- Freddie Prinze, the co-star of "Chico and the Man",
was buried today in Beverly Hills.
One of the most moving eulogies was given by the man,
Jack Albertson.
- [Jack] Let us not mourn his death.
- Richard Prior.
- [Speaker] Chris Farley.
- [Speaker 2] Greg Giraldo passed away today.
- [Speaker 3] Brother, let us celebrate his life.
- Comedian Sam Kinison is dead.
- [Speaker 3] And we will smile again.
- Comic actor John Belushi died today.
- [Speaker 3] And we will laugh again.
- [Narrator] The history of comedy can seem
like a veritable graveyard,
strewn with the careers of comedians
who suffered with mental illness and addiction,
who lost themselves to the art's darker side.
- There's no dark side of comedy, really.
As a matter of fact, it's all dark.
- Our community provides a home for them,
and then there's the 10 that really deal with it.
- She does this for a living.
Maria Bamford is a Duluth native who's been described
as one of the most original voices in standup comedy today.
- [Narrator] A favorite of A-listers,
insiders and hardcore comedy nerds, Maria Bamford
is one of the few who has really dealt
with mental illness head on in her life.
- I see her, I found her, she was in a little ball,
curled up underneath a table.
- [Narrator] And in her act.
- Yeah, I was trying to kill myself, but I'm not insane.
- Maria really goes there in what she talks about.
So she's not just telling you
about feeling a little moody one day.
- Being alive in a way is inherently horrifying
in a lot of respect, so comedy is one way to cope with that.
- [Narrator] But why do so many people working
through mental illness find a home in comedy?
What solace does it provide, if any.
- What kind of person chooses to live the life of an artist?
And is that a mental illness?
- Comedy, mental illness, mental illness and comedy.
It's tough stuff, but few people understand it better
than Maria Bamford.
- Listen, if you need a mental health interview,
you hit the Bammer up, mental illness.
People aren't crazy about it, but for me,
it's been kind of a cash cow.
- [Announcer] Ladies, gentlemen,
you're about to entertained.
- [Speaker 4] Getting laugh is the greatest addiction.
- [Speaker 5] They want more of it, they want more of it.
- [Speaker 6] She was getting death threats.
- [Speaker 7] It took your head.
- [Speaker 8] All of this stuff.
- [Speaker 9] That's what took her down.
- [Speaker 10] This is a crazy story.
(dramatic music)
♪ Do do do do do do ♪
- Okay, slate.
-... you,
- Slate, your name for the show business people.
- [Crew Member] Slate, sorry.
- Oh yes, slate.
- [Crew Member] Maria Bamford, take one, one.
♪ Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do ♪
- I have a tremor as a result
of some of my mood stabilizer medicine.
And basically, my brand is weakness.
I don't wanna fix it, how else would people know
it's a Maria Bamford project?
(audience applauds)
- Maria Bamford, right everybody.
- [Narrator] Maria Bamford
is your favorite comedian's favorite comedian.
- It's me.
- She's the greatest.
I mean, I went to my eye doctor yesterday and he said,
"Who's your favorite?"
I said, "Well, my favorite and the best comedian
"is Maria Bamford."
- It's an old American classic,
join in if you know the words.
♪ Old McDonald had a pterodactyl ♪
♪ Ee I ee I o ♪
♪ With a (screeches) ♪
Thanks a lot, you guys.
(audience applauds)
- Oh my God, what a... ing nut case, huh, holy shit.
- I thought she was one of
the most brilliant comedians working.
- Follow your bliss and get the... out!
Bitches ain't shit.
- I'm obsessed with her, I'm obsessed with her.
- Go away, get away from me.
I don't like your comedy styling.
- There's a special talent there that is totally original.
- I'm not a Vegas comic.
Yeah, I definitely do not adhere to the philosophy
of making everyone feel good or have a good time.
- [Narrator] Bamford has racked up sold out tours,
standup specials, and even her own sitcom.
- I mean, I would say she's my idol,
but I know that would make her uncomfortable.
Gimme a list of people you think are close
and I'll shit all over them. (laughs)
Not because they're not good,
but because they're no Maria Bamford.
- [Narrator] Her act revolves in large part
around her personal struggles with mental illness,
which she reveals in raw and often disturbing detail.
But it took a long time for Bamford to get here,
earning respect and accolades for her oddness and honesty.
