Marc Maron interviews Allie Brosh

[Original interview: http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_550_-_allie_brosh]

I cannot even begin to express what an honor it is to share with you this conversation I had with Allie Brosh. I have a tremendous amount of respect for her personally, for her journey as an individual, and the way she found her art and her mode of expression. I love her. And her book, Hyperbole and a Half, it's relieving, it's hilarious, and it's deep. So let's talk to Allie Brosh now.

- - - -

I want to make sure I pronounce your last name right. "Brosh"? Not like "brush".

Yes, you got it.

Now, I didn't know anything about you until I got this book. But a lot of people knew about you---

I suppose so. [laughs]

---and that made me upset. Like, I feel like I'm always late to the game. And this book comes out and then I read it and I identify too deeply with it, which makes it problematic, but hilarious. And I'm thinking, like, how is this person staying alive in the world? [laughs]

I wonder that all the time. That's the biggest mystery of my life!

But I mean, like, you seem okay?

I carry it off much better than, I think, the reality is.

How old are you? Do you talk about that?

I'm 29.

You're 29! So you're a young person.

Yeah!

And you were not planning on being a cartoon artist.

No, it just sort of happened. I actually studied human biology in college, and I was planning on being a scientist, but then panicked at the last moment. And decided to try other things.

You seem to be proficient on your computer with this, uh, this animating program?

[laughs] That's a lofty way to put it. "Animating program". It's like a little doodly program, like---

I don't know what it is, see, like I don't even know that much. I mean, I could do research on you and learn the name of things, and I think I did---what was it called, Paintbrush?

Yeah, Paintbrush.

And what is it? Does it just come on a computer?

Yeah, it's like a free download thing. It's like MS Paint, sort of. It has a little brush tool and a fill tool.

So that's it. You don't need to know--- there's no steps?

Steps as in, like, I have to put down different lines, but not more than that.

And you just drag around, and that's it?

Yeah, I just drag it around. I have a trackpad.

But once you created the version of you that is a cartoon you, how do you repeat that over and over again? Can you just bring that guy up, that person?

Yeah, it took a while to get to that final form, but I sort of have it in my head now.

How did this form evolve? [AB laughs] ...We're going to go back, but we're in this now.

Okay, so when I sit down to write something, or convey something, I have an image or a feeling in my head that I'm trying to transfer to whoever I'm communicating with, relatively unadulterated. From my head to theirs.

Through this medium. Through words and the Paintbrush.

Yeah. And so with pictures, I have this abstract concept that I'm trying to put down the page and communicate. And that was just sort of the best way that I figured out how to do it.

'Cause it was simple.

It was simple and that's really what I'm like on the inside, I feel like. That picture is me, more me than I am.

But you decided that. Because you chose this medium because you were fucking around on your computer. It wasn't years of painting, or like--- [both laugh]

No, no! It's just, sort of, this is the drawing program I have available, I'm going to use this.

Right. And this was the relationship you built with this representation of you, I imagine it evolved, and you accepted it. It wasn't waiting to happen. Do you know what I mean? I think if you were to conceive of yourself at some other time before Paintbrush, and what your inner self looked like, it would not have been that.

Yeah, it would've had to be something else. [both laugh]

All right, I've been reading too much of your book. So you grow up outside of Sacramento, horrible. And then what happens?

So we moved to Sandpoint, Idaho when I was eight.

Are your parents "off the grid" people?

Well, so my mom had a dream. And I'm pretty sure she just really wanted to get out of the Sacramento area and she used this dream as the impetus, as the excuse to go.

Did she grow up in Sacramento, or outside of there?

She grew up near there, a little further south. But yeah, she grew up in California her whole life.

Not the interesting California.

Yeah, she was sick in the heat, sick of the people, a bunch of people there. She wanted to get out somewhere where she could just, sort of, live. I guess not off the grid necessarily? I feel like that's a loaded term, "off the grid". There's a lifestyle.

Well, I'm not saying she was a survivalist or a supremacist, but you know, just sort of... away.

Yeah. She wanted to get away, wanted to be in nature.

So that was her dream, nature.

Yeah. And so she had this dream, and my mom believes in all this, like, mysticism, dreams stuff---

Oh, she's kind of new-agey?

Yeah, oh, super new-agey.

Like, there's no coincidences...

Oh yeah, that's my mom.

Okay, like, certain rocks, crystals, candles.

Oh, crystals, yes. I had to drive with a crystal in my glove box of my car. She would not let me go anywhere without it.

Do you remember what type of crystal it was?

I believe it was, like, a amethyst or like a quartz, or something?

A protecting crystal?

I think so, yeah. It was sort of a pinky color one?

Does she read the I Ching?

I don't know about that one. I know that she has just, like, bookshelves of---

So she's one of those New Age, fragmented system of understanding through many different methods are removed from our larger methods.

Yes. That's a good way to put it!

And also, it functions as a way to decorate your house. [laughs]

Yeah! Oh yeah. Crystals all over, little points of light, cheeses...

Points of light, oh good.

She likes the points of light.

So she's still in this.

Oh, she's very much still in this.

Is she a healer of any kind?

No, she just sort of likes it. And it's very concerning to her that I'm not very spiritual. And this is a great point of anxiety for my mother.

But her spirituality is based on so many different things. So she calls herself a generally spiritual person because she's aware of all these different possibilities and loopholes and interpretations.

Yeah.

Okay. So she ran away.

Yeah, so we all moved up to Northern Idaho.

And your dad in all this, he's just along for the ride?

My dad loves my mom. And when my mom gets an idea in her head that she wants to do something, my dad just, "Okay", and he goes.

But how does he tolerate the language around the crystals and around the possibilities of mysticism?

It's interesting, I never wondered about that until I was an adult. I think he just sort of goes with it. He knows it's important to her, and he doesn't question it. He's more like me.

So he really loves her.

Yeah! [both laugh]

He's just like, "Okay. Okay." So he's sort of the calming influence?

Yeah, I'd say so.

So probably, despite whatever beliefs your mother has, and all this other stuff, the thing the grounds her is him.

Yup! [both laugh] He's just sort of there.

He's the unfluctuating constant.

Exactly.

In a world of chaos that's being managed by several different systems. Okay. Got it. So that's what you grew up in.

That's what I grew up in, yes. ...Well, there's also my aunt and my grandmother in the equation.

Yes, some of them are in the book. Your aunt's in the book. So they were all in Idaho, they all went there at the same time?

So we were all living together in the same house in California. My mom moved back in with with her mom---

And your father.

---after she and my dad got married. Yes. So they all moved in with my mom's mom.

And your aunt was there.

And my aunt was there, my crazy aunt.

A big house.

[laughs] Yeah. I mean, not super big house, but...

And you were all there, which is nice to some degree. And you have a sister. Just two of you.

...

What?

She died.

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's all right! Um, yes, that was... this year.

Oh really? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's sad.

Yeah, it was sort of a long time coming, I think.

Was she ill?

Yes. She is bipolar. She just got in a real bad depression, and...

And ended it?

And ended it, yeah.

Augh. I come from that, you know. I admit it to my family, and you do too I guess. Do you have other members of your family that are bipolar?

Um... Not bipolar, I mean, I'm depressive.

You've got that.

Oh yeah.

You're classified as depressive, that's the diagnosis. Well, let's get to that. And I'm sorry to hear about your sister, that's very sad.

I compartmentalize. I deal with tragedy well, I guess you could say? I feel okay about it now. I mean, it was definitely hard, especially---I was going through a really tough depressive episode at the time it happened, and so it was a little bit tougher to get through it because I couldn't navigate my feelings, 'cause I didn't know what they were doing. I couldn't feel them enough to know what they were doing.

Right, right. So your depression is cyclical?

Yeah, I'd say. I mean, for like the last four years I've pretty much just been depressed to varying levels. It gets worse sometimes, and then sometimes it's---

For the last four years.

About four years, yeah.

...Holy shit. That's hard.

Yeah.

But I think you get an amazing amount of credit that's well deserved in how you navigate that illness in the book. Because I talk about my feelings fairly frankly on my show, and I imagine it's the same with you, in the sense that you had no idea the type of relief and gratitude common people who think like you experience when they read your stuff.

Yeah, it was really surprising to me, right? Because you think that when you're depressed it's like your own specific brand of misery. Nobody else would be able to relate to that.

Or understand it.

Oh yeah, yeah.

