Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022: Alison Spittle shares how comedy has helped her mental health

6 June 2022

When I was thirteen I punched a jacket potato into the floor. It became clear to my parents and my school, I needed some professional help and there was no better time to have a mental break than when the economy is thriving, the government were very generous.

Alison Spittle by Karla Gowlett

I left double german each week in school to talk to someone about trauma, I got to analyse and comprehend feelings that I repressed so hard I ended up making a very rustic mash on my mum's new kitchen floor. As I left school the financial crash happened and there was not much else to do other than stand-up comedy. Comedy doesn't pay when you start out and neither did anything else at the time. I would be poor anyway, might as well have fun. As an adult I wasn't entitled to free mental health help but so what, I had comedy, the validation was such a buzz, I felt great. A couple of violent crimes happened to me in a short space of time a few years later and I just did stand up about it because it was a space that I explored stuff I wanted to talk about and If a man broke into your house with a knife I'm sure you'd want to speak about it too. When comedy started paying, I paid for therapy as with comedy it brought some stuff up that I wasn't prepared for. My need to be liked was reaching a breaking point when more people knew me and formed opinions, they're entitled to do that but I needed to equip myself to deal with it. Stand up ended up being a bit of a plaster on an amputation. When I couldn't leave my room for days in fear of imaginary burglars in my home, I would do a stand-up gig and make a room full of people laugh and feel powerful or at least I was a worthy human. When lockdown happened I no longer had the identity of being a comedian and had to stay in my room, I reassessed my whole sense of purpose. To be a comedian felt like the most important thing in the world and to lose that felt scary.

To lose something is to be free of it too and I'm no longer feel codependent on comedy to give me validation. I'm returning to the Edinburgh fringe this year, I used to always think it was make or break and I would spend six months of my year in anguish in preparation for it. This year I'm working harder than ever, but somehow I care less, I think it must be the therapy.

What is make or break? What is being a comedian? who cares, I'm having fun, hopefully, audiences will too.