♪ I'm in a state of happiness ♪
♪ My boyfriend's super sweet ♪
♪ Even though he's super quiet doesn't mean ♪
♪ He is judging me ♪
♪ I've got a job where I don't feel like hurting myself ♪
- Oscar winner, Jessica Lang,
Nobel prize winner, Bob Dylan,
and American Comedy Awards' best club comic award winner,
Maria Bamford, all hail from Duluth.
- Duluth is very a progressive city on a beautiful lake,
Lake Superior.
- [Narrator] Hers was a seemingly normal,
utterly inauspicious upbringing.
- I was very functional.
I went to a private Catholic school,
so got lots of attention, great community.
My parents were religious so we went to church,
which can be a great thing,
where it lights your brain on fire.
- [Narrator] But from a young age,
Bamford's brain chemistry seemed a little unique.
- I did have depression, and starting around the eight,
nine, or 10, and it's pretty dark.
Wasn't able to sleep at night,
so I stopped being able to sleep.
I had this real panic, fear, terror.
- I've known Maria for about 23 years,
and not to be presumptuous,
I would say I'm one of her closest friends.
She's very open about when she was a child.
She talks about being worried about
essentially cutting her parents into chunks
and then putting into blender. (laughs)
- I had this fear that I was somehow a dangerous person,
that somehow I would molest, rape,
kill members of my family.
- [Narrator] Racked by intrusive thoughts
and sleepless nights, Bamford's parents sought help for.
- They sent me to a therapist who was a Christian therapist.
Whoops.
- [Narrator] Fearing what she might do to other people,
Bamford was a withdrawn adolescent.
- I started to isolate more,
definitely didn't like to make eye contact with people.
I was bulimic until I was about 19, and yeah,
What, a white woman? (snores)
- [Narrator] She found a refuge in the arts, in music,
live performance, and especially comedy.
- Any opportunity to publicly speak,
I always took that throughout grade school,
throughout high school.
And then when there was an open mic, I was like,
"Oh my gosh, this is definitely what I would like to do."
- [Narrator] As a college student,
Bamford started performing in Minneapolis.
- Two words, sold out.
I just go wherever I do well, I did a lot of women's shows,
GLBTQ shows,
where it was more welcoming theatrical performances.
- [Narrator] Like so many before her seeking success,
fame, and fortune, Bamford headed west.
- So I took, I think $600 and drove on out.
I had just gotten a job in a touring show
for "Star Trek" characters with Paramount Parks.
Anyways, I did "Deep Space Nine" characters.
Walk over to the Jack In The Box, check in.
We've just landed, are there curly fries?
- [Narrator] She kept performing standup pretty much
wherever she could.
- Hi, my name is Maria,
I'm originally from Duluth, Minnesota.
Duluth in the house, oh yeah.
- I don't remember when was the first time
I saw her perform her comedy,
but I remember as she performed at this laundromat
on Sunset, and there are a couple people doing laundry,
and they sort of stopped doing laundry and stood around.
And Maria performed and people laughed.
- Everything in Los Angeles is an industry showcase,
even the laundromat.
There's some assistant to an assistant,
who's doing their laundry,
and can get you in front of Bernie Brillstein.
- I did a lot of positive affirmations,
I'll tell you that much.
One of my affirmations when I first started was,
I'm Maria, I'm one of the top 10 comedians
in the United States, I can do it, okay.
- [Narrator] Those affirmations helped Bamford get through
some pretty unforgiving early gigs.
- Hi, I'm Patten Oswalt, I'm a comedian.
First time that I saw Maria Bamford was at the improv
on a weeknight, doing a very short set,
and it was a pretty hostile environment.
- And this guy was yelling out at alternate intervals,
"Yippee", it was kind of fun.
He was kind of funny and he was in the back.
And so I guess they tried to get that guy to leave.
All of a sudden, I hear this. (mouths buzzing)
And they called in the local police department
and they tasered the guy.
- [Speaker 11] Oh.
- And he falls to the ground,
he starts crawling towards the stage, going,
"I'm having a good time, I wanna watch to rest of the show."
- I'm Marc Maron, and I am a peer of Maria Bamford.
I'd like to think I'm a friend.
- Yeah, thank you for having me.
- It's weird though, I do get kind of nervous around you.
And I always have, I don't know why,
but I'm trying to fight it.
- Well, yeah, I don't really think there's anything
to get nervous about. - 'Cause I think you're
the best comic in the country, and that's the truth.
I really do, when My Space was still important,
you're in my top one.
She's unto two herself with it,
but you sort of realize that there's a special talent there
that is totally original.