But the way you broke down in the two chapters in the book about depression, the way you broke down your exact feelings of how it affects your day-to-day life and what your brain is doing, your relentless self-examination, is sort of a portal into, like---I read your book and I said to myself, I'm like, wow, maybe I am depressed. 'Cause I put that aside. Because my father's depressive. So I was very much like, fuck that, I'm not going to be that. So I'm going to fight it, like that. But there's definitely, specifically, the thing of, like, why bother? That thing.

Yeah. The apathy.

Yeah. In a way, even if it's good things, like, I don't even know what to buy sometimes. Like, I don't want to buy a thing 'cause that'd make me happy. It's like, eugh, what's the point.

That sounds about, like, the experience. [both laugh]

But then there are other parts that are fine!

I mean, yeah, that's pretty much how I feel when I'm in, like, not the absolute worst part?

Right. I got diagnosed as dysthymic once.

Yeah, I've heard that term. It's like a fancy word for, like, sort of depressed.

Yeah, it's "sort of depressed", just a chronically "sort of depressed". But don't you ever get that thing where you're, like, well who the fuck isn't?

I guess so, but... It depends on how long it goes on and whether you can feel enthusiasm. I know I'm not doing very well if I can't feel any degree of enthusiasm about anything.

So you're just flat. It's like a phantom limb, like, "I should be... eugh."

Yeah, like, cognitively I know how my reactions should be to things. I sort of have to reverse engineer my every interaction that I have with things. It's very clinical, like, this is how I would feel if I was a normal person. And then try to do that.

But it's hard to determine what normal is. 'Cause in stand up, I used to justify depression as being a reasonable reaction. But you know, you went up to bend [???], it's beautiful, and I mean there's no reason to not feel good, right?

And that's the problem! I get down on myself about it. It's like, you know, I have a great life, and there's no reason to feel depressed about anything. But that's sort of the hallmark of it, is that it's not about anything.

Yeah, you have to accept that. You have to accept it as a mental illness. ...All right, so let's go back. So you're living in this huge house with your grandma and your aunt and your mom and dad and your sister. And everybody goes to Idaho?

Everybody goes to Idaho.

Because your mom wants to.

Yes.

Powerful woman.

Yeah. [laughs] I mean, she made a case for herself, I don't remember what it was. I was pretty distraught about having to leave my friends.

And what was the life like up there? Did she buy a piece of land? Did she have a business in mind?

So my grandma actually had a bunch of money saved. And my grandma put down money on buying the property that we have. It was, I imagine, pretty cheap. It's way out.

How many acres?

I think about twenty acres?

That's huge!

It's a huge amount of property, way out in the middle of nowhere in northern Idaho.

Pretty?

I think so. I mean, it's sort of swampy, for the lower half---

Does she still have it?

Yeah, they're actually thinking about selling it, now. But yeah, I grew up in this house. They built the house on the property to sort of keep down costs.

So it is sort of the homesteading, you know, pleasant side of "off the grid". [laughs] Nice off-the-gridders. Did you have any weird neighbors who were the wrong kind of off-gridders?

We had one weird neighbor. Lyle. He'd was a weird guy. He'd just just stand out by the mailbox and like, just survey things. Look around, take the scene in.

Waiting for something to happen?

Just waiting for something to happen. He wanted to be the first one to just get in there when something happened.

He knew something was going to happen. He was ready?

He saw that we moved in. And he came over and my parents saw him just, like, wandering around the yard, poking around, looking at the landscaping, whatever. And they're like, hey, can we help you? And he's like, oh, hi, you mind having me in for a beer?

"You mind?" [laughs]

And my parents were like, uh, guess not...? [both laugh] I wasn't there, I've just cobbled this story together from hearing them tell it.

And what happened when Lyle came in for a beer?

He hung around for an uncomfortably long time, and finally my dad---and my dad is a very passive man, he doesn't like confrontation---but he finally just got up and was like, maybe it's time to go, Lyle. Maybe it's time to go home. He was, oh, okay, okay, and walked away.

Is that how the relationship has remained? I mean, are they friends though, or, at least...

I don't think he ever came over after that. That was the only time he ever came over.

You just added to his grudge pile. "Those people are part of the problem over there."

He was only weird one that lived right next to us. There was a guy---I went running one time. I was big into running in high school. And my friend was biking with me. He was gonna ditch the bike and then continue running with me, like, he didn't want to run as far as I did. So he wanted to bike part of it, run part of it, and then get back on the bike. So we stop at some bush where he can ditch his bike and we can start running. And about a mile down the road, this car speeds up to us, and there's this guy who saw us ditch the bike and he's like, well, what's that about? We're like, well, we're just exercising. He's like, are you sure you're not terrorists?! [both laugh]

You didn't know that guy.

I had no idea who he was. Never seen him before in my life.

That's the Idaho I think is up there. Like, there's those guys, there's the TM people, I think, have a big compound in Idaho, and there's like this weird combination of hippies, off-the-grid people, you know, like anti-government but "Americans!", and then there's the Aryan nation people. But that's very funny to me, 'cause the way I picture it is that when something happens, anything happens, it's such a minimal environment that it must be so loaded.

It's just blown out of proportion. It's just, like, oh crap, somebody ditched a bike.

Yeah. That's a bomb!

Something's going down.

Something's going down? Where?!

Right! Like, if I was a terrorist, I'd be the worst terrorist in the history of the world. Like what sort of plan is that? [MM laughs] Go out in the middle of northern Idaho where there's nobody? [laughs]

Ditch a bike and then go do somethin'?

And the bike is explosive. It's gonna blow up the bush.

Oh, I can't believe that you grew up like that! But it must've been nice on some level. So, okay, what was your mom's big plan, though? Just to live there?

Yeah, just to live there.

No job, no...?

She's a computer graphics artist.

Oh really?

So she got a job working for, not a newspaper but you know like, a pamphlet, handout? The ones with like, the little things that have the brainteasers and trivia questions on them?

She does those?

That was the first thing she did, and then she moved---

So you kind of come from illustration, in a way.

I guess so, yeah!

Did you watch your mom do that when you were a kid and think, well, maybe I could do that?

I saw her doing the stuff. She had the light table, the X-Acto knife, like that's most of the stuff I'd see or do.

Old school. Oh yeah, back when people did that.

And what'd you dad do?

He's sort of a jack of all trades. He's a handyman.

Oh really? So he just goes around and says, yeah, I can build that for ya?

Yeah, so he works now for a hotel chain, or a chain of restaurants and hotels, and he just goes around and fixes stuff. He's a fixer-man. [laughs]

A fixer! They're very important here in LA.

Yes. He gets called at, like, five o'clock in the morning. He has to come in and, like, do something, there's an emergency.

Some plumbing thing? Something that if he can fix it or he has to get a guy to come fix it? Yeah. Handymans in the LA area are notoriously---you just never know how your house is wired or anything. Like, if you ever get into the walls of an old house here, people are like, this is all just tape!

[laughs] It's just entirely built out of tape!

Right, no one ever hires no electrician, they just call a "guy"! And they have him fix it. So, what'd you do in high school? Your plan was not to be this brilliant illustrator/writer person.

That was definitely not my plan.

You ran track.

I ran track and cross-country.

'Cause you're into running. So you could run long distances. Was that helpful?

It was very helpful. Looking at it in retrospect, I feel like running was my attempt to self-medicate.

Well, that's a good choice of them.

It is. It exhausts me, I mean, I have ADD and some amount of anxiety. When I run and I exhaust myself, I don't have energy to be that way. So I can just sort of chill out.

You know what I'm thinking right now? I have to run. I have to start running again. That's what I'm thinking.

Yeah? Did you run?

No, I ran like a week or so ago. I was, like, close to getting back into the habit, and then just went on the road to work, and I ate a lot of stuff. And then you just start eating, and you're like, ugh, now I'm just---

And it's that spiral, right?

Yeah, I'm fucked. And then you gotta pull it all back and just start denying yourself food and start running. Do you do that?

Well, not exactly that. But I know what you're talking about, like, the general shape of it. Where my life will start to spiral downward in some way. Like, I'll just let one thing go and then that it makes it harder to do the other things. 'Cause they don't feel good.

Right, but you say you have an ability to compartmentalize. But not when you're going down.

Not really, because once there are too many things that pile on top of each other, especially accompanied by apathy, and it's just like, how do I even get out of this?

