November 14 A team of comedians gathered at Hecklers comedy club in Victoria to joke about mental health.

These funny people are part of Vancouver comedian David Granirer’s Stand Up For Mental Health (SUFMH) program, which, for For 30 years, has helped people with mental health problems gain confidence, build connections and combat shame.

“People are really ashamed of having a mental health problem,” said Granirer, who lives with bipolar disorder himself. “By talking about it openly and making people laugh with them, it’s just a wonderful way to dispel that internalized shame.”

Granirer began teaching the craft to general audiences through his Stand-Up Comedy Clinic course at Langara College in Vancouver. It was there that he realized the positive impact that jokes could have on stage.

“I saw the difference it made to the lives of people who didn’t have mental health issues, just in terms of their confidence and self-esteem,” he said. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to apply this to people with mental health issues who really, really need that boost?’ »

In 2004, Granirer did just that by founding SUFMH, through which he taught the fundamentals of comedy to participants, each of whom was required to perform a live performance at the end of the program. Since then, the comedian, who is also a certified counselor, led the program in over 50 cities in Canada, Australia and the United States

One of hundreds of SUFMH attendees, Sasha Granneman, who performed at Hecklers on Thursday, spoke about the positive impacts of the program.

Diagnosed with OCD and bipolar disorder, the North Saanich resident has faced many challenges, including breast cancer which, in 2021, metastasized to her spine, fracturing it in two places.

“It was a really low point,” she said. “My mental health was back in the tank. »

Thanks to SUFMH, Granneman was able to combat her mental health issues with laughter.

“Every Friday we would get together and talk and laugh and come up with materials,” she said. “It was great for my confidence and self-esteem in general, especially after performing in front of an audience.”

Granirer explained that when people joke about their own problems, they help trigger what he calls a “cognitive shift.”

“When people do comedy, especially in my classes, they take a lot of things that they’ve been through that have been really hard or really bad and turn them into stand-up comedy,” he said. declared. “What it means is, all of a sudden, all the bad things you’ve been through become great comedy fodder.”

This change is apparent in the way Granneman approaches the problems in his life.

“It’s good because I have all this new material now, being mentally ill with stage four breast cancer,” she said, soon reciting one of her jokes. “Someone told me to stop using cancer as an excuse to get out of things, and I said, ‘I’d really love to try that, but I have cancer.'”

Local nonprofits Connections Place and Umbrella Society, which help people with mental health and substance abuse issues, sponsored the event.

“Every time someone is able to laugh and have fun during recovery, their mental health improves,” said Evan James, manager of strategic initiatives at the Umbrella Society. “Being able to share these moments with others and have that camaraderie is another essential part of recovery.”

Connection Place executive director Neelam Pahal expressed a similar sentiment.

“There are people… who prefer to try to find humor in the difficulties of life,” she said. “It can be a way to empower yourself, cope with stressors and difficulties, and overcome the hold that illness can have on a person’s ability to experience joy.”

The Hecklers event, which was sold out just days before, proved a huge success, with laughter spilling out of the basement club on Gorge Road for passers-by to hear. Events like this make Granirer proud of the people brave enough to go on stage, stand under hot lights and crack jokes in a room full of strangers.

“What we remember most is the strength and resilience found in the mental health community, and the courage and bravery of people,” he said. “What I realized is that when you take someone with a mental health issue and you give them something that they really, really want to do, they will do whatever it takes to let this happen.”