- Hi, I'm Amy, I'm Maria Bamford's friend.
She told me she was a comedian at one point, and I thought,
oh, okay, that's good.
She asked me to come to a show.
There was a few other comedians
and then she was the last one.
And I'm like, "Whoa, Maria's funny."
- Well, I think a lot of comedians
when they're starting out, you're insecure on stage,
you don't want to be vulnerable.
What's so miraculous about Maria
is she came out of the gate that way.
- I stumbled into Maria completely by accident.
I was invited to the improv to see a comic,
and I was having conversation with someone.
And almost like my antenna went up, of a sound.
- Guess it was intriguing enough that they said,
"Why don't we put this on TV?"
- Please welcome Maria Bamford.
(audience cheering and applauding)
- [Narrator] But Maria's taste
of stand up stardom didn't offer much relief
from the war inside her head.
She still suffered from intrusive,
and often wildly violent fantasies.
- The next time I think I told people about those thoughts
and those fears, I think was when I was around 34.
I thought, you know what, I got money, I've got some cash.
Why don't you go see if anybody knows about this thing?
And then I Google, oh my God, just Google it.
I said, "Unwanted thoughts."
- [Director] Can you hold up thoughts again?
- [Speaker 12] So you have unwanted thoughts...
- [Director] I don't think that's how you spell thoughts.
- [Maria] Unwanted fears, anxieties,
anxiety I'm gonna hurt someone or myself.
- [Narrator] Bamford's Googling offered an early diagnosis.
Obsessive compulsive disorder.
- [Director] Unwanted is also spelled wrong.
- [Speaker 13] Oh my God.
- There are many different types of OCD,
it can really focus on anything.
For some people it's hand washing,
for some people it's being afraid of driving
because people believe they run someone over.
- Where you become your own faulty narrator,
your own untrustworthy narrator.
- OCD is exhausting, and I think that sometimes,
people who genuinely have clinical OCD
are sometimes offended when somebody's like,
"Oh, I totally have OCD, I do.
"I have to keep everything just lined up."
Can you not leave your house for months?
- [Interviewer] So you Googled it?
- Googled, found this guy, Glendale.
10 minute drive from me, Dr. Rodney Boone.
I've gotta go see my OCD therapist, Dr. Boone.
- Let's pay attention to your body and how its feeling.
You suck!
- He gave me some exercises, and which are very well known
throughout the OCD community.
Things that you do specifically to flood yourself
with whatever your fear is.
- [Narrator] Flooding is a form of immersion therapy
that involves writing down
those intrusive troubling thoughts over and over.
- So flooding is a way of really confronting
the very thing that you're frightened about.
When you chart them and you write them,
you overwork the experience.
- It was such a relief, and also a relief to know,
it's just such a nice relief to know that you're not alone.
- The mental health thing was not
exactly obvious from the start, because in show business
you have a lot of very quirky people.
- When you hear about a mental health struggle,
and you live in Los Angeles, I think it's just,
"Okay, yeah, you got a mental health struggle, great."
But it did become serious.
- I have this therapist, I have a lot of anxiety, right?
And so she told me it's important to just,
I should try to sing my anxiety's aloud
'cause that kind of takes the power away from 'em,
takes the power away.
♪ If I keep my ice cube trays clean then God can't kill me ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ If I clench my fist at alternate intervals ♪
♪ Then the darkness within me can't take over my hands ♪
♪ And force me to do things that I don't wanna do ♪
♪ That are violent or inappropriately sexual ♪
♪ Ah and I ♪
Are you naked, God damn you.
♪ Was a marginally successful comedian living in Los Angeles ♪
♪ for 14 years doing standup ♪
♪ But I never got my own sitcom ♪
♪ Then my boyfriend turned out to be bisexual ♪
♪ And I forgot to pay my insurance premium ♪
♪ So I couldn't afford my medication ♪
♪ For OCD depression anxiety ♪
♪ And then my parents found me ♪
♪ on a sidewalk selling clock radios in Detroit ♪
♪ They said hey why won't you come live with us ♪
♪ in Duluth Minnesota while you're try ♪
♪ To get your medications kind of stabilized ♪
♪ And they took me back to their house ♪
♪ Where I'm living in the attic ♪
♪ with my 11 year old pug named Blossom ♪
♪ It's the "Maria Bamford Show" hey ♪
- [Narrator] Beyond transcribing her deepest fears over,
and over, and over again, Maria Bamford found another way
to confront her darkest thoughts.