And it's exhausting. And that's where the anxiety comes in. 'Cause that's what I learned about myself, I don't know, maybe as someone who self-examines. Like, I used to think I was experiencing depression, but then I realized that I was experiencing anxiety, that became dread, and then I get exhausted.

Yeah, it is exhausting.

And that looks like depression. 'Cause you're like, "oh, I can't---and then I---augh". And that moment feels like depression. But I've decided it's just the end of the anxiety cycle. That's how I've self-diagnosed.

[laughs] I was actually really relieved when I first became depressed, because that was the first break I'd had from anxiety. When I'm really depressed I don't have enough anything in me to be anxious.

All right, so you're in high school, you're running, you're doing good in school?

Yeah, I did. I did well until my senior year of school and then things sort of train-wrecked.

But you could've been worse. You were running, you weren't on drugs, you weren't driving around drinkin'.

Yeah!

Huh. That's good.

Yeah, I was doing all right.

What happened your senior year?

That's when my sister started getting sick.

How'd that manifest itself?

She became extremely manic. And the way her manic episodes manifested were, she had what the psychologist called psychotic manias. Where she'd just totally lose touch with reality.

Oh my god.

Yeah, and just do crazy things, and nobody could figure out what was wrong. My parents had no experience with this, they didn't know what it was. And so, everything was sort of tumultuous. And, you know, my parents had their own struggles they were going through, and things were just weird at home. So a little bit of that, I had my own weirdness going on, and I just couldn't cope with it---

What kind of weirdness?

Oh... Probably identity stuff?

Oh, high school stuff?

Periodically I go through a phase where I just realize, oh, my identity's all wrong and I have to, like, break down and rebuild it from scratch.

What were you at that point, like a jock, kind of...?

I've never really known what I am.

Who were you hanging out with in high school? How were your friends?

A little bit of everybody. I was intimidated by the cool kids. I was never a cool kid. They sort of made an attempt to like, maybe I could be in that group, but I was too scared.

They reached out, they sent a representative?

Yeah, they reached out, and, I was too scared. I was, no, I'm not gonna...

Not cool? Too much pressure? I'm gonna have to keep up with music?

Yeah. [both laugh]

And figure out what people are wearing? So you felt like an outsider?

Oh yeah, yeah. I was always an awkward kid. I was always behind, never knew what to do with myself or, like, how to be. I feel like I got most of my---So my friend, my best friend, is this kid named Joey. He was a cool kid and I never was, and I always felt very intimidated by him. And much of my early life was defined by trying to get him to think that I was cool. And he would give me advice on how to dress. So I spent my early preteen years wearing, like, JNCO jeans and baggy shirts, just totally rocking the skater guy look. [laughs]

And you never felt comfortable?

I mean, I didn't fit in to anybody but him. He didn't know what he was doing either, was the thing. He didn't know what he was doing. To me he looked like he knew what he was doing.

So he confided in you that like, look, I don't what's going on either.

He didn't confide in me. It's just that now that we're adults I can clearly see that. [laughs]

Oh, you're still friends with him?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Really! So it lasted.

Yeah!

That's great! And initially, it wasn't a dating thing, it was just pals, you just felt like outsiders?

Just buddies, yeah. I was like the tumor on his life. He saw that I wasn't meshing with, like, he found this group of cool friends and I wasn't meshing with the cool friends.

[laughs] What do you mean, "weren't meshing"? How does that happen? [AB laughs] Like, what moment signifies that for you, the unmeshing?

They could just tell. Cool kids have this sense where they can just know that you aren't one of them. [MM laughs] Right? Okay, it also didn't help that about three months earlier, my friend Joey had dared me to shave my head.

Oh, you did that?

I did that. Because he dared me to and I didn't want to look like a chicken.

People that don't know who they are can't shave their heads!

Yeah, exactly! And I don't know I was.

I did that.

And I hadn't worried about it up till that point, really.

It's the worst, 'cause you can't do anything about it...

Yeah, and it grows back so slow, and---

I did that once. Because, the same reason I think. ...It's horrible.

And it's awful, right?

But I was like in my twenties! I decided, like, people just go to the razor cut places, and they just get shaved, and it's comfortable. And at that point I bought a skateboard, 'cause I wanted to hang out with the guys who could skateboard.

Aren't they cool?

Yeah. But I couldn't skateboard. And I'm in my twenties, though! I'm not in fucking high school. [AB laughs] So I shave my head and I have my skateboard, and at some point I just looked at my head and I just, like, it was almost like there was no definition. It was completely horrible. But what you don't realize at that moment is that---well, with your case because it was a dare and you were in high school and you're a woman, it was probably more impactful---but no one's looking at me going like, why does that guy have no sense of definition? But I felt that.

Right, right.

So you shaved your head, and what happened?

So I was thirteen, I think, when I shaved my head. And it was really bad timing, it was like two weeks before I discovered that I'm interested in boys. I had like, no view of self before this, no, like, self-consciousness, nothing. Then I shaved my head and I discovered, wow, I am not pretty.

And it was pure. Like this was unadultered. It was, like, no distraction with hair, this is just baseline.

Yeah, nothing. And, oh, I had giant braces. And, you know, when you do something like that, when you do something that's so obviously---it just shows that you don't know how to fit, to do the things that show people you can be one of them. Like, they see you and they're like, there's something wrong here.

Right! But the thing is that they, I don't know---I don't know how you were able to track it. In terms of this weird, sort of, there's a fundamental missing piece to your sense of self. So, you know, I can kind of track it to having fairly self-involved parents with no boundaries, and no one really provided the amount of discipline for me to sort of feel like I was making decisions for myself. I just felt like I was a wild animal of some kind.

I totally feel like that.

Right, you gotta build your identity on your own. And it's this weird lifelong project just to arrive in your fucking body. And I'm fifty and it only happened to me like five years ago, I don't know where you're at with it, but I don't know what clinically that is. But what I noticed when I was that age was that there was just this weird discomfort and paralyzing self-consciousness. That what they're sensing is that you just don't have the ability to get out your head. Because you're constantly double-checking yourself, and also---I don't know, I'm talking a lot, but that's okay, right?

Oh, that's totally okay. I like when you talk.

So, also what I realized, 'cause I did some of it the other night, was that you start looking---and I think you do this in your writing as well, you sort of illustrate this---is you look at everything else about you, like just decisions you're making and, like, this is the wrong shirt for life. [AB laughs] That kind of thing, like all it'll take is one little thing to make you completely insecure. And then you kind of change it up, what if I drank that instead of this, maybe I should drink both of them... And they just become, like, this horrible spinning.

Yeah, like one thing can destabilize the whole machine.

Right! What the fuck is that?

I don't know, man! Let's think about it.

Was there any discipline in the house?

There was discipline. I mean, my parents were pretty hands off, I had a lot of freedom. My mom believed more in explaining things to me. Like, instead of disciplining me, she'd say, you know, this is why this was a bad decision, this is why this would've been a better decision. And she was very open about stuff.

But that's hard when you're a kid, 'cause you just want them to make the fucking decision.

[laughs] I suppose so.

'Cause that's what my mom used to do, she used to say things like, "Do you want me to say no?" What is that?! [both laugh] How is that gonna help me? I don't know?!

Maybe it's like a paralysis of having too many options.

Right! Yeah, kind of like, can you give me a value system? Can you teach me? That one thing in the book is that the idea of, you know, good and bad and am I a good person, am I not a good person, is that to have to manage, due to your own judgment of yourself, what is right and wrong and then sort of assess the fact that well, you're not a good person because you're doing all this for selfish reasons. Well, a lot of things are done---I would say most great things are done for completely selfish reasons. [laughs]

Yeah. I'd say so.

It's just no one talks about it.

I mean, I don't know if it's possible to act completely unselfishly, because even if you do, you know that you did the thing so you get to feel good about it. And so, it sort of, like, negates...

But I do think there are people that think about others first. Either by, you know, training, or by---

Yeah, but do they do that because it's an important part their identity? You know, they want to be the person that puts other people first?

Well, if they're, like, Mother Theresa or something, all those people have flaws. You know, well, they might even be codependent to the point where [AB laughs] they don't even like themselves so they just live through other people. I don't know. There's a lot of different options. All right, so, your senior year, your sister starts to get sick, you're just growing your hair back.

I made it through. I almost didn't graduate, because I'd missed too many days of school.

