If you deal with mental health issues of any sort, talking about them is often a struggle, especially with all the stigma around them. It turns out, putting them out there for the world to hear is even more tricky. Nonetheless, after years of producing podcasts that stretched idiocy to previously unchartered territories, I recently did precisely this and released my first semi-serious project, all about discussing and sharing personal experiences of dealing with mental health problems.
Three days after it was released, I’d still not listened to the completed series myself. Despite being the presenter and producer, I’d slightly bottled it.
Those closest to me will tell you that I was battling a real anxiety in the lead-up to releasing the full series of The Mental Podcast, and that I’d already made my excuses to them. Every time somebody said they were looking forward to it I told them not to, and my initial promotional tweets had a cautionary, apologetic feel of “you may like this, you may not”. For the record, I’ve never had any issues talking about mental health stuff, always more than happy to casually drop it into an interview or real-life conversation, but with this new series, as the release date loomed closer, I started to get worried about it.
On a purely business level, I was concerned that it wouldn’t make its money back. Over the last 12 months or so I’ve financed my independent stuff up front and then, with a reward incentivised (not a word) donations drive at the end of the series, attempted to recoup the cost. It’s a very high risk/utterly idiotic business model as podcast listeners have “getting stuff free” in their DNA, but so far I’ve fluked a decent, if modest, return. The last two series of podcasts were called The ParaPod and consisted of me lambasting a ghost-believing-buffoon with the simple tools of logic and facts, a pretty easy concept to get on board with and you don’t need to be worrying that it will potentially take you to the darkest depths of depression (although the commitment of an adult to such a ludicrous supernatural premise should at least waver your faith in human intelligence).
The Mental Podcast,however, was going to be a very different beast, as mental illness – unlike ghosts – is a real and serious thing, so how entertaining could this be, and by extension would this be the sort of thing that listeners would be persuaded to fund?
My main apprehension about the release though, was that I became increasingly concerned that I’d followed a bad idea through. People are often very reluctant to talk about mental illness, often with what (to them at least) are legitimate reasons. Even if you do talk about it, there are many different takes on how you should do so. Was going further and actually broadcasting it, so anyone in the world could listen, something that could spectacularly backfire?
This concern was compounded when a major interviewee was pulled from the show by their management with a week to go, citing “marketing reasons”. While a perfectly legitimate reason, this showed just how sensitive the issue can be. Also, as this person was, like me, a comedian, a little panic started that I had become blinded by the project and was now committed to doing something vulnerable and revealing yet utterly stupid. Was I wrong to be defiantly charging ahead, waving my own mental health issues about? I’d done six months of work on it that could very well have distracted me from the fact that it was basically crap. I’d done a few interviews with people, interspersed with my own take on it, and dissections of darker parts of my life, and after initially feeling rather liberated by that unapologetic display, was now feeling like I wanted to hide.
It very nearly didn’t get released. Even as I was waiting for iTunes to approve it I was thinking I could make this all go away with a delete button and solitary explanatory tweet.
I managed not to do either.
Now, some weeks later, I’m being told often that I should be proud of it, but to be honest, I’m still enjoying being simply relieved. It had a decent top five showing in the podcast chart, and a large, positive reaction on social media. Nobody seems arsed that it’s not comedy (although Johnny Vegas’ interview certainly has its moments), and there’s a wave of gratitude for saying some of that stuff out loud.
I honestly never set out to make something that helped people, I didn’t really know what it was when I was making it, but I knew it had to be something that spoke about mental health and wellbeing issues in a relatable and human way, with candour and honesty. A by-product of that has been that it has helped people, and plenty have informed me that being able to relate to myself and the interviewees was kind of educational too, that it has validified (not a word) things that were previously a source of embarrassment or anxiety.
For myself, lest this become a giant metaphorical praise-retweet (you can go to @thementalpod for A LOT of that), there has also been a strong educational element to it; that those apprehensions and concerns that I had, that were inadvertently fed subliminally by whatever assumptions my insecurities were predicting, came very close to persuading me not to release it at all. The fears of perception, of creative or financial failure, of rendering myself either a figure of fun or an untouchable, very nearly silenced the discussion before it had started, and with what I know now, having seen the responses to my most recent work, I’m certain that wouldn’t have been a good thing.
I’m rarely one for being concerned about something damaging whatever I pass off as a career, I’m certainly not cursed with ambition or lust for power, so I’m sort of annoyed with myself for ever worrying about The Mental Podcast in that regard, but what I shall take away from it at this stage, with regards to mental health, is that there’s little valid argument for silence to be taken or encouraged as an option.
Ian Boldsworth is a comedian, writer, podcaster and radio presenter.
The problems of broadcasting mental illness
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