So it was a one person sitcom,
one person showed that became a web series.
I'd gone slightly mad, and moved home to Duluth,
and what that would be like.
♪ Rise and shine and give God your glory glory. ♪
- I told my mom not to wake me up.
And again, a great fear of mine that that would happen.
- Necessity is the mother of invention.
If you're given a very, very small budget,
what can you do with that budget?
♪ I have unwanted thought syndrome ♪
♪ A little known version of obsessive compulsive disorder ♪
- All of the action kind of takes place in her room,
and essentially she's playing all the characters.
- So her struggle is presented
as this multi character presentation
of her kind of indulging
all these different parts within her.
- Maria, I know this is a dark time for you,
but I need to confront you on an issue
from our last session.
You sang an anxiety song,
now you're using it in your comedy bits.
- I don't know what funny is
in terms of what it is to other people.
To me, it was very funny, also, it paid.
- [Narrator] The show found a cult following
and introduced its star to a hipper, weirder comedy world
that was emerging in the early 2000s.
- At the time that she was getting her legs,
alternative comedy was a thing, and she had full support.
- Okay, oh my gosh, there's the camera already.
I love show business.
- [Narrator] This old comedy scene was captured
in a 2005 documentary called, "The Comedians Of Comedy".
It saw comics playing indie rock clubs
and other venues that fell outside
the traditional two drink a minimum comedy club circuit.
- I wanted her in "The Comedians Of Comedy"
just cause I thought she was a brilliant comedian,
but also, and much like Zach,
I don't think that the comedy club,
the way that it was structured,
and the way the audiences knew
how to listen to comedy, was the best showcase for her.
- My mama, she told me recently, she said.
"Honey, when you don't wear makeup, you look mentally ill."
(audience laughs)
So now when I go home I'm sure to wear thick green eyeshadow
and a line of lipstick around my lips, huh?
Baby look pretty now, mommy?
(audience laughs)
- My name is Sarah Benincasa, I'm a comedian,
and author and actress living in New York City.
All Comedy is where I came up.
All Comedy rooms are where you could be weird.
You could do back flips, or twirl a baton.
- There was that personal confessional sign,
but then there were just people
also just being more experimental
in how they delivered their material.
- For people who don't know what they've come to see,
I'm not a good time.
- [Narrator] With a unique voice,
and new audiences hip to the emerging alt comedy scene,
Bamford's cult comic status grew.
- I sat with her in a car for an hour and a half or so,
maybe two hours, and we talked,
and I realized, oh, she's shy and really nice.
Maria may never have said, "I have depression,
"I have anxiety, I have."
Whatever it was, she didn't have to.
If you have it, you know exactly.
I mean, game knows game,
and mental illness knows mental illness.
- [Narrator] Those close to her noticed
some strange behavior, but chopped it up
to Maria just being Maria.
- I used to go with her a lot of places,
'cause I would go on vacation and I'd go with Maria.
And I remember when she was doing John Oliver's show,
I thought, oh I better go talk to her
and make sure she's okay.
And I said, "Maria, where are you,
"I'm gonna come visit you."
And she goes, "Oh, I'm here, and she was in the green room.
And I'm looking around for, and then I found her.
She was in a little ball, curled up underneath a table.
And I go, "Maria, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Why are you in a bowl underneath the table?"
Oh, "I just need to be alone, can you leave me alone,
"can you leave me alone?"
And I'm like, "Oh yeah."
And she gets on stage, she... ing kills it.
- Please welcome the wonderful Maria Bamford.
(audience cheers and applauds)
- [Narrator] As Maria's profile rose,
new opportunities presented themselves.
- I first became aware of her on the Target commercials,
where she was this crazy target lady.
That was actually the name of the character,
Crazy Target Lady.
- And Maria never, ever took the opinion
that people should be throwing money at her.
And I think Target was one of the first times where I go,
"Well, they are throwing money at you."
(Crazy Target Lady shouts)
- [Narrator] In a series of holiday season ads
for big box retail giant, Target,
Maria played an intense super shopper
with her own distinct psychological profile.
- The Target two day sales starts soon,
and I feel like I have OCD, obsessive Christmas disorder.
But I know it's just the holiday spirit coursing
through my body, and into my heart,
and up into my red and green brain.
- I know the Target commercial was really,
really stressful for her.
It was long days, she didn't really have anyone
to go with her and support her when she was filming.
