twisted? Here Andy’s answer.

Just about everyone who mattered in the '60s and '70s hung out with Dick Cavett. His talk shows were hilarious, candid, and culturally vital. They were snarky before David Letterman ever hit the air, and sharp before Jon Stewart showed up on anyone’s TV. Along the way, he managed to infuriate Richard Nixon such that the President plotted attacks against him, which is when you know you’ve really arrived. On this episode, Dick talks about his own struggles with depression as well as the struggles of people he knew, including Judy Garland, Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, and Groucho Marx.

It was an otherwise ordinary May morning when Sam decided it was the right time to die. In some ways it was a surprising decision. He had managed to kick most of the substance abuse problems that he had wrestled with for years. Oxy, ecstasy, crack, heroin, and booze were no longer part of his life. Depression was still there, though, and so was a lot of frustration about his comedy career and personal life. So he went for it and swallowed more pills than he would ever need to kill himself. Then something else happened.

For some people, treating depression is a matter of going to a doctor or therapist, maybe getting some meds, and then feeling better. For comedian and actress Maria Bamford, the path to doing better was way longer and more complicated. She shares her experiences with depression, OCD, hypomania, and persistent, unwanted disturbing thoughts, as well as bad therapy, ineffective in-patient treatment, and breakdowns. A diagnosis of Bipolar II, which covered a lot of what was wrong with her, and some Googling helped put her on track to become the healthier person she is today.

The longtime host of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me has battled depression for much of his life but has never gone public with that struggle until now. Sagal recently went through what was for him a very painful and very messy divorce. He shares how he’s been able to move on and host a weekly comedy program even as his life was falling apart. Some of the methods: keeping very busy and listening to Amy Poehler. We also hear from Peter Sagal’s friend, the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, on what helps and hurts a depressed person’s brain in times of crisis.

A sneak preview of some of the voices you’ll hear on the upcoming season of The Hilarious World of Depression. Host John Moe talks to some of the top names in comedy, who share candid conversations about their experience with depression and have a few laughs along the way.