Because?

Because I just, sort of, couldn't deal with being there. I just wanted to, I don't know, be somewhere else.

Were you ditching?

I was ditching school. I'd still study. I was one of those kids who would still read the book.

Were you still running?

I was still running, yeah.

You just didn't want to go into class.

Just didn't want to go into class.

Because you felt...?

I've always had a problem with schedules. This is, I think, why I do what I do now is because I don't really think I had any other option in my life. Like if this career path didn't work out---

Or didn't come to you.

Yeah. If it didn't happen, I... I'd... It was my only option.

Well, thank God you found it!

Yeah! [laughs]

Yeah, I mean I've been doing comedy my whole life and I don't know what else I would've done. And it's very similar in that, you know, it's very immediate, you're engaged with it, you know when you're being funny. And you can put your thing up on the blog after you make it, and you get the reaction.

And sometimes that's terrifying.

No, it is.

I'm sure stand-up even more so.

But it's just weird, like, these are things that are immediate. You know what I mean? You're not working for somebody else, you don't have to work in a group situation. There's not a lot of schooling necessary.

You get the reward right away.

Yeah...!

And I guess maybe I have trouble thinking about long-term rewards. It's like what we were saying earlier with the multi-step process.

I have a hard time thinking about next week without panic! Right?

Yeah! So it's probably important for people like you and I to have something more immediate.

Well, I'm glad it worked out.

Yeah!

Right, so, you almost don't graduate. So your parents, are they busting---are they on you about it?

They actually took sort of my side with the whole thing. Because my grades weren't bad, I graduated with a fine GPA and everything. But there's a certain amount of days that you have to be sitting in a chair in school. And one of my, I think it was my Vice Principal, was just like, no, you can't graduate. And this was infuriating because I had at a scholarship, and you know, my parents aren't wealthy, they used their retirement fund to pay for my sister's treatments and everything. So they didn't have money to send me to college. I don't think I would have been able to go to college if I wouldn't have graduated. And it was just, I missed the days by like two. I was over by like two days on the number of days that I couldn't miss school. And so finally they settled on, okay, well, I have to come to school after everybody's gone and just sit in a chair for the number of days that I missed. And then it would be forgiven. So yeah, I just went and sat in a chair in a room. [laughs] To fulfill a requirement of me!

Paperwork.

Yeah!

Punishment.

Exactly! Just, like, sit here and think about what you've done.

It meant nothing, other than that vice-principal could say that you made the days up.

Yup.

That's ridiculous! But you did it.

I did it.

And then you went to college.

Yes.

Was that a disaster?

Sort of. Um... Yeah, sort of.

Yeah?

I feel like, in college, all the not fitting in part was just... magnified. Amplified. So I was on the track and cross-country team.

Well, at least you had that.

Well, that was where the weirdness came in. I never felt like I fit in on the team.

Really? That's sort of essential for a team.

It is, isn't it?

It's the idea of "team".

Yeah! [laughs]

Why, exactly?

Well, it all started, my freshman year roommate was this girl named Julie. And Julie, she was terrifying to me. Just the embodiment of everything terrifying to me in another person.

Really? Like?

Just extremely judgmental, and unforgiving. And she was cool, I could tell she was cool.

Which is bad?

Which is, yeah, I mean---

Cool, judgmental, unforgiving.

It's just, I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with her. And I wanted her to like me so bad. I wanted to be best friends with her and have her feel the same way about me that I felt about her. And she didn't. And it didn't go well, and it sort of, like, from there, things spiraled.

She wasn't on the team though, she was---

She was.

--just your roommate? Oh, she was on the team.

And so, I don't know what this is all about, but there's this political thing that happens sometimes, where if somebody doesn't like you, they have to convince other people that they're right? Like, that their dislike of you is correct?

Yeah, that's kind of, it's a type of bullying, in a way.

I guess so! [laughs a bit]

It's sort of a campaign to ostracize you.

Yeah, so she would campaign against me.

She did?

Yeah, and tell people, oh yeah, she is---she, you know, leaves her clothes out of her drawers and doesn't clean up, and, just weird stuff. And this hurt me deeply, when I figured out this was happening.

Well yeah, because you already feel awkward, and now there's actually a reason to feel excluded, because she's trying to---she's a bully.

I suppose so, yeah! She...

Go ahead, it's okay to say it now.

[laughs] See, I'm worried that like, is she going to listen to this, is she going to feel bad, am I going to hurt Julie's feelings? Like, what if we could still be friends? What if---

How long as it been?

Oh, gosh, like ten years.

So you're still worried about Julie liking you?

Probably, yeah. [MM laughs] I think so, I think there's a part of me that's still like, maybe it can happen. Maybe someday, if I... [laughs]

But wouldn't you rather the scenario be that you run into Julie again and you're like, I don't even want to be your friend now!

[laughs] I guess. Because, when I really think about it logically, I don't think Julie and I would really even get along. Like, even if she liked me, we just don't share perspective. We don't have enough in common to have fun together, to be friends.

But you envied her ability to move through the world.

Yeah, and I just took it as like, she didn't like me, and that bothered me. It really bothers me, like, I have this thing where I want everybody to like me. And that's how I feel okay.

I hide it.

You hide it? I think that's the phase I'm in now, where I'm trying to sort of, like, cover up that underbelly.

I don't want to believe that I want everyone to like me.

Yeah, 'cause it makes you feel weird, right?

Yeah, because it's still, like, an indicator that my personality is not defined. Do you know what I mean? Like, that my sense of self is so fragile that I need everyone to say---

Their approval.

Yeah. But, like, I've gone out of my way through most of my career to alienate almost everybody at some point or another! [both laugh]

I feel like I do that as well!

And I'm an angry person. You know, when I get close to people, then I put them through horrible trials and tribulations.

What does that look like?

Well, like, if I really do get close to somebody, then I constantly feel like I'm either being manipulated, or judged. Or they're lying. Like if somebody really does like me, that's bullshit. You don't really like me.

Huh.

You don't have any of those?

I... I do. I'm less suspicious, less about the lying. But yeah, I think that the way that I've dealt with it is I either have to get really close to somebody, or I can't really be around them. Because we have to tear down walls pretty early.

But this is a friend or a boyfriend. Or a husband.

Yes, somebody that I get really close to, and then---

But isn't it always, like, one person though?

Yeah, it's just one person, and you get real close to them. And it's like, you're safe because you think, okay, well, at this point they've seen enough of me that, like, I'm relatively certain that they've seen some real bad stuff and they're still sort of here, so...

But haven't those people ever exhausted? And sort of had to go like, you gotta find one other friend. 'Cause I used to do a joke about that. Like, you only need two friends, you need the main friend---

And the backup friend. I saw that one, yeah. [laughs]

You did? You did some research?

Oh, no, I've been a fan of yours for a while! [both laugh]

But that's true, right? I've had to pull back from putting so much---to the point where I keep very few friends, 'cause at some point I realize, like, I always lock into one friend, and if they can't be there for me, it's a disaster.

See, I saw that I have a tendency to do that, and I'm so scared of doing it, that I get in my own head. And I think that that's where most of the anxiety comes from, is trying to self-police, so that I don't get to that point. I'm so afraid of getting to---

Making different choices. I mean self-policing is sort of a, I don't know if it's a negative way, but it's certainly a hard way to make a metaphor for cognitive decision-making.

A lot of times for me it feels like self policing. Where I'm just always suspicious of myself, always watching myself, like, are you going to mess this up? What are you doing? [gruffly] "What are you doing over there", you know?

Yeah. Are you able to have a good time?

Yeah, yeah. Now, I feel like within the last couple of years I've made good progress on feeling more okay with myself. My self-view or my self-talk has turned more into like, the way you treat a child.

Yeah.

I very much talk to myself with the understanding tone that you would talk to a child who doesn't know what the fuck they're doing.

As opposed to a bad parent going like, "What are you doing?!"

Yeah, exactly. So it's just like, ah, okay, what---

Okay, look what happened. Get a towel.

Exactly! [both laugh] You made a mess!

[laughs] Okay, so Julie is a problem. So you're in college and you're ostracized. And you had to live with her the whole time this was going on?

No, I lived with her for about six months, and then she finally just quote-unquote "broke up with me". The friend break-up. She was like, I'm moving.

She said that?

She was really angry at me, for---

She probably loved you. Couldn't handle it.