- And I used to be very obsessed
with whether being a spokesperson,
even if it was a character for Target, was a bad thing.
- Maria did the Maria thing,
where it's like she started investigating Target,
and looking online,
seeing that they were using overseas children,
slave labor kind of situations in her opinion.
And I'm sure they were just underpaid.
- Target has some problematic areas in its business,
as every business does.
I mean, it's not really any better than Walmart,
except for the aesthetics of it that is more progressive.
- [Narrator] The Target campaign would be a star making turn
for any other comic, for Bamford, it only caused trouble.
Her mental health began to spiral.
- The Target commercial was something
that just... ing cracked her ass.
- I just could not let it go.
I couldn't let go of the job itself or the question.
And yeah, I went to see a priest.
I contacted "The New York Times" ethicist,
who in fact, did talk to me on the phone.
And he said, "Yeah, no, it is wrong what you're doing?"
And I was like, "Oh, God dammit."
- [Marketa] And I think, also, that was around the time
when she started having a little bit of a hard time
with her mental health.
- One day she said,
"Amy, well, I might have to check myself in.
"I'm not feeling very well."
I said, "Maria, are you okay?"
And she goes, "Well, I'm having thoughts of suicide."
(gasps) Maria.
(gloomy music)
- [Narrator] Mental health has always been
at the forefront of Maria Bamford's act.
On the outside, she was managing,
but inside Maria's head, a storm was brewing.
- One of the symptoms of mania is pressured speech.
That's when you start speaking very quickly
about certain ideas, and not letting anyone interrupt you.
And my friend Amy said, "Hey Maria,
"you're talking a little fast."
- (gasps) Maria, are you okay, what's happening?
She said,
"I might have to check myself into a mental institution.
"I'm not having good thoughts."
- My psychiatrist at the time said,
"You really need to be on a mood stabilizer."
So that's when I agreed to go on a new medication, Lamictal.
- [Narrator] This latest psycho pharmacological
intervention came at a key moment in her career.
- I was getting out and I had these shows in Chicago.
I believe it was the next week after I left the hospital.
I just thought, oh, I'll take it, nip it in the bud.
- Yeah, I think that was the first time when I kind of
really felt like something was really off.
- [Narrator] Bamford was scheduled to perform
a run of shows in the windy city.
They were big, important headlining gigs.
- She was really kind of moving into that place,
where people were showing up for her,
people knew why they were there.
She knew that the crowd knew her,
and that's a life changing moment for a comic.
That means it was all worthwhile, all that struggle.
You finally got to a place
where these are my people.
- [Narrator] Maria booked a few hometown shows in LA
to prepare for her Chicago run,
but she noticed that something was off.
- Lamictal though, sometimes causes cognitive distortions.
So for me, it made it a little bit difficult
to think and talk.
Oh, okay, I'll go for a walk
and then I'll go through all my jokes.
I mean, what is it, remembering?
I could remember them, I just couldn't say them out loud.
(Maria yawns loudly)
Which as we've established, it's my entire livelihood.
Started getting very anxious.
Like, "Oh, I'm not doing well here.
"I'm not able to rehearse."
And all sad because nobody knew what was going on
inside my brain, they were all like,
"Hey, you're gonna be fine, you're gonna be great.
"You know your act, it'll be fine, just do it."
Yeah, I just don't think I understood
or they understood how confused I was.
And so I even flew to Chicago.
Got there, I was panicking.
I thought, oh, okay, I'll go for a walk
and then I'll go through all my jokes.
- [Narrator] And during that stroll around Chicago,
things got a little fuzzy.
- I got kind of lost, I'd somehow lost all
of my identification
while I was walking.
I mean, it was really like a kind of a space time,
I don't really know exactly what happened,
It was very weird.
I cut my hand at some point, so I was bleeding.
I got to back to the hotel room,
and this was probably two hours before the show.
And I called Bruce.
- As soon as I heard Maria's voice, I was like,
"No, no, no, she's not doing the show."
- And I was just scream crying.
- With Maria, was never one where she's kind of wore
her emotions on her sleeve.
So if she's calling me and she's genuinely upset,
and kind of disturbed by the fact that she feels like
she's out of control with her own emotions,
what kind of a human am I if I say, "The show must go on."
- [Narrator] Confused, alone, with no ID and no money,
and also bleeding somehow,
Maria made it to the Chicago airport.
- Called my mom first, I said,
"Mom, I can't do this."
She said, "Honey, tell 'em about your website."
