Ep. 49 Aisling Bea

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now. You're listening to Griefcast, with me, Carrie Adloyd. How do we grieve for someone? How does it change and evolve as we get older? My dad died when I was 15 and it took me many, many years to be able to express what I had gone through. So I decided to create Griefcast, a chance to talk, share and laugh about the weirdness of grief and death. But with comedians, so it's not that depressing, I promise. Each time I talked to a different comedian about their own personal experience of grief, as we remember someone that they have lost along the way. Whether it was a long time ago, or you've just joined the club, this is a chance to talk about the peculiar human process of death. Welcome to Griefcast. Hey Griefsters, welcome back to season three of the Griefcast. Thank you so much for coming back if you're an old listener and welcome if you're a new listener to cheery chats about death. I hope you all had lovely summers or winters, depending on where you listen. I've been corrected on that before, so look forward to jumpers or look forward to flip flops, depending on where you are. I ate a lot of ice cream and I got in the sea. Can't ask more than that, can you really? Could ask for a second referendum, but it's not going to happen. We have some amazing guests coming up, so please do subscribe then you'll never miss an episode. And also, if you do like the show or even a particular episode, please feel free to rate and review it as well. That'd be much appreciated. And thank you if you've done so already. I'll do read all the comments and I'm always so, so touched at them. We also have a live episode coming up on September the 15th in London at Kings Place. We are taking part in the London Pocas Festival. I'll be joined by Andrew Hunter Murray from No Such Things A Fish. Erin Gibson from Throwing Shade and Dane Baptiste, a brilliant Santa comic and star of its own BBC 3 sitcom, Sunny D. That's a hell of a line up. If you head to the Kings Place website, you'll find tickets there, but I would have a hurry because I think they are nearly gone. One way you're still alive. Is that okay? That's fine. This week's guest is the amazing Ashting B. Ashting is one of the most talented and funny brilliant people I know in my life. She is an actor, a stand-up, a writer and a general legend. You might have seen her on the form doing her acting or on a out of ten cats doing her comedy and she has a new comedy Netflix special. She's on a show called The Comedy Line Up. If you head to Netflix, you can see her doing her stand-up there. She really is an incredibly funny and clever brilliant person and it was an absolute honor to talk to her. She came in to talk to me about her dad who took his own life when she was a child. Welcome to Greek Us. I'm here today with actor, comedian and writer Ashtling B. What up? What up? Hello, Ashtling. Hello, Carrie. I always say everyone's names really weirdly and I decided just to make a thing of it just to go. I would go Ashtling B? Like that, like a weirdo. Yeah, because I know yet, so it's weird. Just even weirdo, isn't it? I just call you C unit. Tiny dance is what you normally call it. I do call you Tiny dance, I love. For those of you who are listening and I know you're probably listening for a grief-oriented chat, but let me tell you, this tiny lady's arse moves like I've never seen. Do you remember in those sing-along songs for Disney? They'd have like a bouncing ball on the worse. Oh yeah, yeah. They could have easily used carry-out loads to rear end. I've never seen anything like the way carry-out dances. The joke I used to say, like someone wants to say to me, "How did you learn to dance like that?" And I said, "Low self-esteem." Yeah, it really is. Yeah. It's the same low self-esteem look in the rise. I kind of, you know, women who aren't given characters and rap music videos, they just kind of grind in the background. They're not trained dancers, they're just grinders. I wrote a sketch about it once, like the background goes. But they were all like dancing and I want it. It was a bit, actually, I think I realised it was a copy of Mitchell Webb because they were dancing and they were like, "What do you mean, this isn't feminist?" Yeah. Why, we just look good. Someone was like, "I don't think they're seeing our faces." I mean, other ones were like, "What? No, we're the stars." They were like, "I think they're just, I think the cameras are lost." Well, that was us when we were teenagers, just bumping and grinding. But now, we got dead sweet self-esteem almost up and we still bump on and grind in and it's just like. Like 10% up, I reckon? Mmm, I think I'm about 12% now. Oh, that's good. So, I think, who are we remembering today? Who are we remembering? Well, I'll be honest, Carried. I felt a little bit grumpy coming here today. I bet, yeah, yeah. And I knew I was going to be seeing one of my best pals, Carried Lloyd, "Arse of the Year." 1980, whatever, so it took her around a year. But I wrote an article about my dad who died. It'll be 31 years this Saturday. Oh, this Saturday. This Saturday coming up and I wrote for those of you who don't know. I wrote an article about his