[laughs] I don't think so. But she got angry at me, which I would later find out the reason for, but I was very confused. I just knew she wasn't talking to me, which was awkward because we lived in the same room. And I'm very bad at dealing with silent anger. It's okay if it's coming out, if it's coming directly at me, because then I can react to it.

And walk into it.

Yeah, but when it's just sort of, like, there, and I'm forced to be in a room with it.

Passive-aggressive. It's horrible.

Yeah and I'd even ask her, you know, is there something wrong? And she's like, no I'm fine.

That's a control thing.

Is it?

Yeah, because like, she's got you just spinning all the time.

Yeah. And so there's a few weeks of that. And finally we went out to coffee, and here I was thinking, oh, maybe we're going to resolve our differences! She's taking me out to coffee! We're going to be friends again! [both laugh]

So sad.

And she's like, "No, I'm moving out." Oh, okay.

[groans] Heartache!

And then I moved in with a new roommate who was sort of, she had all the problems that I have, but like way more. Way more!

Oh, good. Well, that helps, that's helpful.

It was helpful. I mean, we got along. It was stressful living with her but we got along.

But it must've provided you, like, at least some ability to see that your common things---to have something in common with somebody but to realize, well, this could be a lot worse.

Yeah. It was definitely comforting, and I think she found comfort in the fact we were both a little big messy. But, well, I was a little bit messy. She would throw garbage away under her bed.

Huh?

We had raised beds, like lofted beds.

So she couldn't put things in the garbage?

When her garbage can would fill up, she would go and buy a new garbage can. I went and excavated this entire---there was a pile probably five feet tall of garbage at some point and I---

Didn't it stink?

Oh, it stunk real bad.

And this was in the place you lived?

Yes, and I'm so non-confrontational, I was just like, you know, maybe you can, like, do... something? [both laugh]

You didn't ever go, like, do you smell that?

No! [both laugh] I was just like, well, maybe we can just, like... I made it like a group thing, like, we can start taking out trash, yay!

[laughs] Here we go!

And we're going to do it! And she wasn't as enthusiastic about it, and so...

Oh my god. How long did you live with her?

About six months. And then I finally got my own place.

What happened to that girl?

I don't know, I've not seen her since. We parted on good terms. I mean, I don't tend to hold anger in me, I don't resent---

Were you able to have relationships with men?

Yeah, oh, I've always found men easy to relate to. I love men. Not that I don't love women, I just really really love men.

Right, but, you had successful relationships with boyfriends and stuff?

I always had really good relationships. I'm still good friends with a few of my boyfriends from the past.

Huh. Really?

Yeah!

That's interesting. So did you find that the relationships that you usually find yourself in are like your parents, where you find a guy that just, like, adores you, and is willing to...? [both laugh]

That's a good question. I've never really thought about the answer to that... Maybe? [MM laughs] Because my husband is a little bit like that. Like, he certainly loves me and, like, goes along... I definitely pull my weight in the relationship. I helped him learn how to communicate, and how to---

He didn't know how to talk?

He wasn't good at it. When he'd start having feelings, he'd just sort of panic and shut down and then do not want to---like, aah, I don't know what's...

And look at the ground, or just walk away?

Yeah, or just try to shove it away, and distract himself until the crisis was relatively---

The crisis of having a feeling?

Yeah! [both laugh]

That's hard to get through!

'Cause he didn't know what would happen if he'd acknowledged it, if he said, okay, I'm having this feeling.

Any feeling.

Any bad---you know, so if he was stressed, or sad, or something. He has an interesting relationship with grief. If he's ever grieving somebody, it's hard for him to deal with. So he just tries to put it away, which obviously doesn't let you work on the thing.

Well there's that one chapter and in Hyperbole and a Half where he's upset and you realize he's upset but you really don't want to deal with it? [AB laughs] I know that feeling, that self-consciousness of sort of like, oh, god, I'm doing something else---

Do I have to do this now?

And now I've gotta, like, all right, there, I'm with them, and there's a problem.

The way our relationship economy works is he does the detail stuff, he does the responsibility stuff, like, pays the bills, and I'm the emotional responsibility person.

You feel for both of you?

I help him sort stuff out. So we both do separate things.

You've worked that out?

I mean, we just sort of realized that that's how the chips fell.

What's he do?

He's working on becoming a game designer. That's sort of his dream.

Computer games?

No, board games. Tabletop games, yeah.

He's working on becoming one.

Yeah, he decided, we were both in heading toward a career in science and---

You met him in college?

Yes, we met freshman year of college.

You've been with him since?

Uh-huh.

Oh, that's a long run.

Yeah, it's ten years now.

Okay, so let's get back to that then. So you were studying biology.

Yes.

And how'd that hit the wall?

Hit the wall?

I mean how'd you decide that wasn't your thing?

I just saw myself dreading the idea of having a career where I show up and have a list of things that I have to do.

[laughs] Like, science?

Here's how it worked. I saw this life, and I know myself well enough to know when I'm going to to fail, when I'm just going to fuck something up. And I knew, just every day I got closer to this reality, it was just, like, I'm going to ruin my own life. I know that I'm not going to be able to stick with this long enough to actually be successful with it. I just know this about myself. I don't have the capacity to do this.

Well, that's an important thing to know, to not self-sabotage. Like, you could've had a whole miserable life.

Yeah, I think I probably would've been pretty miserable!

And it was just the science part of science.

Well, I wanted to be a doctor. Because somewhere in my identity, I love the idea of being a doctor. I love the concept of it.

What kind would you have been?

Probably an internist, of some sort, like, diagnostic...

General? Helping people.

Yeah, I like the idea---helping people is very important to my identity, it's very important for me to see myself... helping?

That's a very funny chapter, too. Where you're like, just seeing yourself as maybe being that is sort of enough?

Yeah, I'm like a pathological helper. I love helping.

In your head! But do you do it in real life?

Oh yeah. If my friends have a problem, that's only time I can feel useful to my friends, when they're having problems in their lives. So I secretly love it when my friends will call me like, oh I have this thing I need your help to get through... Oh, you need my help?! I can help you! [both laugh]

Let me set aside some time for the rest of the day, week, month! And do you find yourself helpful?

My friends tell me that I'm helpful, I don't know if they're just being nice. But I definitely put a lot of work into it, 'cause I want to actually be helpful.

What do you mean, you put work into it? Oh, into being there for them.

Yeah, because for me, I have to go beyond just convincing myself that I'm helping. If I can see that I have helped, then it helps me convince myself more, that I'm being helpful.

But do you fight the urge to sort of go like, remember that time I helped you? That was pretty good.

Yeah, I don't think I bring it up because I know that if I did that, it would negate my ability to feel good about it. Because I'd know that I was---

Because you'd just be being selfish?

I know that I'd catch on to myself. I'm always playing this game where I have to stay a step ahead of myself, so that I don't see the game I'm playing?

Like every day?

Every day. I'm always trying to figure out how to be this thing in my identity without alerting myself to the fact that I'm trying to be it. So I can enjoy being it.

Right. And that requires some sort of vigilance, doesn't it?

Oh yeah. It's tough being vigilant without realizing that you're being vigilant, sort of like this weird...

I guess maybe you've been doing it long enough to where it's second nature?

I suppose so! [both laugh]

Thank god. ...All right, so you turn your back on science, and you're dating this dude, and he wanted to be science too. And you both have this realization around the same time?

Mine was earlier than his. In this crisis situation where I was seeing like my impending career---

Doom?

Yeah, my doom that I'm just got totally mess this all up, I know it. So this was right after I graduated from college. And I mentioned that ran track and cross-country in college.

Yeah.

So my idea was, you know what, I'm gonna try to be a professional runner. That was my career plan originally.

[skeptically] That's a good job.

Oh yeah, I'm sure!

Like, what does that even mean?

Okay, so, you go to races. And if you do well, you get prizes. Which can range from like ten thousand dollars to a pumpkin. I won a pumpkin before. [laughs]

That's not a good job.

No, you can't support yourself with a pumpkin! [both laugh]

Yeah. And also, product endorsement. Free shoes, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I guess, that was sort of what I was angling toward. Because that's what I felt like my options were at the time.

And it's very immediate for people like us. It's like, I'm running, already.

Right, exactly, another immediate thing.

But the pumpkin, was that the deal breaker?

No, the deal breaker was that I hurt my Achilles tendon.

God damn it.

