Release

In this episode of 'The Shadows We Cast', Jenn sits down with David Granirer — counselor, stand-up comic, and founder of Stand Up For Mental Health™ — to explore what it means to live for decades without language for what you’re carrying, and how laughter, storytelling, and connection can become unexpected pathways toward healing.

David shares his experience living with bipolar disorder, the shame and isolation that followed his hospitalization as a teenager, and the reality of spending nearly twenty years living with undiagnosed depression before finally understanding what was happening beneath the surface.

Together, Jenn and David explore:

* the normalization of suffering and survival mode
* the emotional exhaustion of pretending to be okay
* the impact of finally being understood
* how shame grows in silence
* and why connection can change the way we carry pain

The conversation also dives into David’s internationally recognized organization, Stand Up For Mental Health™, which teaches stand-up comedy to people living with mental health challenges. Over the past two decades, the program has helped hundreds of people transform some of the hardest moments of their lives into storytelling, confidence, community, and laughter.

This episode is called 'Release' because at its heart, it’s a conversation about what happens when we stop carrying everything alone.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, depression, and mental health hospitalization.

Connect with David Granirer & Stand Up For Mental Health™
Website: www.standupformentalhealth.com
TikTok: @standupformentalhealth
YouTube: @standupformentalhealth
Instagram: @smhgranirerdavid

Guest Bio:
David Granirer, RPC, M.S.M. is a counselor, stand-up comic, author, and founder of Stand Up For Mental Health™ (SMH), a program teaching stand-up comedy to people with mental health issues. David who himself suffers from bipolar is featured in the VOICE Award winning documentary Cracking Up. He also received a Life Unlimited Award from Depression Bipolar Support Alliance, an Award of Excellence from the National Council of Behavioral Health, a Champion of Mental Health Award, and a Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada, and was recognized as one of the 150 Canadian Difference Makers in mental health. A sought after keynote speaker, he has worked with mental health organizations to perform and train SMH groups in over 50 cities in Canada, the U.S., and Australia.

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Transcript

PODCAST:            The Shadows We Cast

Episode:                Release

Number:               Season 2, episode 8

Host:                        Jenn St John

Guest:                     David Granirer

Length:                  00:30:32

TRANSCRIPT:

David  00:01

I think doing comedy about your mental health journey, it creates this cognitive shift. All of a sudden, all that bad stuff that you've been through just becomes great comedy material. I tell people this is proof that recovery is possible.

Jenn St John  00:21

Hello, and welcome to The Shadows We Cast, a podcast about what we carry, the impact we leave, and the messy, beautiful reality of mental health. I'm Jen St. John, a writer, business owner, and a mental health advocate who grew up in a family shaped by mental illness. Some of it was heartbreaking, some of it darkly funny, and all of it shaped who I am today. Here we share honest conversations, stories from me, from you, and from those who have walked this road in different ways, through journal entries, letters from my mom, and real conversations. We're going to pull back the layer on mental health, the tough parts, the moments that shaped us, and how we move forward together. So, grab a coffee, settle in, and let's talk. Before we begin, just a quick note. This episode includes adult themes, including addiction, mental illness, trauma, and suicidal ideation. Please take care in choosing when and where you listen, especially if you're in a sensitive place or you have little ones around. I also want to gently remind you that I am not a mental health professional. The conversations you hear on this podcast are grounded in lived experience, mine and the stories generously shared by others. My reflections, questions, and opinions come from that place, and not from clinical training. Our goal here is connection, not diagnosis, and this is a space for real stories, honest conversations, and the hope that in hearing them you might feel a little less alone. So today's conversation is about release, what it means to carry something for years, and what happens when we finally find a way to let it out. My guest today is David Grenier. He is a counselor, stand-up comic author, and the founder of Stand Up for Mental Health, a program that teaches stand-up comedy to people living with mental health challenges. David has spent decades living with and managing mental health, and through his work, he's helped hundreds of people step onto a stage and speak about the parts of their lives that once felt like they had to hide. His work has taken him to over 50 cities around the world and has been recognized by organizations across Canada and the US for its impact in the mental health space, but more than that, this is a conversation about what happens when we stop holding everything in and the unexpected ways that healing can begin when we finally are able to share our stories out loud. So, to start off each interview, I always read from a letter or a journal from my mum or myself, and for this conversation, I'm starting with one of my mum's entries. This was written during a time when, really, for the first time in her life, she was kind of consistently working on her mental health. I have a horrible sense of loss for who I have been and where I have been. It is really difficult to give up the high flights of mind and mood because of the necessary medications, even though the depressions that inevitably follow can be devastating, manic depression illness often contributes a great deal of energy and fire, enthusiasm, and imagination to the people in the world around them. Mania is a strange and driving force, a destroyer of fire in the blood, the charade of pretending to be well when I wasn't, and going through the motions of being pleasant, when I felt dreadful, so this speaks to something that many people know, the grief of losing parts of themselves, the exhaustion of pretending, and the complicated truth that the thing that hurts us can also feel like a source of fire sometimes. Today's conversation lives right in that tension. Welcome, David.