suicide in November and I'd never discussed it with many of most of my friends. La, la, la, but then suddenly when we're public with it and I didn't expect the overwhelming response from it. And it's funny because in one way as well. Somedays, I realized that being mildly in the public eye and being a public figure and talking about a subject like suicide, which nobody wants to talk about because it comes across as zero crack to bring up a digger party. Everyone's discussing their favorite songs or TV shows or box sets that they've watched. I'm like, well, when are we going to talk about suicide, guys? But it really threw me for six. And I think I've spent the year a little bit getting over the reaction, which I was so touched by and so honored by the amount of people who've been in touch. But there are Somedays where I'm really happy to talk about it for it to be out there. And there are Somedays when I don't maybe totally want my life to be a product or a thing you do on a podcast. And last weekend I did and I don't think I realized how I need to take a little breather in between. And it was interesting because on one hand I was like, maybe I should text carry out. On the other hand, I was like, no, maybe for this podcast in particular, this is exactly where it should be because I think today I feel a little grief struck, which I haven't felt talking about before. And last weekend I did this Irish sports show that a friend of mine runs and is all about this sporting life or your sporting life. And I talked about my mother, who is a retired flat-race jockey. And she didn't totally find it easy with the article coming out and stuff like that because she buried a husband, raised two kids on her own. And then all of a sudden people are just coming up between the street going, "Rage your daughter's article, Helen," or, and grab it and it's sort of I think brought her back a lot. And that's not my story to tell. But I did this radio interview and it came out on Saturday. And because I was sort of bigging her up in the article and stuff like that and which are rightly so, she's amazing. I think that was the first time I felt like she was sort of proud of me. But it sort of knocked me off-kilter a little bit at the start of this week. Again, having the messages come in and stuff like that. And again, I always say, if it helps you to write a message to a random stranger you've seen on some random panel show, do it, send me a message, send it to my Facebook page, send it to my Twitter or wherever you want to send it. Maybe don't find my address and send it to my house, people. That is a creepy, but do it. I will read every single one of them. I haven't been able to get back to the majority of them. But some days, and I had this recently at MacFest. So I'm working on a new show where this will be part I want to explore masculinity. I want to explore femininity in it. I want to explore death and suicide. Because I do believe you can do comedy about it. I do believe you can, no matter what happens, you kind of make comedy out of stuff. I don't believe there's bad jokes and jokes that just don't work. Yeah, definitely. And you can totally get it wrong. But I don't believe any subject matters off the table. And I just think it's like who's saying it, what their voices, what way are you punching. So I also think that about suicide. But when I was doing a hauntless comedy festival, I decided to do an hour where I touched upon it in the middle of the hour. And I was, you know, that was me trying it, the subject matter. Yeah, seeing how it felt. Yeah, and I couldn't believe how nervous I was. Because that day, and I knew I had to do it because it's rare that you get an hour to go and explore the subject matter. And in a nice place like Mac. Mac and I'm the old comedy on the side and it's nice. And, you know, I just did not want that day to have, I wanted to go back a year, just that day. And today is one of those days where it just, I thought to myself, it's today is a perfect day to do this podcast. A, I'm with my pal. B, it's called The Griefcast. And I think no one's expecting it. You're like the happy version of this one. Yes, exactly. That one's like, yeah, I totally get that. But also what's interesting, I suppose, is from a listener's point of view, if you're listening, I talk about this stuff now publicly in a way I've decided to talk about it. And to maybe know that there are days when everyone, and sometimes it feels silly because like he died, and I 30, one years ago. Oh, I'm made. Yeah, 20 years. I mean, and you feel a bit silly. You're like, come on, mate. I feel so embarrassed sometimes. Like honestly, feel like, sometimes I interview guests and they're sat in their chair and I say to them, they maybe haven't heard the show properly or something. And they'll say, oh, it was two years ago and I'm very upset. And they go, well, how long is yours? And I say, 20, and I see you look on their face though. Oh my god, am I going to talk about this for 20 years? And you're like, no, no, you might not. You might be one of those people, like my brother, who doesn't bring it up every single conversation. Yes, and that's totally okay. Not totally fine, but I think for me, maybe because