So then I was unemployed and sort of just---

Couldn't fulfill the occupation dream.

No. And then, so, at this point we'd moved to a little town called Hamilton, Montana. 'Cause my husband got a job working at a biomedical research laboratory there. And the reason it was there is because it had the Ebola virus at the research station. And it needed to be in a very remote, tiny town so that if something went wrong it would only kill like three thousand people.

So that's where he worked?

That's where he was working. And so, we're living in this itty-bitty little town in middle-of-nowhere Montana.

You're a victim of the Ebola virus, in some weird way.

[laughs] Yeah, in some weird way.

Your isolation was because of this virus.

Yeah. I like having something to blame it on now. Thank you for that. [both laugh]

That part of your life was because of Ebola.

Fuck Ebola.

Yeah, exactly.

So, this was sort of a depressing time period of my life. That's when I started writing.

But when did you start experiencing what you now know to be clinical depression?

Probably, I feel like on some low level, it was during college? On some very low level, but it became bad in, like, 2010.

You had reasons to be depressed. You were isolated.

Yeah, so then I actually had reasons. It's hard to say that that was because, yeah, it's tough to say "because there were reasons".

So this was the dark time.

Yeah, it was sort of a dark time. And I don't know, maybe for me---I've wondered, you know, why do I want to do comedy? And I think it's another identity thing, it's an approval-seeking thing, I think.

But it's also a way---no, I think that's minimizing it.

Well, for me it was.

I'm going to tell you you're wrong about you, right now.

Okay!

I think it's also a way of having a point of view, it's a way of disarming things, it's a way of self-acceptance, it's a way of communicating with others, it's a way of understanding, its way of dealing with sadness, anger, fear.

Yeah! It definitely is a lot of things. I think that the motivation to start may started with a selfish---for me, like I just want to make people laugh.

I'm not denying you your experience. I'm just, like, I don't want you to undersell yourself, or comedy.

No, I think you're correct that now, it's become more.

But that moment you decided, it was selfish.

Yeah, it was sort of, I wanted to do this thing, I was feeling bad about myself, and that the way I decided to deal with this was to sort of put myself out there in a very...

But also there's something in between putting yourself out there and your idea of selfishness, is that it seems to me what you realized in that moment is that you were an artistic person. You were creative person, you were somebody that wanted to express yourself. So, like, you don't want to miss that part.

Yeah! [both laugh]

This is the birth of an artist. [AB laughs] It's not just, like, I didn't feel good and I was selfish and I needed everyone to see me.

Yeah, I mean... Maybe I am minimizing it. When I think back to it, I definitely view it as this---maybe this reveals something about my self-view. I feel for guilty about stuff like this, about wanting. Because my relationship with attention is sort of weird. I crave it, but I feel horrible about craving it. So I've sort of tried to subvert that.

That's better than me, I crave it and I feel horrible about getting it! [both laugh] I think you're in a healthier place.

I also feel pretty horrible about getting it, sometimes. 'Cause then it's just, you know, screaming for attention and then suddenly the spotlight's on you and it's like, wait. What was my plan here?

And then once you create something everybody likes, there's the expectation. That's the next level of it. Like, when's your new book coming out? [AB laughs] How come there's not a new blog post up? And you're like, what?

Well, right, like, I wanted all the good stuff without having the responsibility of it.

Uh-huh. So you start doing this, in that moment where you took this selfish step to get attention, that's when you started playing around with the Paintbrush?

So I was just writing at first.

So you started with just essays? Journaling, almost.

Yeah, just writing, sort of journaling. I think the first thing I published was like an open letter to my neighbors, who were just annoying sorts of neighbors.

Who were your inspirations for doing this? I mean, because you were always conscious that you were doing comedy, and you were writing comedy and you were writing funny things. So, who sort of gave you the idea that you could do that?

I've always really been into stand-up comedy. And for some reason I've never felt that I could personally do it. I actually think, there was some blog that I'd seen, or maybe it was---I know that I had read a lot of, like, the best of Craigslist, I was reading that. And somebody wrote like a blog or a Tumblr where they had chronicled their experience living with, like, the worst landlord in the history of landlords. I think that that was the one that was like, hey, this is a person just writing something on the Internet. Nobody gave them permission to do it, he just did it.

That's interesting. And that's a generational difference in me, like, this stuff was out there and you were sort of consuming it and you could see that you could do it, easily.

And so I was like, I want to see what happens if I try to do this. And so I just started putting stuff out there.

What was the name of the site? Was it just on Tumblr, or...?

Hyperbole and a Half.

Oh, it was always that.

Yeah, so it was always that. I don't know how I feel about the name now, but I know that when I creating my blog, there was a form thing I had to fill out the name of it before I was allowed to go further. And I just wanted to get to the part where I could start writing, I was in one of those moods where I have to write, now. And so I just thought of like the first semi-clever thing I could think of.

And that's what it is?

That's what it's been ever since! [both laugh]

Stuck.

Just sort of stuck, yeah.

So you're writing, and you're starting get to reactions pretty quickly, or...?

I think that people started trickling in. I remember being really excited when I had like eight followers. I was like, eight entire people out in the ether are following me, are paying attention to what I'm doing!

Right, right. And you knew their names, or at least their screen name.

Yeah, yeah. At first---

Did you interact with them?

Yeah, and I read their stuff, and they read my stuff.

So how long did you just write before---What was the decision to start illustrating?

So the decision---because, I feel like stand-up was a huge influence on me, and I was very frustrated that I couldn't---

You never tried it.

I tried it, it was embarrassing to me. I've actually like worked out whole routines and recorded myself doing stand-up.

Alone?

Alone.

I love the idea of people rehearsing stand-up. Years ago, there was this comedy booking agency that used to book me on gigs, and the woman who ran it would get submission tapes. And there was this tape of this guy who obviously had a friend with a record of the sound of canned laughter. So it was just him in a basement against a wall and he was doing his act, then you just hear his friend drop the needle on the record of people laughing! [both laugh] It was some fucking masterpiece! Right, so you're obsessed with the stand up thing.

Yeah, 'cause I feel like when you're communicating with someone live, you have a lot more access to other comedic tools. Like facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice. And it was driving me a little bit crazy that I didn't have those things.

An immediacy.

Yeah, an immediacy. So for me drawings were a way to like, bring in a little bit of that physicality to it. Put a facial expression in there that's like, this is the tone that I'm attempting to convey.

And you'd never done any drawing?

I've done a lot of drawing. I drew a ton growing up.

It was something you liked to do.

Yeah, yeah. I got pretty good at it, I'd say.

Like, I used to read comics occasionally and graphic novels, but the experience of the emotions of these illustrations just sort of really hammers it. I mean, you can read the joke and the joke will stand fine, but then when you keep going back and forth from the writing to the characters, it just keeps amplifying itself. It's a rare gift you have.

Thank you. I'm really bad at fielding praise.

All right. Well then, just---

So, I'm not going to. [laughs]

Well, the question then is, you've had profound success with this, I mean, I don't know you how to book is selling but I know that the blog is extremely popular. The people I talked to, I said I'm interviewing her and they're like, do you read the blog, I'm like, there's a blog? I have the book! [AB laughs] And so now I just read the latest one up there about the dinosaur costume, which is hilarious---

Thank you.

---the way that you're able, again, to sort of track your inner conflict and find some resolution as an adult through these childhood experiences. Do you find you still have a resource of those left?

That I still have material left from my childhood? Yeah, I'm in the middle of writing up a batch of stories for my second book now.

How'd this do, the book?

It did well.

Yeah, good.

It surprised me, yeah, I wasn't really expecting anything.

Well, I gave it to somebody who actually reads some of it to her kid.

That's cool!

But there's an ability to do that. Like, a kid of a certain age can probably identify with your childhood experiences. It's not dark in the way that you can't, like, a sophisticated kid can take it in and find it hilarious, especially the dog stories. Do you still have both those dogs?

Yup! Still have them both. [both laugh] They're still as messed up as ever.

So you experienced the first wave of depression in 2010, and you stopped writing for a while?

Yeah, so I'd say 2010 is when the descent started and it reached a head in like, late 2011, early 2012. That's when things are really bad for me.

And you were incapacitated.

Totally incapacitated, suicidal, just all that, it was awful. And so, yeah, that's when things were the absolute worst.

And what did you do to help yourself?