David  04:02

Hello.

Jenn St John  04:03

Thank you for being here today.

David  04:05

Glad to be here.

Jenn St John  04:07

So, before we start talking about mental health and comedy, I just wanted to go back to the beginning and talk about your childhood when you were a kid, because I know things started for you and later adolescence. What kind of a kid do you remember being?

David  04:23

Well, back when I was a kid, I was like a class clown. I was really outgoing. I was that kid in the grade three photo who would stick his tongue out, and I remember my parents would be like, 'Is that how you want your friends to remember you? And I'm like, 'Yeah, it's not so bad. So I was that kid, but then my depression began when I was about 17. Now I'm diagnosed with bipolar, but it mainly manifests as depression, and I ended up in the psych ward.

Jenn St John  04:51

What did that look like for you leading up to that? How did it present? Like, how did you know?

David  04:56

Well, I didn't know that I was depressing back then. And even today, to a certain extent, there's not that kind of information, so I just thought it was normal, you know, I just thought everyone felt like that, but it kept on getting worse and worse, and then I attempted suicide, and that's what ended me up in the psych ward, and as I said, I didn't know what depression was. I just knew that I felt really bad, and I didn't want to be here.

Jenn St John  05:25

Yeah, and how did they talk about it when you were in the ward?

David  05:30

Well, it wasn't particularly good. I was not diagnosed, like, so here's this teenage kid, 17, who tries to die by suicide, and there was no, oh, you know, he might have depression or something like that. It was more, I was told, oh, you know, you're a moody teen, like, you know, I actually had a psychologist say, kid, if you just clean your room and do your homework, everything will be fine, and I'm like, you know, something I didn't know algebra helped with suicidal ideation, I mean, I've done algebra, and it brings on suicidal ideation, as far as I'm concerned. So that was the way they treated me, and so when I got out of the psych ward, no one spoke of depression or mental health, and so I felt this horrible, crippling shame about what I've done, to the point where I would see people I knew previous to being hospitalized walking down the street towards me, and I would run around the corner to hide from them. I did not want to be seen, and that's how I lived for almost 20 years, because, like I say, no one diagnosed me. I didn't know, and during that 20 years, I just thought once again it was normal. I used to be a musician back then, and I played guitar, and there were sometimes weeks when I would sit down with a guitar, and I just couldn't play, like nothing would come out, and I thought back then, oh, I'm just not inspired, but now I look back and go, no, those were depressive episodes,

Jenn St John  07:01

absolutely. So, there was no diagnosis, no medication, no follow-up, nothing. So, in and out of the hospital. Yeah. And then you, at that point, it sounded like you were kind of a late teenager, so you were basically on the way to kind of finishing high school.

David  07:15

Yeah, I had one more year of high school. I changed schools because I just felt so ashamed, I just didn't feel like I could face the people that I went to school with, so I went to a different school.

Jenn St John  07:28

What did you do after that? Like, was music a part of your life?