I went through different waves. So my dad died when I was three. And until I was 13, I remember him being in the house. Like I didn't really feel like he went anywhere. Like my mother said that I used to like go to the door every time I heard a car go by and expect him to be him coming round in the house. And I still remember, I remember the day he died because I remember my mother had been cleaning the floor. That's one of my first few memories. Some of my memories that I have, I'm not sure. If they're photographs, I looked at for so long I turned them into moving pictures. And I honestly can't tell you if they're true or not. That's so common with memories, I've heard that a lot with brave kids. So like, you don't know what it is. Yeah, you, you, nothing stable because you, yes, it went too quickly for your brain to form it. So the ones I, one I definitely know is true is that I know my mother was cleaning the floor because she put all the chairs into the kitchen. The sitting room went just a carpet. So she could like wash the kitchen floor. And when the men came in to tell her we had to sit, she everyone was sat on those chairs. And I think I remember because I'm like, no, you don't sit in the sitting room when the chairs are in the sitting room. You wait for the floor to dry and then we'll sit out at the table. That's where they mainly sit. And I also remember someone just giving me a mile little pony. And I remember thinking this is great. Whatever's happened is fantastic because if I could get some sweet a mile little pony is every single time it happens. Then you ask me. Yeah. And you, so you were three and you're your sister's younger than you? Yes, so she was just three months old. So she was just a baby. Wow. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. Fuck. And I, and that's why I always, I think I'm the perfect, not the perfect combination. I think I'm a combination, perfectly of two people. Yeah. My father's side of the family are all poets and maybe slightly more maybe depressives in their manner. And then my mother's side of the family are they just have this zest for life that is unbelievable. Now what comes with that is maybe an ability to understand when you're down but not empathize. I often think that if the if the war was on and it was wartime spirit, my mother's family would be the people who kind of rebuild the house and the bridges. And I go, I'm going to do people who lose my vis. Oh, ten daughters, five kids, like five sons, they're all dead by it. And we go, my cup of tea. And then my dad's family would be the ones who write poetry about it all. And you need both, but I think maybe. Yeah, you do, and it depends what's happening in the world. You don't have to say like, I agree with you. You need someone to play the fiddle by the side as well. They're normally at the homeless people after the war and absolutely of no help, practically. But I think that maybe I'm the, I have both sides in me. And from even though my father took his own life, my mother's energy and will to live. She doesn't hold onto grudges. I've never seen something like it. I until I was about, in my 20s, I was so angry. And I was like, I was like, that American Hollywood movie. The grudge, my eye was so grudgy, I was angry at my father. I would, because I only found out that he had taken his own life when I was 13. And what happened? Did someone sit you down? Yeah, my mother thought it was about time we knew, and the thing is, there's no, there still isn't enough, and why I wanted to talk about it was there's just aren't enough people talking about suicide, because it's so hard to understand. How do you say I'm really sorry? Someone is dead about someone who technically took their own life. It's a, it's a really hard, especially to a teenager. But to a teenager to, to anyone, to anyone, to anyone grieving. And I think this is what happens. Nobody knows what to say to someone, whether it's a mother or a son or a father or a brother. It doesn't, nobody knows what to say. And I really do, having done this show and having talked to two people who have lost people to suicide, it's really opened my eyes up to, I felt, no one knows what to say to me. And no one has the right words, and everyone's being awkward and stupid, and I want to punch them. And I had that cloak of cancer that it was like, oh, that's such a sad tragedy. I can't imagine when you don't even have an illness. I remember listening to your podcast, though, I can't remember who it was with. And I remember, it's the one thing I took up, maybe not unbridge with, but the idea of being really annoyed at someone because they don't know what to say. I was like, that's going to happen to you, Carriette. You are going to be that person. Oh, yeah, I feel like that is, that's okay. And also, when you are going through something, what I've learned as well, don't assume someone else isn't. So you might have lost someone, but someone else might have illness in the family, they might not be able to walk. Someone else might have something to reflect. