Comedy and Mental Health... by Jessica Holmes
“I wish you success, if that’s something you’re even interested in. (pause) Actually what I really wish you is happiness.” A nurturing old-soul said that to me recently, and it resonated.
I actually found success on TV, but instead of feeling like “I’ve finally landed!” I realized you’re expected to keep conquering bigger and bigger whales. The pressure never goes away. A few years ago I realized I was chasing an old dream, one that doesn’t line up with my current goals or family situation. Even when I knew my heart had moved on from wanting to be a comedy star, I kept clinging. FOMO ‘fear of missing out’ I suppose, and being raised on “don’t die with your music in you”, which is a beautiful sentiment but also a LOT of friggin’ pressure!! In fact the drive to be included in bookings, festivals and awards “please, PLEASE choose me!!” was so strong that one day, I broke down in public.
Photo by Tim Leyes
It was awards season, and I was feeling left behind because: years of being nominated had turned into years of not being nominated, and now I couldn’t be nominated because I hadn’t actually been hired in television that year. Not a day of TV work. Anyhow, after masochistically binging on other people’s triumphs on Facebook, I felt the anxiety of inadequacy build up in my chest, and on a jog with a friend, I stopped running, broke into tears, and begged her “tell me I’m enough! Am I enough?” Beneath my panic attack, I genuinely needed her to answer the question “do I count for anything if I’m not making my mark in the comedy scene?” My friend works in a stable field, so she patted my back and laughed “of course honey. We’re all enough. We all count, right?” She was supportive, but didn’t know about the mix of vulnerability and bruised ego that comes with having to prove yourself at every employment opportunity.
With Roman Danylo on The Holmes Show
You should know that I peaked way early in my career. I did stand up on a dare, got an agent the 2nd night out, booked my first series two years in, then 5 subsequent series over the next 10 years; most notably my own CTV comedy The Holmes Show, then Royal Canadian Air Farce. Then…plateau. Then downward, if you’re specifically talking about being on-camera. A casting director even reached out to ask if I’d left the industry to become a real estate agent (that’s what she had heard). “No” I answered, confused. “I’m a comedian. I’ve been a comedian this whole time.” I had just stopped being a visible comedian. I never did that well in clubs, and wasn’t edgy enough for my peers, so years earlier, when some agents for corporate comedy approached me to do private shows (like a car company’s AGM or an insurance company’s employee appreciation day) I said sure. “You’ll have to be clean, and customize the performance to suit the client’s objectives.” I felt a tad sheepish knowing some comics thought of this as selling out but I was excited to write new material and improvise for each crowd. In fact the only drawback I found was that corporate comedy is kind of a hidden industry. The shows aren’t advertised to the public and I never ran into other comedians there, so if you weren’t in attendance you’d never know it happened. I felt like the kids who walk through the wardrobe into a secret world only instead of Narnia it was a convention centre. And maybe since I felt it was an invisible career, I didn’t put it on my resume or post about it. Instead of feeling euphoric in this new-to-me genre, I let my ego identify only as per how much I wasn’t working in television, which had decreased to my beloved Air Farce NYE specials.
With the cast of CBC’s Royal Canadian Air Farce
A few years ago that FOMO was creeping around the corner again. Awards season had rolled around and I worried I’d hit a downward spiral seeing my peers soaring while I watched from home, elbow deep in the popcorn. I wanted to feel thrilled for them. I wanted to NOT feel crappy for myself. The anxiety was building, and I spoke to my mom.
Me: “Do you think people think I’m a failure?”
Her: “I think people are busy with their own lives and probably don’t think about you.”
Me: “I’m not a comedy star.”
Her: “Have you seen yourself at the dinner table?”
I kind of am putting on a stand up special for the kids every night.
Her: “And there’s your corporate work.”