David  07:30

Yep, it was part of my life, and I mean, at first my dream was to be a rock star, and then it changed, and I started to play jazz, so my dream was to be a professional musician

Jenn St John  07:41

along the way, because, as you say, you didn't know it at the time, but you had bipolar, and my mom was very similar diagnosis when my mom finally got diagnosed as well. So then it doesn't go away. What was it like for you in your early 20s?

David  07:56

I was actually seeing a therapist in my early 20s, and she didn't pick it up either. Wow, she never went. Oh, you know something. I think you're depressed. I think you should talk to a psychiatrist or something like that. And I just want to stop and say meds really help me, but meds are not for everyone, and I don't want to sound like I'm here to push meds on anyone.

Jenn St John  08:17

Everyone's journeys are their own, right? There's lots of different kinds of therapies,

David  08:21

yeah. And so this just really helped me,

Jenn St John  08:24

yeah. I mean, we're at a time now where there are options, which is one, yeah, but of course you know we're talking about a time when I mean, first of all, you're not even diagnosed,

David  08:34

no.

Jenn St John  08:34

Secondly, there's there's no support.

David  08:36

No, I was not diagnosed until my 30s.

Jenn St John  08:40

In your 30s,

David  08:42

yeah. So I went around for almost 20 years with undiagnosed, untreated depression, and finally in my 30s I was seeing a psychiatrist for therapy, and she kept saying, David, you're depressed, you should try medication, and at the time I was sort of in like a new age phase, and I was completely against medication or anything like that, but finally, just to shut her up, I thought, okay, fine, I'll try these meds, they won't work, and then she'll leave me alone, and then she put me on a medication, antidepressant, and like literally after a week it was, oh my god, so this is how normal people feel. They look forward to the day, they want to get out of bed. They don't have this horrific black cloud hanging over them.

Jenn St John  09:32

That must have been, I mean, both exciting and also so infuriating for you.

David  09:38

Yeah, I mean, it was more exciting, like I say, yeah, I just all of a sudden felt good. Now that I look back on it, I mean, the whole mental health profession failed me, and they failed me in a huge way. And the other thing that factors into this, so I had this dream to be a guitar player, but I kept on having problems with my wrist, and by the time I was 24 I could no longer play, so. I plunged into this horrible, awful depression for like two years. It was like my dream was gone, and I have no idea why I didn't attempt to gain, because every day I would say, I don't want to be here, I don't want to live. I would isolate myself, so I wouldn't see people for months, wouldn't talk to anyone, and what happened after that was in hindsight I realized my depression had temporarily lifted, and I thought, you know, something from going to live, I need to do something that gives my life meaning. So I went to volunteer for the Vancouver Crisis Center, and it was kind of a natural, because my dad had volunteered there after my attempt, so he could understand, and my brother had volunteered there, and so I went to volunteer there, and I found this place, and this thing that I really liked doing, that I was pretty good at, and that's what kind of started my whole journey into being a counselor, into being a stand-up comic, all that kind of stuff.

Jenn St John  11:00

Oh, that's amazing. I just want to go back to that for a sec. That's pretty amazing that your brother and your dad did that as well.

David  11:07

Yeah, like I say, my dad really wanted to understand the whole, you know, suicide.

Jenn St John  11:13

My perspective too is similar in that I was watching my mom go in and out of depressive episodes, and,

David  11:19

and so it

Jenn St John  11:19

is tricky because as a family member, you want to try to support, and

David  11:23

yeah,

Jenn St John  11:24

you want to try to help, but you can't help, you know? Only my mom could have helped herself, right? I can't help her for her, but I'm always really impressed when families try to seek out information, and you know, just try to do whatever they can to support their loved one who's going through this.

David  11:40

Yeah, for sure.

Jenn St John  11:41

So, did they find it helpful?

David  11:43

I think so. I mean, I think it gave them better perspective and more of an understanding of what happens.