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I've been talking for like 15-year-old point of view of suddenly no one knew what to say to me. Yes, I was angry at my dad. But I was angry at my dad as well, but I also had all of these things in my life. And I recently met up with a girl I knew at school. I was in Canada doing a gig, and she was like, oh, I'll come along when we went for a beer afterwards. And I had no idea what had been happening in her life, or a lot of the girls in my school's life, and they hadn't lost anyone. And so sometimes, I think, with grief, we can walk around like our scars bigger than other people who haven't lost. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the one thing I try to be mindful of, because when I mean that no one knows what to say, I mean that, and then, like, I don't have the answers. Yeah. And I don't know what to say to me is the right thing to say to someone else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it to always be wary that what I've learned from my article, because growing up, when I found out that my dad had taken his own life, I didn't feel like my father was dead. I felt like he had abandoned the family. And I used to associate more with girls whose fathers had faked off. Yeah, yeah. That's how I thought of suicide then. And when I say then, I really mean until up to a few years ago. Yeah. So it's been quite a long journey. And also, to let that go. One big, light bulb moment that came was I was reading this book. And it was all about like your story. So you know we all go around with our story. So for example, I am, I am like this because of this. And the thing is when I was a child, this happened. And that's why I'm like that. And it was all about what would you do if you let your story go? And I was like, no, no, I can't let my story go. Because the thing is I am who I am despite my dad's death. Yeah. And then, and it also said, why not now paint the positives of that? Yeah, yeah. And I'd never, for me, that was sacrilegious to paint the positives of my father dying. But I sat down for this X. I was like, fine, I'll do it. It's part of the exercise of the book. And I sat down and wrote out the positives of my dad taking his own life. But also diet, like just not being around growing up. Yeah. And I was able to see that like, oh, I can connect with women. Like I love women. I love women so much. Even the Narbeds. I bloody love women. I also got to be the funniest person in my family. If he was alive, he would have been the funniest person. Yeah. Also, he probably would have been in charge. Yeah. I assume women are in charge all the time. Yeah. It's helped me in my career, in my life. I also have grown up since the age of three with a sort of natural empathy, which I don't know if I would have. Also, a sort of, since a teenage year, know that I will never take my own life, because I would never do that to my family knowing what it's like to be left behind. There's all these, and they're all positives. And it feels weird to take, to take a positive away from a tragedy. Yeah. But it was quite, it was literally something changed in me, literally that day, after I say maybe 27 years, something changed in me that day. I think it's so important. And I've talked about that a lot in the show that, you know, with having a child, there's now this whole movement of, you know, if you have a child, you don't have to be mad because he's happy. You know, you can be sad. That's okay. And we're now encompassing the whole of birth. And we're like, look, it's all of those things, there's lots of emotion. And that's how I feel about this podcast and death. I feel like, yes, obviously, there's all this shit, but there's all these positive stuff. And everyone feels guilty about admitting that. But like, me and my mum bother to talk about a lot of, like, yeah, a lot of positive stuff. My mum went to university, she left school at 15. And this is not us being hippy, hippy, hippy, happy at all. It's just true. It's just a part of your process to help you out of something. So for me, doing that helped me out of, it was more a release. I watched this article and it was this American pastor and, you know, she was one of those cool pastors who had tattoos and you're like, okay, I've seen that, I've seen that, yeah, I've probably, because I've always been on my Facebook the other day. But it was all about forgiveness. And the biggest thing that happened with me is to genuinely have forgiven my father. And some people will say, you don't need to forgive him. He took his own life. He wasn't, he wasn't well. There was no element of you. You shouldn't have been angry with him in the first place. But, but that's sometimes what people feel and I understand that as well. And for me, I was angry. And I was angry on behalf of my mother, you know, she was a 33 year old with two baby kids. And I was, I felt like, I always felt like something about that. If I had been worth enough, should've clicked in and made you go, oh no, no, no, I can't do this. Rather than all the things I've learned about like it being a moment of madness in that day or his self-esteem versus feel a feeling of, do I have any self-worth or value here? Or what about more value if I wasn't here? And also just being a parent and, you know, postnatal depression and men, which isn't talked about a lot either. They're feeling of having to