Through the pleading of my mother and my husband, I went to a doctor and got put on antidepressants, and they took a long time to start working. But they eventually helped. To me it felt like the effect of a pain reliever on pain, when you can tell it's under there, you can tell that something's not right, but it's dulled? So that's how my experience of antidepressants was.

But you were resistant to it?

Resistant to the idea of antidepressants? Well, at first, I mean. 'Cause like, nah I don't need that, it's not gonna make a difference or whatever.

For somebody who's so involved with their head, the idea of altering your head, even though you were uncomfortable, must have been like, how can I trust anything if I'm---?

Exactly. And I eventually just had to get desperate enough. Like I don't even want to be alive right now and this is obviously...

How'd your husband put up with that?

It was hard for him, just because, I think it's difficult to see somebody you love just in such a dark spot. And there was some degree of helplessness, I think, he couldn't do anything.

And also to sort of realize that it's got nothing to do with you, it's gotta be a struggle.

Yeah, there's nothing he can do to help. And yeah, it's tough to separate the, like, oh because I'm so flat, that there's nothing wrong in our relationship.

There's one thing you wrote in here, just in relation to my father, about seeing somebody who's like that and not understanding why there's a flatness to them that you can feel. You know, you must have experienced some of that with your sister over your life. The despondency. 'Cause I can tell my dad's there, within a second, you know? It's just, like, it's just gone.

Yeah, you said it like sucks the air out of the room.

Yeah, I guess if you haven't experienced it yourself or seen it in other people it's really hard to explain, but I think you a good job with it.

Thank you!

So did you stay on the medicine?

I actually just recently went off of it. It's been about three weeks and I feel good. I feel normal.

Hopefully it lasts.

Yeah, I hope so.

But either way I got you in a good window here. [both laugh]

Yeah! Oh yeah. This is the first time I felt more myself in like four years. And who knows how long it's going to last, but---

But so you did all the writing about it afterwards, once you leveled off, got a little distance from it. But it was fresh enough to have the feelings be tangible enough to communicate it so well in the book.

Right. And I was still in it to some degree, I mean, I still felt depressed, I just wasn't bottomed out.

You weren't unable to do anything. Yeah, 'cause you can feel the immediacy of it but obviously you had some distance in order to have some hindsight.

I wrote during the time. Sometimes I just didn't know what else to do so I'd sit down and write, and in the form that came out of me originally it was very not funny at all.

Right, but were you able to use that later?

Yes. I was able to go back and look at what I'd written.

So it was almost like, you know, I'm in Hell, there's nothing funny about this, but I gotta do this. Then later you're able to contextualize it with some hindsight. Good! [AB laughs] We talked earlier about your sister, your sister's illness and bipolar and that she ended her life. How are you processing... Well, what happened?

She, um, so on New Year's Eve, she drove her car in front of a train. ... And that's, that's how it ended.

On New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve, yeah.

I've lived with some bipolar in my family and there's always sort of a threat of that happening. But, I mean, had she been suicidal before?

She had. She'd made a couple attempts.

Oh, she had.

The way my mom referred to it was like, practice suicides, where she would do something but it was clear that she wanted to have an out just in case she changed her mind.

But was the consensus or the feeling in the family that she was probably going to do that, and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it if she wanted to?

We always sort of feared it, but... Yeah, especially since it had happened a couple times, like, she'd made a couple attempts but it never felt like she was really...

Committed?

Yeah. It didn't feel like she was really---

But it wasn't a cry for help thing.

No.

Why couldn't they get her medicated properly?

They tried. She kept going off of the medication. She had a really hard time accepting that she needed the medication? Because she didn't like to see herself as somebody sick.

And also when they're manic, they...

Right, you start feeling better about it.

Ugh.

And this was a depressive episode. She had recently tried to change up her medications, and it just wasn't working. It was a couple months where she didn't have any emotional variation whatsoever, just felt bored and detached all the time. I talked to her on the phone a few times, just 'cause like, I've also been suicidally depressed and we were able to talk a little bit about it. But, you know, I didn't feel like anything I could've said really would've helped much at that point.

Right. It's just horrible when it does happen. And you all knew that's what it was, it wasn't an accident.

Yeah. And then, it's just so weird, it just bought up a lot of weird stuff, you know. I was pretty horribly depressed at that time period as well, and so I was having a hard time figuring out my emotions around it. And then it brings up this whole thing where, like, my parents knew that I had been suicidal at some point and suddenly, there was this weird conversation when I first got home for the funeral, my dad grabbed me by my shoulders and looked at me in the face, just crying, he's saying, you can't kill yourself! You can't do this! You're all we have left!

Really?

And there's also like this pressure and it's sort of a fucked up moment, because my immediate thought was, well, fuck! Now what am I going to use to comfort myself when things get like---Now I'm not allowed to, like...? [laughs]

Well, you can think about it!

Yeah, but now there's this weird thing of like, my dad's sobbing face holding me by the shoulders, like--- [both laugh]

Well thank God! 'Cause no one wants you to kill yourself but if that's gonna be what is going to stop you from doing it? That's fine.

See, there's only been a few, like maybe just the one time where I really seriously considered doing it. Other times it's more just been---it's comforting to me.

Yeah, I used to do a joke about that.

Yeah, that there's an out.

Well, yeah. The joke I used to do was, you know, I thought about suicide, I didn't really want to kill myself, I just found it comforting to know that I could if I had to. 'Cause there's that moment where you're like, why does everything have to... Hey! I could always kill myself!

Yeah! It's another control thing.

Right! Back to work. I actually tag it by saying it's a spiritual reprieve of the faithless.

Yeah...! There you go!

It's dark.

Uh-huh. But yeah, it's sort of like, the way you can let go. And if people who are religious have that and they're like, oh there's a God, you know, I can put my trust in this higher power.

Or that things will get better.

Yeah, that things will get better. And it's like, if they get too bad, at least I have an out.

Right. They have god, and we have suicide.

Yes. [laughs]

Suicidal rumination. I don't think that's a community builder.

No, no, not at all. [laughs]

No church for that, necessarily. Well, I'm sorry you went through that, but so now, how are you going to approach it? Are you going to approach in your work?

I want to write about it at some point. I feel like it's important for my process of getting through it and sorting things out. There's stuff that came up in me and in my family they I never would've thought of, you know, as far as grieving goes? The way that I work through things is that I just talk them to death. Like when I'm stuck psychologically and at a point where like I just kept replaying the scene of like what her last moments must have been like, over and over and over obsessively for days and for weeks.

So do you have that morbid thoughts thing?

Yeah. Definitely, my brain immediately goes to like the most morbid, horrifying way that it could've been played out, and repeats that scene in different---

That's an OCD thing, right?

I suppose it probably is.

Maria has that too. Bamford has a morbid thought thing.

Yeah. And my brain just does that and so it's like, okay, well, I'm obviously stuck at some point and I need to move past it. One interesting thing I found out is that, when people were expressing sympathy to me through all these emails and stuff, and messages and phone calls from people, being like, I'm so sorry that this happened, and I noticed myself feeling almost guilty? Like I was like, oh I don't deserve this. I don't deserve your pity, I don't deserve this. And I looked back at my sister and my relationship. We weren't especially close growing up. I mean, we had resolved our differences pretty much at this point, but I felt like, from an outside perspective, I shouldn't be as sad as I'm feeling. Because we were a little bit distant. But then I was feeling all this genuine grief, but I wouldn't let myself experience it because it's like, oh you don't deserve to feel that. You weren't close enough to her to feel that. So I didn't let myself go with it, and so I was just stuck. Until I could talk it out and realize that that's what's happening and like, no, I really am feeling these things. Like I really did love her. [both laugh] So that was one of the interesting things that happened, I didn't expect myself to react that way.

Well, I think, isn't that something that the human brain does? You know, I think grief is so tricky that you don't want to be consumed with it. So something's going to distract you. It's the denial, maybe not denial, but it's some version of the five. That you're going to feel these different levels of this, and the grief will kind of come up as it does, unless you're really good repressing and then god knows what's gonna happen.

You sort of have to ease into it, like a hot tub.

Yeah, yeah. I think so. A hot tub of your tears.

Yes. [both laugh] A hot tub filled entirely with tears. Well, you know, I couldn't cry, actually. I didn't cry until maybe two weeks after it had happened. I was so depressed and so emotionally like, dead inside that I couldn't. And it was really frustrating to me because I saw myself not crying. I felt awful inside but I couldn't---

You're beating yourself up for not crying.

