When comedian Paula Poundstone takes the stage wearing one of her signature zoot suits, she takes the microphone and does what she does best – make people laugh.
What her audience may not realize, however, is that Poundstone has been busy all her life obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)a mental health condition that causes obsessive thoughts that lead to compulsions and depression. Doing stand-up comedy is just one way she manages her conditions.
Diagnosed with OCD
Although Poundstone believes she may have had OCD as early as fourth grade, she was officially diagnosed about 25 years ago.
“I would find someone I was obsessed with and call them a lot,” Poundstone said. “I also had recurring thoughts. For example, my friend Martha was on staff at a school I attended. All day I would think, ‘Martha doesn’t like me.’ Finally, I would ask Martha and she would say, ‘I don’t feel that way.’ Then I would feel this huge relief,” Poundstone explained.
“But the second I hung up, I’d think, ‘Martha doesn’t like me.’ I would think about it over and over and over,” Poundstone said.
After being diagnosed by a mental health professional, Poundstone said just knowing why she had these kinds of obsessive thoughts helped her somewhat.
She was prescribed a medication to help with the OCD, and she took it, but it introduced a whole new set of problems.
“It was my fault because I said be careful if you drink with this drug. I was so careful, but I think the two things interact badly,” she said.
For Poundstone, mixing the drug with alcohol made her OCD worse. He ended up having a lot more symptoms than he had before.
“I had about a day or two where I felt like I had to walk like a chess knight. I could take two steps forward, but then one step sideways. Packing to go on tour took forever. It was awful,” Poundstone recalls.
When she stopped taking the drug, her symptoms disappeared. Even though she no longer has OCD symptoms, she believes she is like a sleeping tiger that may return one day.
For people who don’t understand what OCD feels like, she likes to refer to the movie Close encounters of the third kind.
In one scene, the character Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss, begins shaping his dinner mash into the shape of Devils Tower National Monument. His wife and children are upset and crying. He says, “This is important. This means something.”
“And no one else gets it. They had no idea what he was doing or talking about. Even if it meant something, why did he need to mash it up?” said Poundstone. The compulsion to do this regimen is what OCD can feel like in some people.
Dealing with depression
Over the years, different therapists have diagnosed Poundstone depression.
“I think I’ve probably had it my whole life. I mean, it’s biochemical,” she said. She discovered what helped her the most when she was working on a book titled The completely unscientific study of the human pursuit of happiness, which he published in 2017. “The point was to make jokes, but the premise was quite honest. The whole premise was that I was experimenting—things that I or other people thought would make me happy. Each chapter was a different experience.”
The first one she did was the ‘Get Fit’ experiment, where she introduced exercise into her life.
Turns out that’s exactly what worked for her.
“Exercise is one of the things that causes this feel-good chemical release,” Poundstone said. During exercise, the body can they release feel-good endorphins which can help with depression and anxiety.
“I was so hoping it would turn out to be just me sitting in a chair eating Doritos, but it’s not,” Poundstone said.
Knowing it helps with depression, Poundstone walks whenever she can. Whether she’s walking her dog, running errands or going on a date, she walks.
He also jumps on a pogo stick, and every day, he adds a jump. As of our interview, it was up to 55 jumps.
Poundstone is talking about mental health — and people are listening
On her podcast, Nobody Liens to Paula Poundstone, which just recorded its 400th episode, Poundstone often talks about mental health.
“It’s important because ‘Nobody Liens to Paula Poundstone’ is your comedy guide to life and almost everyone has some kind of mental health thing,” he said. “I would say that what causes a mental health problem is this feeling that, somehow, you’re the only one who has it, and that’s not true.”
In addition to comedy, Poundstone said the podcast also has a backbone of factual information, and she likes to share things she thinks are important for listeners to know.
Poundstone also jokes about her mental health in her comedy routines, not only to help herself, but also her audience.
“Comedy is a coping mechanism that nature has given us,” he said. “One of the things about comedy is that there’s this kind of laughter that I call ‘recognition laughter.’ There people laugh not because what you said is so terribly clever, but because they think I have it. i do this Many times, [the topics are] things we don’t generally talk about — and mental health certainly falls into that category.”
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