- [Narrator] Arriving safely in Los Angeles,
Maria immediately checked herself into a psych ward.
- Not great, but I was safe, or relatively safe.
The psych ward is not a healing place,
it's just a place to sit down or crouch in a corner.
- For all I knew, it was just a momentary thing,
like when people have panic attacks,
but this didn't feel like that.
- I would go and visit her, I think almost every day.
Right, there's not a lot of silence
or quiet moments with Maria, she just kind of likes to talk.
And she was really quiet.
- I've had clients where they have ADD or OCD,
and I see where it's debilitating
to an aspect of their life, but it's not debilitating
in the sense that it totally short circuits.
With Maria, this was a complete short circuiting.
- People picture "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest",
or "Girl Interrupted", in actuality,
it's more similar to a hospital, hospital,
than it is to "Cuckoo's Nest".
It's just the phone cord is shorter,
and you generally don't get to keep your shoelaces.
- You would kind of think that Maria hit rock bottom.
I think she was worried, she was worried
about not being able to go back on stage, definitely.
- Yes, yes, just terrifying.
Wasn't sure if I could work again, and there's no comfort.
No one really can tell you what's coming.
Yeah, it was just I felt super scared,
and yeah, part of it was my own shame.
(gloomy music)
- [Narrator] Maria Bamford's full mental breakdown risked
ending her comedy career, but her story highlights bigger,
higher order questions.
Like, is there some specific connection
between comedy and mental health?
- It is not a cliche
that comedians have mental health struggles.
I don't know a person who doesn't.
- Yeah, I have a major depressive disorder.
So% over the years I have tried Klonopin, duloxetine,
mirtazapine, sertraline, Afexa, Celexa, Zyprexa.
(audience laugh)
At one point, my doctor said,
"Let's just try drugs that rhyme."
There were comical suicide attempts.
In retrospect, they were comical
because nobody could have killed
themselves using these methods.
(gloomy music)
And so I can laugh at them now.
- There is this association with comedians,
that mental illness is something that is common
because they move from the dark and the light,
and the tragic to the funny.
- Think if you're in comedy long enough,
you're going to have to sort of contemplate the abyss
when it comes to all the darkness
that a lot of comedians deal with.
- There are causal relationships between people
who are in the performing arts and comedians,
and especially when mood disorders are in play.
There's volumes of research on creativity,
and the need to perform and to express certain feelings.
- I feel like the average person is just as likely
to be mentally ill as a comedian,
but they're just not going to tell you,
they're certainly not gonna be rewarded for telling you.
- I do think comedy attracts a lot of people
that don't want to live in the normal world, or can't.
- [Narrator] Maron can attest to this idea personally.
- Well, I was a doorman at the comedy store in 1987,
and I was like, I'd just gotten outta college.
I had committed to comedy,
and I was stuck in that haunted shit hole,
doing blow with Sam Kinison for three days straight.
Hanging out with weirdos and freaks, and I lost my mind.
- [Narrator] Maron found some early success,
but it was difficult for young comics in the late '80s,
and early '90s standup boom to distinguish themselves.
- Time moved on, I started to realize like,
"Well, if you don't talk about yourself,
"you're not doing anything different."
So I, at some point, decided to shift my focus
from outside of me to inside of me,
and there, that became the sort of the path.
Not too long ago, I woke up and I was in my bed,
I'm like, "All right, well, you got nothing to do today.
"Why not just spend the day thinking you have cancer?"
(audience laughs)
I wasn't a known comic, really.
So I was kind of looking down the barrel at either suicide,
or a life of being kind of
a unknown headliner doing B rooms to make a living,
which I would rather be dead.
- [Narrator] Maron started working through his anger
in his standup act and on his wildly popular podcast.
When it comes to anxiety, depression, and well,
basically anything, he's an open book.
- So out of that desperation
that the podcast sort of happened,
and that got me back into dialogue with humans.
It got me back into sort of actively trying
to make an amends with people
I had sort of damaged relationships with.
And kind of started forcing me
to sort of take responsibility for myself.
- But no, I suffer from depression.
It's a great way to start off a set.
Sorry to go blue right away, but it's true.
I am Aparna Nanacherla, I'm a comedian based in New York.
There is no way to pick up pills
that you've spilled on the ground
without looking like a total human red flag.
- [Camera Woman] Now, Maria,
I see this pill on the floor here.
- Oh, that's my Prozac, I was gonna bring it out.
I have a pocket full of it.