Jenn St John  11:49

Yeah, that's the starting point, right? Is education, shall we say, on what it is and what you're dealing with and what you're going through. And,

David  11:56

yeah,

Jenn St John  11:56

so then, as you were saying, you can't do what you thought you were going to do, which you would have been devastating, but then that leads you also to comedy. So, can you tell us about how those roads crossed?

David  12:09

What happened was, after I went on meds, I started to feel better, like I started to feel good, and I think what happened is I got that class clown thing back, and I thought, you know, something I think I want to do stand-up comedy, and so I remember my first stand-up set. It was at this club, it was a big club, sat about 200 people. There were maybe 15 people in the audience that night, so it was like this big empty cavern, and I went up. I didn't get a single laugh, it was five minutes of dead silence, and I thought, okay, that's it. I'm never doing this again. But then I took a class, and well, the next time I got up, I knew what I was doing, and our showcase, the club, was packed with all our friends and supporters, and it was an amazing experience. I just thought, you know, something I have to do this. I don't know what it's going to look like, but I just have to do this.

Jenn St John  13:03

Did you start to just do it for fun on your own for a while, and then it transitions to what you've created, or how did that happen?

David  13:11

So, at the same time, I was getting my counselor training, and I was doing stand-up, and at first it was just, you know, I would go to amateur nights, and you know, try and perform, and mostly they went well. There was the occasional bomb, and what happened around this time, too. Son, just going back and forth around this time, the crisis center hired me as their trainer, so I actually had a job in the field, which was just amazing. I loved that job, and I got asked to teach this stand-up comedy course at a community college here in Vancouver, and it has nothing to do with mental health. It's just for anyone that wants to do stand-up

Jenn St John  13:46

right.

David  13:47

Occasionally, I would see people come through, and they would have a life-changing experience, and I thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool to give this to people who wanted that life-changing experience and who wanted to do comedy, and that's what gave me the idea for Stand Up for Mental Health.

Jenn St John  14:04

That's amazing. My gosh, that's really amazing. It's always interesting to hear the journeys. Right, when you started Stand Up for Mental Health, what was that first session like to see the transformation of people during the course?

David  14:20

Well, you know, it's really interesting, because I started it in 2004 so it's been 21 years, and I talked to some people I knew in mental health, you know, I said, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing, and there was a lot of stigma, you know, they're like, "Oh, you know, you're dealing with mentally ill people, they're not reliable, they won't show up to class, they won't do any shows. Well, that first year we started with 15, we ended with 11, which is a pretty good rate of retention. We did 15 shows, two of which we put on ourselves, the rest of which we were asked by other organizations to come and help raise awareness in their workplaces or at conferences and things like that, and then after that. That year I had some of them come to me and say, you know, listen, we know our year is up, but we want to keep performing, so I started an alumni program for them, and then this CBC documentary came out about us, and that really put us on the map, and since then I've run Stand Up for Mental Health in over 50 cities, in Canada, the US, on Australia, in partnership with mental health organizations in those cities, so I train the comics virtually, and then I fly in, and we do a big show at a club or a theater or something like that. I've trained probably 700 800 comics. We've done about 500 shows for everyone, the military, correctional facilities, governments, corporations, unions, healthcare, colleges, universities. We even actually, at one point, a couple years ago, we did a show for the US Secret Service. That was funny, because they call it, you know, I get this phone call, "Oh, mr. Grenier, this is the US Secrets, and I'm like, "Man, how did you find out if I know they're like, 'Oh, we just did a random search, and I'm like, 'No, you folks don't do random searches, you know? I joke, you know, I say, 'Turns out I'm on a watch list for bad comedians. Did I mean, we did a show for the US Secret Service?

Jenn St John  16:15

That's unbelievable. Like, 21 years ago, I highly doubt you thought that was,

David  16:20

yeah,

Jenn St John  16:22

so I mean you're talking about like it's around the world, all these cities, all these different groups. Obviously, laughter is universal.

David  16:30

Totally

Jenn St John  16:31

doesn't matter what language where you are in the world. What do you think laughter allows people to say about something that's pretty serious?