For not crying. It's like, this is not a normal---this is what a psychopath would be like if they were having this experience.

Well, that's that piece in the book that, you know, my dad at his father's funeral was sort of manic. And it was really disconcerting.

Yeah! [laughs] Just making jokes, making the rounds.

Yeah, it's probably better the other way.

[laughs] Yeah, where I'm just like, well I can't feel anything. And you know, finally at the funeral, I was able to cry, and it felt really good to have it come out. And it came out all at once, it just hit me like...

Well, that's good. That must've been---

I was gonna say, like a train, but that's inappropriate.

And did it shake you from your depression at all?

I don't think it shook me from it, but it gave me some important insights into it. Just like, one, when you're really depressed you don't think you can take anything beyond that particular brand of misery that you're already experiencing, and there's this thing and---2013 was just sort of a fuck of a year for me. I also had a personal cancer scare, major surgery, bunch of stuff, just a ton of stuff happened. I got in this like, almost victim mindset of like, I am experiencing this horrible thing, and then everything is happening on top of it. Like, that shouldn't happen, that's not fair. But there's no universal justice system, right? So like there's nothing governing whether that can happen or not.

You're asking me? You want me to confirm that?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, there is no universal---

No. [laughs]

You're just another person.

Yeah, just another person, so there's nothing like, oh, well clearly you've had it pretty hard so we're gonna go easy on you for a little while. There's none of that.

But there is the human capacity to sort of get through things, and to integrate things, and survive and to flourish and to learn from and to realize that... That's really it. That's better than being in the victim mindset, is that like, Jesus Christ, I survived that at the worst time.

Exactly. And so I think that's the good that has come out of it. And looking back it's like, wow, I'm pretty resilient! If I can make it through all that and still---it makes me a little bit less anxious and scared about the future, because I've seen like, okay, if I can make it through this clusterfuck of a year.

Sure, a cancer scare, or having surgery for cancer, and losing a sibling is about as bad as it gets.

And you know, it was horrible, but I know that I can get through it. And now that I'm experiencing this reprieve of, sort of relative normalcy, it's a good thing to have. Because I can see that I've made it through that horrible stretch to this little island of safety where I am now.

Yeah, you have a resilient spirit. [AB laughs] That's where your selfishness helps out.

Exactly!

[laughs] How are your parents, all right?

It's hard to tell. My mom, she always puts on the strong face. She never wanted to let me know that---She's a mom to her very core, she's the most mommiest mom person you can imagine. And so when it all happened, she didn't want to freak me out. You know, obviously the first day, she was sobbing uncontrollably. But later I'd say well okay, how are you? And she'd say, I'm doing okay. But I know from knowing her that that's less than true. I think now she's better, but she has days where she's not feeling okay.

And you can be there for her in those days?

Yeah. Or I try to be, I try to make myself available, but she still has this thing where like, I'm the child, she's the parent. She feels like she's putting it on me, you know. To me, you know, I'm pathologically helpful, I love helping. I want her to sort of unload some of that on me.

Well, you are. You are. Even if she doesn't let you. Just by being on the phone, probably. Well, I'm gonna second your father and say, you can't kill yourself, 'cause you're the only one left.

All right, okay. Now I'm going to see your face when I'm thinking about it.

Put both of us there.

So now there's both--- [laughs]

Yeah. Sure, and your husband, you can add his face. Add a whole roomful of people.

Just a bunch of just, faces.

Just saying, no, no. No, go make a thing.

[laughs] Yeah, just go do something else.

Yeah, go draw your thing. But here's the question---'Cause what I found from gaining some success doing my own thing in doing this, was that there was a component that was always missing for me which was a sense of genuine validation and self-esteem, because of the effect it has, you know, outside of me. Like all of this work lives outside of you, and you get some feedback and that's validating, but the fact that you created this thing, and that you continue to create it, has that given you some chunk of yourself and your identity?

I think so. It's given me something to sort of attach onto. Which is helpful, because like it's sort of like an anchoring point. I'm out there, I don't know what my sense of self is doing, but then there's this thing I can sort of anchor it to.

But are you proud of yourself?

...I don't know! I think so. Like, I'm happy with it. I think I'm a little bit scared to be proud of myself because, sort of, I've learned to be timid of those sorts of situations where I can sit back and be like, I'm proud of this.

Why, 'cause you think like, just full of arrogance and...?

Maybe. Maybe I recognize that tendency in myself, and I don't want to give myself the opportunity.

But wait, see, I have this struggle too. It's like, why can't we be happy with ourselves? I mean like, what is the threat of saying like, ah I did a good job! Like, then we're gonna stop?

Well, I think, I manipulate myself very much. The best self-control I have over myself is this sort of fear that I can instill in myself. So if I sit back and feel like I've done a good job, I think somewhere deep down I'm afraid that I'm going to become complacent, and that I'm no longer gonna have this like, cattle prod tool of fear that I've been using to drive myself.

Yeah, but I mean, why wouldn't you call it self-hatred?

I think there's certainly some degree of that as well, where I feel like I have to---

I think fear is reasonable, but to sort of go like, nah, you're still not quite there yet. Nah. Good try.

I feel like I go through this cycle roughly every two to four years, where I look back at myself from two or four years ago, and it's like, oh my god, what was I doing? And I'm so ashamed of that person from years ago. And so I live with this constant suspicion that I'm going to feel that way, looking back at now in two years, four years from now. Maybe that's one reason why. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to be like, oh I did a good job, and then be wrong in four years? I want to be like, oh I called it. I knew I wasn't...

Yeah but that's like a no-win situation.

Yeah. I'm not saying it's logical. It's not.

It's anxiety, it's dread. It's all that stuff that you grew up with. It's fear of judgment, it's fear of not being cool, and you don't want to all of a sudden feel happy and then be told by who, I don't know, that you were wrong.

Yeah, so it's like a preemptive defense mechanism.

I know, but don't you have---I would imagine, through writing through your childhood and through the depression, that there is some self-acceptance.

Yeah. Oh, there definitely is some degree of it. I feel more comfortable with myself. I feel like I've ironed out a little bit more of who I am. I'm definitely not there yet, but I know I feel more comfortable being in my head.

Right. But do you know what the weird thing is---and I think this is something I can relate to, only because I'm hearing you talk about this---is that like, you might be the only one that thinks this shit because, I mean, you're not some sort of weird boundaryless drifting person. Like, I definitely have a sense of you right now. I've been talking to you an hour and a half, and there wasn't one point where I'm like, oh my god she's just not clear on her personality and it's weird, the room is filled up with this weirdness.

That's good to hear. [laughs]

Right! Like a lot of times I talk about how angry I am, and how fucked up I am, and yeah, I've done some shitty things in my life and I've acted out of both, you know, selfishness, sadness, self-loading, anger, whatever. But for the most part, most people are like, I'm not seeing this idea you have of you.

Yeah, I mean that's sort of the impression I have of you, is that you don't seem like---because I've read a lot of your materials, seen your stand-up. And yeah, you just seem like a genuine guy.

Right, so why can't we accept that about ourselves? [sound of plane overhead] Wow, is that like ten feet above the garage?

It's real close.

Wow.

We almost died.

Yeah, I know. I'm glad we made it through.

It almost crashed into the...

Yeah, it was so close. That would have been such an amazing ending for both of us. [AB laughs] Something completely out of our control, for no apparent reason takes us out in the middle a conversation. About whether or not we can accept ourselves or have any control over the future. [laughs]

Just like a point, like, an exclamation point, a no! You cannot have any control over the future, you will never have control.

That's right. It's over now! I guess it's good as long as we're not running from something.

Yeah, 'cause then you ask all these questions that there's like no answers to, like, what's the point?

I think that's what's great about the book, and about the type of people we are in terms of what our creativity is---and I'm just comparing myself to you because I relate to you---it's just that that's what it is, they're really not answerable. But it seems like that asking them and living through them is something that people relate to, and that conversation is not really had that often.

Right, and it's what I appreciate about your work as well!

And I appreciate it about yours.

...Hey.

And I think this was good. Do you feel like we covered it?

I think so. Yeah, this was good!

It was great talking to you.

You too!

- - - -

How was that! Was that amazing? She came down from the mountains! She came down from the hills! She came down from the north to talk to me. I love her. I had a great time talking to her.