(man sings in foreign language)
- So I gotta be the sad clown for my friends, my family.
An all brave front.
- I've heard you describe yourself this way.
- [Narrator] This seeming contradiction
between comedy and misery,
depression and the desire to make others laugh,
is captured in a tried and true comedic archetype.
- [Maria] The idea of the sad clown is there,
I think it started eons ago with the court jester
and perform on command.
- I think the sad clown is a trope,
and I do think that can exist.
I feel like I've had my nights where it's like
I put it on for the show, and then afterwards,
I'm not in that head space at all.
- The issue really becomes with this kind of question,
is what kind of person chooses
to live the life of an artist, and is that a mental illness?
- I think artists in general express how they're feeling.
So a CPA, while he's doing your taxes,
is not going to through a series of numbers or deductions,
tell you that he sees no point to life.
I was able to monetize my mental illness.
It's the opposite in most other professions.
- I think that a lot of us in the comedy world,
whether we do stand up, or improv, or sketch, or whatever,
if we have any urge to make strangers laugh,
that's coming from somewhere specific.
- I'm quick to cry and empathize,
and it's painful to live a life like that,
where you're open to feeling.
You don't have any other choice.
You can't love, you can't enjoy anything fully
unless you're able to fully feel the worst of it.
- I was on this morning radio show recently in St. Louis.
The guys goes, "I mean, don't you kind of worry
"that you're gonna be marketed as a sad clown?"
At least I'm being marketed as something. (laughs)
(gloomy music)
- My next guest tonight is a very funny man, Patton Oswalt.
Sadly, six months ago, you lost your wife Michelle.
- Yes.
- For the people who don't know that,
you've been very public about it in, about your grief,
in ways that is, I think, has been very appreciated
by people who have experienced grief.
Because there are a lot of times
that people don't talk about it.
- [Narrator] For many comedians,
performing can be a way of working through
not just diagnosable mental issues,
but all the dark feelings that are part and parcel
of being alive.
- Initially talking about my grief on stage was terrifying.
I felt like these people have come to a comedy show,
they don't want to hear it.
So it was hard for me to justify to myself
why was I doing this, is this being self-indulgent,
is this being selfish?
By the way, if one more person wishes me strength
on my healing journey, I'm gonna throw a balloon
full of piss into every candle store on the planet,
because it is not a healing journey.
Everyone deals with loss in massive and tiny ways
every single moment of their lives.
And if I can maybe find a way to make it funny,
and my first thought was it'll help me.
Calling it a healing journey makes it harder, by the way.
When it's 4:00 a.m, and I'm in the backyard crying
and looking at the sky in my underwear,
I'm like, "I think I'm... ing up my healing journey right now."
(audience laughs)
If they would call it a numb slog, then I could at least go,
"Hey, I'm nailing it, all right.
"Right where where I need to be on my numb slog."
- [Narrator] For Patton, and Maria, and many others,
comedy is almost like a form of self-help.
- I just go, I do my bit, it's only me.
I don't have to fight anyone else
to hear their point of view.
- I think it helps her express how she feels
and verbalize some of the things that she's afraid of.
- Jokes are presenting an imaginary version of the world,
that you can then, when you're back in the real world,
you can apply the absurdity.
And oh, that what used to bring terror now gives me a laugh.
And now I can deal with that terror.
- [Narrator] Verbalizing these feelings,
like that OCD treatment technique of flooding,
can help to rewire the brain.
- Well, that's what the goal of talk therapy is.
We create new neural pathways when we problem solve.
- You have those muscles neurologically to do the things,
despite that part of you that is lacking will,
self-esteem, motivation, belief, any of that,
they become real neural pathways and you do the stuff,
and the other stuff comes and goes.
- It allows for the frontal lobe of the brain
to create stronger neuro pathways.
And it's exciting because functional MRI studies
are showing just that.
- [Narrator] In addition to forging new neuro pathways,
comedy and performance can also offer solace
to people suffering from similar issues.
- I wanted to tell people,
because if anybody had that same experience,
so they wouldn't have to feel by themselves.
And also, I mean, really, the selfish reason is so
that I didn't have to feel alone with it.
- Maria, and people like Maria
who struggle with mental health issues, say,
"No, I'm not gonna shrink back, I'm gonna dive in."
- It's a bomb, I think that's a really good word to describe
what I feel like when I get on stage.
Because a lot of times, I haven't spoken
if I'm on the road, and I feel lonely and anxious.