provide or can I do this. But forgiveness, this American pastor talks about forgiveness as, because a lot of people feel, if I forgive something that has happened to me. So if someone has done something wrong to me, this could be a way, a girl or a boy broke up with you. This will be the way the tele-services person, when you rang up to cancel your phone contract rang, treated you. If I forgive them, I am allowing that behavior to be an okay way to treat me. And I think a lot of us feel like that and I definitely felt, I was like, if I forgive my father, I am saying that you taking me for granted, which is what I thought happened, is okay. Yeah. And actually what she says about forgiveness is, it's not that. It's that you are releasing the chain that attaches you to that behavior and you're saying that's not me and the, you can't, I can't tell anyone to do that. You can only decide to do that yourself, but God, it's honestly like breathing when you didn't know you've a third lung and that's kind of how I felt the last year. I felt like I've been given a third lung to breathe and it has been quite amazing and there's been moments like today, randomly, I think the knock on effect of doing that other show today. You're going to have to talk about it, I mean, but no, it wasn't that it was interesting. I think what happens a lot with grief, it was almost like I was grand, I was grand as grand and today I got a couch delivered and I put so much energy into this couch, I never measure things before I ordered them, but I properly measured all of this couch and my house is really, I live on my own, I've got my own, like my own stuff, I can see my achievements in the appliances that I bought, I'm like, oh, that's a panel show I didn't enjoy, but there's a nice fridge, I kind of see and I got this new L-shaped couch which was, I don't have a dining room so people can sit around it, all my friends with Carrie comes over, she can be sat there and I can be sat over there and it came in and the three lovely guys delivered from John Lewis and it's just too bulky for the room and it's custom made and it took eight weeks to arrive and honestly, I didn't really, I teared up a little bit just there but I didn't cry, I teared up doing that Irish show but I didn't cry and the John Lewis couch came in and I went by lads, oh, lovely to see and one of the masks for a selfie, I was like, grand Jen, no problem, did a little selfie, went, oh, yet made a little joke on the way out, all the best of lads closed the door and I went in and I cried and I was like, this couch, it's too bulky, it's the right length, it's the right width but it's too bulky and it makes my other items look ridiculous and it wasn't about the couch, it's not about the couch it's not about the couch, it was, I think, realising that this was coming because also you and I had talked about doing this podcast since you started it and I remember when you asked me first, I thought maybe Carrie adds podcast would be a good, safe place to start about suicide, talk about suicide but then I knew if I just started without having my family's permission in a sense. But also the right words, given how much, I do a lot of A, B and C so apologies if anyone's listening and going is she a maths teacher at a comedian, come on, A helps my head form thoughts, it's suicide and people just don't talk about it enough because again we don't know what to say but B, we didn't talk about it in my family so for me to talk publicly about something before we've talked privately is still maybe a little bit odd and they're getting to know me as an adult, I'm low my aunties and stuff like that is. Because a lot of people said that to my mum of like well how do you feel about her doing the show and my mum's always been very like well you know like yeah it's up to her really but we did talk about it a lot but obviously it's a very different situation but it was talked about almost at the point where one year we had to go we need to stop talking about it. One year it was like my mum was like enough like up to three talking about the you know death and life and what it means and what it happens and my mum was like can we just have a Christmas but we don't have to do this because we would like rake over everything. See this is a thing with suicide at Clams everywhere. Of course it's so different it's so different. It's almost like and I always remember I remember one time this was growing up in Catholic Ireland there was like suicide was only decriminalised in 1989 so that was two years after my dad died and people still say committed suicide but you can only commit a crime. And so that even the language around it is it's a crime and there was a time where this was classic Ireland there was a time in Irish history where if you attempted suicide you were punished by hanging. Yep that's art and for your folks and so that's the country we're living in and so technically in a very Catholic country it is a mortal sin to take your own life because the idea is Jesus has given you life and you've thrown it back in his face in some way and like all these things with guilt and Catholicism it permeates society it permeates your cells what make you up without even knowing it because