laughter is the best medicine
Hello reader! My name is Steph Tisdell. I have been doing comedy on and off for the past 3 and a bit years. I’m a creative at heart and comedy has been the single most important vehicle for my self-discovery and self-confidence.
My comedy journey has many parallels to my real life and my own personal journey. A journey stunted and stifled by - but ultimately defined and strengthened by – mental health struggles and a gradual education to accept and embrace vulnerability and find great strength in it.
Comedy wasn’t ever something I had thought about growing up. While I had toyed with ideas like acting and performance, the idea of comedy and the creation of work that was so easy to critique and judge never appealed to my self-critical and anxious brain. When I finished school, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to incite change and challenge apathy; I wanted to get involved in Aboriginal advocacy, human rights and even policy writing.
I studied law and journalism at university but I hated it. Law wasn’t about justice as I’d always thought but more about precedent, loop holes and money. Or maybe I just didn’t have the wherewithal and commitment to see it through and get to the bit where I could make a change.
I was lonely, depressed and having up to five panic attacks a day. I wasn’t achieving well at uni and I was disillusioned. I sought out therapy but wanted to put the theories into practice lest I learn the rhetoric and never follow-up with action and therefore repeat the same pattern of thinking, over-thinking, thinking about my over-thinking and then over-thinking my over-thinking.
I decided to backpack alone through the UK and Ireland without planning or booking anything. The single most anxiety provoking situation I could put myself in was how I would give the proverbial middle finger to the anxiety and depression that had latched onto my brain like a parasite.
For the first time in my life, I had to rely on myself and myself only. It also meant I could celebrate all of my little ‘wins’ as my own and nobody else’s. I decided to live like a ‘Yes Man.’ In my case, I became a ‘Why Not Woman’ following an incredible conversation with a stranger who remarked that living in the present and jumping through every open door was the only way to take life in both hands and wring joy from it. She said the only thing you should ever say is “Why Not.” I got a tattoo of a snow man saying that on my wrist the following day so I would never forget.
If you’re wondering why this tattoo and this holiday relate to my comedy journey, it’s simple: for 3 months I
wasn’t allowed to say anything at all