David  16:39

Well, I think when people do comedy, they're able to take their story and turn it into something funny. You know what I, what I tell people is that I think doing comedy about your mental health journey, it creates this cognitive shift. All of a sudden, all that bad stuff that you've been through just becomes great comedy material. And I treat the comics, I don't call them patients, I don't call them clients, I call them comics. And when someone comes in, I don't see someone with schizophrenia or bipolar, I just see a comic and I treat them exactly like I would any other comic. An example of that, we had someone come in and say, "Oh, you know, five years ago I had a manic episode, I took off all my clothes, and I ran around Walmart naked, and as a counselor, I'm supposed to say, "Oh, you know, wow, that sounds traumatic. Let's talk about your feelings. As a comic, I'm like, "Man, that is hilarious. I can't wait to see that in your act. And, like, I say, all of a sudden people realize, "Oh, this is great material, and now they can't wait to talk about that stuff.

Jenn St John  17:42

I also wonder if it almost sounds like they're looking at it from outside of themselves as well, right? Like, it's almost, you know, as you say, 'Oh, this is just content, and it happens. Everybody in that room would have stories that would be similar, and so they're not alone, and also everyone is talking about it in a way that's almost self-deprecating,

David  18:02

yeah, and we have a room full of people who totally get it, so it's really super safe, and they have all these commonalities,

Jenn St John  18:10

yeah,

David  18:10

and so you know people can't wait, like I say, to talk about those times when they thought the TV was controlling their thoughts, or you know, whatever it

Jenn St John  18:18

is, absolutely, yeah, so many examples of what it's like to be in it when they're in it? You want to highlight just one or two student stories that really stand out.

David  18:27

Yeah, so one of our comics, he was in the documentary, his name is Robbie, and he has schizophrenia. And when I first met him, he had just gotten out of a psych facility, he had been there for six months, and he was finally stable, which was great, because before he went in, he thought he had to drink his own blood, and he was hearing demons, so here he is. He's gotten out of the facility, he's stable, but all he did was sit in his parents' basement and smoke and watch TV. I mean, that's not a life, no. And so his mother brought him to one of our shows, and it's like the light bulb went on. I remember he came up to me after the show. He's got this big smile, he's like, "I think I want to do this. So he joined the class, and his mother said it gave him a reason to get up in the morning. We all need that reason to get up in the morning. Yeah, but there was a problem, and the problem was he thought he would fail. He was convinced he would fail, because I mean he had failed at everything. How do you succeed at something like you're in school? Because I think his voices started really early, like when he was five or six. How do you succeed at school when you've got these voices, you know, they're demons telling you to drink your own? But I mean, how do you succeed in math class when you've got that stuff going on in your head, but he succeeded, and he succeeded again and again, and he became one of our star comics. And since then, he's become a rapper. He's got a couple albums out, and he said it was Stand Up for Mental Health that gave him the courage to pursue his dream, and he also gives presentations to police on mental. Health.

Jenn St John  20:00

Oh, that's fantastic. Oh my gosh. Oh, I want to check him out. You're gonna have to send a link to him afterwards. That's amazing, David. So, considering everything you've been through personally, and the 2122 years you've been running this program, it must feel pretty amazing to see the impact that you're having, like not only the service that you're doing, like, how many people are being impacted by this is pretty phenomenal.

David  20:25

Well, I'm really good at making other people into stars. That's one thing I do really, really well, and it's wonderful to see. I mean, a lot of times people say, "Oh, you know, this was great, this really helped me, and I sort of lose my perspective because it's just something I do, so when someone tells me that, it just reminds me, like, oh, wow, so this really helps people.

Jenn St John  20:47

Yeah, you're just doing it naturally. Yeah, you work. Yeah. What would you say some of the differences are from today, and when you started this?

David  20:58

Well, I think you know mental health education is way better than it was during my time. I mean, in my time, if you had some sort of mental health condition, you were just weird, and I think you know people really understand, like, oh, okay, so this is a thing, this isn't someone being lazy, this isn't someone being weird, this is a condition they have, and they need help.