it's part of society and a lot of the people who got in touch with me whose mother took their own life back in say the 40s and 50s a lot of kind of older people who got in touch said that everyone the priest would refuse to write those things on death certificates because then they weren't going to heaven or would you be able to be buried in a Catholic graveyard so all these things have hangovers in terms of people talking about them and also I think for I know for my mother it was always like if I say it I already know the reaction they're going to get so I'm just going to say he died tragically and moved on and now also not telling us I can totally understand because still there's very little chat about what to tell kids but now we know and I've read a lot about this with child psychology the best thing you can do is tell a child the truth in any way possible so don't tell don't light a children because if you it's not a lie by the way it's not my mother didn't lie to us she just couldn't tell us what happened but then later on as a teenager early teenager late child you view it back as a lie and then it starts to make you question reality and what's real and what's not and now they say even if it's explaining suicide to kids you do it in a very simple term and they will know that that's what happened and they will move on. Having spoken to Julia Samuels from child bereavement UK and then she'll go back from grief encounter so much of it started up after my dad died in 1988 and I remember talking to them and now the way it's talked about the way they understand it like I think if you were around before then it's almost like the same as the 50s in a way like I was told and it was explained but yeah like the the charities are available now I think it's just I'm so happy to hear what's happening now but the problem is is that you go to those charities when it happens yes and the more you chat about it I'm comedy podcast I know I haven't done many gags here last so don't worry I'll put them in again we can we can paper them through later on but the problem is is that in society we need to talk about it before it happens yeah yeah so there's no point uh not no point at all that's not what I'm saying but you go to those when you need them but I guess I mean at least they're there because I weren't there when I was alone and I like like when they when I spoke when they were saying the things they offer like taking kids away for a weekend but just hang out with other kids who've also lost people yeah and I just got to be around a group of teenagers and not feel like I'm weird there's something wrong with me aren't my family strange that like something really weird happened to us that no one else understands I just think because grief makes you feel isolated but of course you're right to to talk about it I think that any form of child counselling though as well because what about things like divorce or separation like those things can have massive effects on kit because they're forms of grief as well and I think they're forms of loss and maybe I I just believe in therapy and getting kids into counselling and talking therapy as much as you can before anything happens it's it's like don't give them vegetable soup when they're sick give them vegetables before that to stop them getting sick when did you start going to therapy then probably I think I've tried everything so I've tried counselling CBT the pills the not the pills the therapist crystal healers which I will highly recommend oh I love a crystal healer I love a crystal healer two white ladies living in London doing comedy of course we love a crystal healer thank you Lou Sanders picture actually Sanders my fellow crystal healer lady so yeah I've tried everything but it's it's like day two when you're 20s did it kind of take like because when you and I like you didn't have a thing when you and I when I was in Ireland at university there was some free counselling on campus and my boyfriend at the time said maybe she should go to counselling I was like why don't you why and he's like you just see my angry sometimes I have angry your madness um so he maybe thought it might be a good idea so at that stage I started and again when you're angry and going in if you go because someone recommends you to go yeah it doesn't always have the effect I think what's happened to me now especially this last year is I am so open to letting go of me as a sad person as so open to being a bright having a bright future yeah and that only comes with small daily little things you do welcome back to grief cast with Carrie Adloyd my therapist we got in something very recently which really sort of surprised me didn't surprise me in a way as ever with therapy I was like oh yeah I stopped me that and it was this thing of like I have I think my whole therapy journey has been trying to let go of 15 year old me and I find that that's another loss it feels like a death everything to me feels like and he goes is like you died when the people leave suddenly I feel like I feel it painfully I've I'm like I'm so bad at saying goodbye to people because I'm like could be the last time could be the last time but she was saying you know letting that person go again