I get on stage, and immediately I think, oh, this is right.
Yes, I get to feel like this every day
for an hour to an hour and a half.
- [Narrator] Maria Bamford's comedy bracing absurd,
authentic has been a lifeline for fans and admirers.
But what about Maria herself?
Following a breakdown in 2010, she was genuinely worried
she'd never perform again.
- The recovery, I did not feel good, I did not feel hopeful,
I did not feel connected.
Yet, it was not a good feeling.
So yeah, I mean, I don't recommend it at all.
- She was still Maria,
but I think she took a little break from comedy,
worked on herself, and as we all should do.
- I always believe that everybody comes back.
It's maybe a certain gullibility on my part, I'm not sure.
Maybe it's an optimism.
I just have this belief that it's like,
this is a temporary thing and you have to get help.
Maria needs to get healthy and needs to get strong again.
And then this will all become part of the act, which it did.
- Oh, my favorite memory of the psych ward, or one of them.
She was a nurse, and there was a courtyard area
and I was running maniacally around it.
Oh, I don't know, 30, 40 times.
And it was raining and I was barefoot, they let me do this.
I came into, I guess, take a rest.
And she said, "You're the Target lady." (laughs)
(gloomy music)
(classical dreamy music)
- [Narrator] During her stint in the psych ward,
Maria received a new diagnosis, bipolar two disorder.
- I really had, looking back, mixed states of depression,
and hypomania, and kind of like I could stay up all night,
and kind of yet had tons of energy.
- [Narrator] With this new insight,
new meds, and a new lease on life,
Maria processed her mental breakdown
in the only way she knew how.
- I did start participating more.
I did feel comfortable enough to go do standup.
And I hope nobody noticed that I felt really weird.
And if they did, no one said anything.
- There's a whole stigma of going into the hospital.
When I heard that Marie Bamford had done it,
and I said, "Well, she's come out.
"She seems much healthier and seems to feel better.
"And also, she's operating at the highest level."
Which is to say, I think she's the best comedian
in the business.
- I don't feel like she had a choice, but to handle that.
I mean, that's what we do.
- [Narrator] Maria's experience in the psych ward
also led to arguably her biggest, most visible gig yet,
her very own sitcom.
- I have my own show.
(explosion)
"Lady Dynamite", at that point,
yeah, I'd already been hospitalized,
I was on the current medication that I am now, feeling good.
That was the whole pitch,
that it was about this period of time.
- [Narrator] Like her standup, her earlier web series,
and pretty much everything she's ever done,
"Lady Dynamite" saw Maria drawing from her own life.
- Yeah, that helmet, that's a good shaped head,
if you know what I mean.
- [Narrator] Spinning her most harrowing experiences
into comic gold.
- I think 99% of her comedy is something
that she truly lived through.
- Mental illness, people aren't crazy about it,
but for me, it's been kind of a cash cow.
- We could be informative as well as entertaining right now.
- [Maria] Oh.
- Who wants information?
(all laugh) (audience cheers and applauds)
you guys want information?
- 'Cause I get so anxious, I was talking with Maria earlier,
we just can't wait till it's bedtime.
- There's snacks at home, and you fall into a heap.
- Yeah.
- Anybody enjoy that, I like it when things are done.
It's a way to feel useful, to feel like,
okay, I've been in a terrible place and it did get better.
- I will get a lot of emails.
It's always like people who are kind of telling her,
"This is my struggle."
- Maria Bamford, bang those hands together.
- [Narrator] Maybe that's the key.
Comedy isn't just a hideout for people struggling
with mental illness.
It can serve as a community
that can help manage these issues.
After all, comedy's not all gloom, and depression,
and addiction, and death and darkness, right.
- Boo ya!
- You can mock it, you can manage it.
So the fact that she was almost mocking
some of the extremities of what she was going through
and still getting laughs makes someone feel very hopeful,
and very optimistic.
- And after shows, many times people go,
"I have bipolar too, or I have mental."
And she graciously listens to them, and so kind to them.
- [Narrator] That's what Maria
and all the best comedians do.
They illuminate the darkness, seeking out the absurd,
the surreal and the funny in even the bleakest
and shadowiest corners of life.
♪ It can't get you if you're singing a song yeah ♪
Thanks very much.
(audience applauds)
- [Interviewer] How are you now, Maria?
- I think I'm okay, do I look okay?
I think I'm okay, but I do trust the crowd,
the village, will let me know.
Please let me know if I seem off.
(cheerful music)