Jenn St John  21:21

I agree. I mean, I know when I was a kid, there was no one to talk to, there was no support, there was no language for it. My mom obviously didn't have that either. Nobody knew what was happening, right?

David  21:33

As you said, it

Jenn St John  21:34

was our normal, and it wasn't odd. It was just this is the way things were, right? I agree. I definitely think things have come a long way. I mean, you and I wouldn't be doing this podcast if they hadn't come a long way. Yeah, and there's so much more growth that's available, but I'm really glad that it's at least gotten to this point. So,

David  21:51

yeah,

Jenn St John  21:52

do you guys pick cities and then find organizations, or do people come to you, or how does it

David  21:56

work to me? So, they'll say, oh, you know, we heard about you, you know, or we saw a show, we want you to come and run your program for our agency. That's how it takes place in all those other cities, and we also have classes in Vancouver, and those are all live classes, and those are six month program.

Jenn St John  22:14

Okay,

David  22:15

we do two shows, we do a debut show, and we do a grad show here in Vancouver, so it's different, like I say, because all the classes are in person. It's kind of our flagship program,

Jenn St John  22:27

and that one's that they're remote - are those also six months, or how does that work?

David  22:31

They're either six weeks or 12 weeks.

Jenn St John  22:33

Okay, gotcha.

David  22:34

So it's a really steep learning curve, but what I do, and I do this for the Vancouver class too, is I meet with the comics virtually individually between each class, so there's lots of support, and I help them to write their material and all that kind of stuff, because people who are beginning comics usually need a lot of help.

Jenn St John  22:53

Yeah, it's a big confidence building exercise too, right?

David  22:58

And then

Jenn St John  22:59

you fly in to do a show with them at the end, is that how it works?

David  23:03

Yeah, that's my favorite part. Of course, I'm just about to start to work with a group in New Haven, Connecticut, in the next little while, and I'll be flying in in April to do a show with them.

Jenn St John  23:13

Do a lot of these get recorded, and they're available on YouTube. Yeah,

David  23:16

there's probably close to 100 videos on our site, and we also have a YouTube channel where there's even more videos, I'm always putting up shorts on the YouTube channel, because you know, a lot of time people don't have time to listen to a five minute act, but they've got time to listen to a minute short, so I'm always putting up shorts, go, you know, I tell people it's a great place to go when you want some inspiration, when you want some laughter, and when you want to see what's possible, because I tell people this is proof that recovery is possible, and you know these people have been through what you've been through, and if they can do something like that, and you know maybe stand-up comedy isn't your thing, but if you see what's possible, I think it gives you a sense of stuff that you can do that is also really amazing.

Jenn St John  24:04

Yeah, and with that student that you're speaking about, after going through and loving it so much, and the success he's had moving on to going into music, now he's speaking, right? So I feel like, as you say, it might not be that this is what you're going to end up doing, but it's a great jumping off board

David  24:20

totally

Jenn St John  24:20

to just realize the possibilities, which is what you're showing everybody,

David  24:24

and you know, once you've done stand-up, you can do anything. I mean, you can get a job, you can go back to school, and I also make sure that all the comics have videos of their sets, so I tell them, when you're feeling bummed out or hopeless, or whatever, take a look at your set and realize what you can do, and you know it's interesting, because in Britain the National Health Service, they do something called social prescribing, where they will actually prescribe comedy for people who are going through stuff, you know, it'll be like we want you to watch comedy for whatever, 10 minutes a day, and. Mean, it can be anything, it can be stand-up, improv, cat videos, whatever. They also prescribe taking a comedy class or going to see shows live. So, I think it's really cool, and I think they've, you know, they're kind of ahead of us, and I, I think it makes sense too, because a lot of counselors will say, I want you to meditate for 10 minutes a day. Meditation doesn't work for everyone, and I think anyone can watch 10 minutes a day of comedy videos, and it doesn't take any special skill or anything like that.