Yes, 10 years in the corporate work had become a second home for me. Not the same safe feeling as “landing” on a steady TV show with peers, where you relax into your surroundings and stop hustling for a while. But it was fulfilling. I left it all on the stage: singing, joking, doing impressions. I had been hired a few times to emcee for motivational speakers, and found myself more interested in what they were saying onstage than any joke. I started reading more books on positive psychology, got certified as a career coach, then as a group coach, and asked my corporate agents if I could add what I called “motivational comedy” to my speakers’ page. It’s a great fit, and mental health & motivational keynotes are now the bulk of what I do. But to acknowledge it as my main career would be to admit I’d given up on my original dream. That I’d failed at plan A. I let it gnaw at me that many of the comedians I started out with were surpassing me: Russell Peters, Samantha Bee, Gavin Crawford, Martha Chavez, the gang at The Second City, all staying true to their purist comedy roots. When I couldn’t stand my inferiority complex anymore, I turned to my friend; career coach Adrean Turner.
Jessica Holmes (centre) with her High School Improv Team
Her: “What do you want more than anything deep down?”
Me: “To be a comedy star.”
Her: “Why?”
Me: “So I’ll go forwards not backwards.”
Her: “Why else?”
Me: “So I can make people feel good.”
Her: “Is there only one way to do that? Only one path to making people feel good?”
Me: “………..No.”
Her: “Are you currently on the best path for you? For your wellbeing? For your soul? For your passion? For y-”
Me: “Ok, ok, I got it!”
It was hard to stop chasing that carrot, but my mental health has to come above everything else. I’ve suffered depression off and on, and could theoretically go down that road again. For five years I’ve been living in a way that surpasses the mental health gold standard: committing to exercise, mindfulness, stability, less time on social media, etc. I needed to detached from my singular concept of success so that my career is not something that will tip my life depending on whether a gig goes well or terribly, whether I book a show or not. I needed to line up with my deeper goal of making people feel good, work-related or otherwise. To get beyond my original belief that there’s only one path.
My milquetoast self-esteem was still dragging behind me when I was asked to be the emcee at the International Association of Speakers Bureaus. Again, a group you’ve likely never heard of, but for me, hold the keys to the kingdom of invisible corporate comedy careers. This was the fork in the road. “If I do well here, I’ll accept that my best work may take place at hotel ballrooms instead of theatres. I’ll make a speaking demo. I’ll get a business card that says comedian and speaker. I’ll…I’ll (dry heave) I’ll join Linkedin!” Well, I emceed the crap out of that conference. And it was the greatest feeling. No, it’s not headlining a festival. It’s not starring in a series. It’s not selling out a theatre. But it’s still comedy. A type of comedy I love. Clean and customized and finished by 5pm. At the end of two very intimidating days, I got a standing ovation. I looked over at the man who booked me and shook my head in disbelief. He nodded like “I told you this is where you shine, you wonderful dummy.”
I’m at home here.
Speaking at an RCMP event for Mental Health
I felt a wave of relief. My career hadn’t moved up and up and up from a stardom standpoint, it had moved up, and over, and down, and high, and sideways many times over. It will probably run a few more loops. There will be more surprise twists. Cause when you’re an entertainer you wear many hats; Speaker, Comedian, Writer, Actor. I have no clue what comes next, other than continuing on the road to make other people feel good. And I love it, because I don’t follow my ego anymore, I follow my inner muse.
What I want to share with you is this: if you love stand up, do stand up. If you love comedy, but stand up isn’t a healthy lifestyle for you, then give yourself permission to go be happy, creatively fulfilled, and engaged in comedy in some other way. My greatest lesson is that comedian is a broad term, and even the steadiest comedians face ebbs, flows and transitions. Some of these will hurt, and some of them will feel like you’ve won the lottery. If you love a roller coaster, this is the job for you. If however, you need emotional stability & a job that begins before 8 pm, there are other ways to earn a buck and still be fulfilled. I have relatives twice as funny as me who work in unrelated fields but have the office laughing as soon as they walk in. That still counts as living a life of comedy. Are you making people laugh, whether on a stage, at your computer, in the cab you drive, in a classroom, at the check-out line where you’re working or at your kitchen table? Job well done. You’re a comedian! So what if the original plan fell through. Us creative types should have more than one dream. And mental health should come before career.
I am enough. So are you. We will have successes in our personal lives that transcend career, as they should. We will have career surprises that pop up out of left field and leave us thinking “hey, I just got a freebie I wasn’t even expecting” and lose out on a part we really wanted. Some of us will be pitied or envied by people we don’t know, whose opinions shouldn’t matter to us. And wherever we land on any of those subjects, we will be enough. We just are. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you otherwise.