Jenn St John  25:31

It's so universal. When I was a film and television director, we actually did a documentary on laughter, but it was very much this, as you said, and I mean, even when you go back to indigenous people who've been here much longer than us, you know, dealing with darkness, etc. like this is part of the reason why some of what throat singing, etc. Now they call it laughter yoga, but I mean it's been around a long time, but creating that sensation of laughing in our bodies and what it does scientifically to us, and this is why a lot of indigenous groups have had these things that they've been doing for so long, because you're literally forcing yourself to laugh to get the endorphin, like the benefit of laughing.

David  26:12

Yeah,

Jenn St John  26:13

so isn't it fascinating that however many years later, now we're at a point where it's actually being prescribed?

David  26:20

Yeah, yeah, it

Jenn St John  26:20

is very good for

David  26:22

us. I totally agree.

Jenn St John  26:24

I just wanted to say, in closing, like, when you think back to being that teenager and going through those things and family dealing with it, like, are there any times that you kind of wonder what could have helped, what could have changed the outcome?

David  26:37

Well, you know, I think if there had been a program like Stand Up for Mental Health, for me, I think it would have made a huge difference, both in the fact of giving me a sense of mastery over something really difficult. I mean, that's what I tell people, is that your self-esteem rests on two pillars: your sense of mastery, being good at something, and your social support. And in Stand Up for Mental Health, people get both of those because they're learning a skill that's really challenging, and they also have a group of people who are going through exactly what they're going through, and I wish I had had that. I think that would have made a huge difference.

Jenn St John  27:14

Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, confidence and then that support.

David  27:18

Yeah,

Jenn St John  27:19

that's huge. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I love the organization. We'll absolutely include all the links and all the show notes and everything, so we'll make sure that people know where to go to be able to laugh more and find out more information. Thank you so much, David.

David  27:35

You're welcome. My pleasure.

Jenn St John  27:39

There's something really powerful in the idea of release, not as a single moment, but as a process of slowly finding ways to let out what we've been carrying for years, of giving shape and language to experiences that once felt too heavy, too confusing, or too painful to name. What stayed with me the most in this conversation with David was just how long he carried all of this on his own, decades of depression without understanding what was happening, decades of shame, and decades of believing that he just had to push through and survive it quietly, and I think so many people listening may recognize themselves somewhere in that, maybe not to the exact details of David's story, but in the experience of feeling alone inside something that's really difficult, of pretending you're okay while struggling privately underneath it all. What David's work reminds us is that healing and release don't always arrive in the ways that we expect them to. Sometimes they arrive through honesty, sometimes through finally finding people who understand, and sometimes, surprisingly, they arrive through laughter, through standing on a stage and saying the thing that you never thought you could say out loud, and realizing you're not the only one carrying it. And maybe the takeaway here isn't that we all need to get on a stage, but that none of us were meant to carry our hardest experiences entirely alone, that there are ways, big and small, to begin letting things move through us instead of holding them silently inside forever, and if that path ever does lead you to a stage, well, now you know how to find David. Before we go, if this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. You can connect with me through the show notes on social media or at my website, which is triple W Gen St john.ca and that's Jen with 2n's Supporting the podcast by subscribing, sharing an episode, or leaving a review is one of the best ways to help these conversations reach more people. And if something difficult came up while listening, please remember that you don't have to sit with it alone. In Canada, you can call or text 988 anytime for free confidential mental health support. You can also reach out locally to the CMHA crisis lines, and in Simcoe County, that is one triple 88938333 or text 686868 and you'll be connected to a trained volunteer through the Crisis Text Line. In the US, the 988 suicide and crisis. Lifeline is available 24/7 Just call or text for anyone who's in emotional distress, not just those in crisis. And for listeners in Australia, you can call Lifeline at 13 1114 day or night, for free and confidential crisis support. Thank you for listening, for holding space for stories like this, and for being a part of this community, we'll be back next week with another conversation, and until then, take good care of yourselves and each other, and keep finding your way forward,

30:28

you.