like you said gives you this freedom but what I found so much was like it felt like grieving him all over again like letting go of the angry person who's who's bolshin do you feel like and this is what I was saying about earlier about letting go of your story do you feel like if you let go of 15 year old you then your dad's gone yeah what it because I was brought up interesting the self-help weird shit they went into they used to always say everything's a narrative carrier that's just a story a lich was brought up with that so it's not it's not so much like oh like the girl whose dad died but it's like if oh yeah if I let go of him I have to make he's if I let go of 50 on me I have to make he's dead so this is what happened to me this year I honestly have felt like the ghost of my dad has always been around for better for us and in some way and I've hated him quite a lot of the time and since november since I wrote the article he's got like he's the ghost has gone you know in um drop dead fret yeah so for those of you who don't know drop dead fret it's this girl has a really creepy uh this is not this is no way I remember my dad because I'm angry at him and he's they've got a really creepy invisible friend who when she takes her antidepressants he goes but then eventually she doesn't need him anymore and it's it's that same thing of not totally realizing you don't need Santa Claus anymore yeah yeah and in some way like that part of me will always be there but he's gone now and there's no ghosty bit let I I suppose I buried him and it and I and I go that part yeah and I and also I didn't get to go to the funeral I was a kid so I'd never seen him go anywhere and in terms of people's mental health it's really important that you see a body go away it is really important that you see a body buried and that is for the psychology of humans that person is physically gone oh someone and I do truly believe in quite a spiritual person I'm not a holy person but I believe that whatever we like to call a ghost or an energy of someone whether it's religious or you're an atheist the people you were around make up who you are you are a massive part of my life you will make little bits of my personality as we go along and so your parents are your first two big parts of who you are even their absence is makes you there so that that is a ghost inside in you in some way whether your mind decides to think they're up in the window or they're hiding in the shell further in the sky that person is part of you but the idea of then really making it a ghost I think then to let go of that it and when I let go of the anger and have to forgive my dad and then write that article that it was no longer it was no longer my secret thing it was now a public thing to go and my family all talked about it and we had the funeral in a sense I for the first time ever my aunts and uncles in and we're very close family for the first time ever spoke to me about my dad in 30 years and they did it with such a love and happiness and what I also realized was they were all younger than me when it happened and I always thought of them as adults and I thought of my dad as an adult and a big part of my coming to understanding was me now nearly being his age and I don't feel like a grown up and you know you for me or a baby who has a baby and I want to carry out as a baby but she's a baby herself how I feel yeah and that's and so for me you have it and not everyone I think has an idea of their parents when they look back at their parents they see them almost an old-fashioned clothes with old-fashioned haircuts because they're adults and you don't realize that they're they're all still kids in a way as well and we all I don't think any of us ever totally shake off that idea that we're not kids in a way or just like working our way no one can work their way through the world for you and that is growing up yeah that's what I realize growing up is realizing no one's a grown up I wonder for you is a little bit of not letting go of your 15 year old self and maybe that's what's happened with me in this last year me not being an angry kid at my dad or me not being a kid at my dad's funeral anymore and talking to people who are grieving in front of me now for the first time like my uncle and stuff who's never got to talk about my dad and I'm the adult in the situation that maybe you have to know being you're not 15 anymore you should be an adult but that's so that's what I the whole therapy thing has been is letting go of her and letting go of letting go of my dad yeah and I realize again thanks to therapy you can praise me big shout out to therapy I appreciate that if you listen to the podcast at the beginning I say constantly when I was 15 my dad died my dad died and I literally don't say he's dead yeah I don't say it until very recently because I realized died and my throat says it's quite an active word sounds like someone's still doing it they're dying yeah you know they're dying man like they're on it he's doing it that's what's happening and I have had to yeah I'd say like since having a baby probably that's for me being the big shift because it was like oh I am I've got a baby I can't be 15 year old carry out like yeah look what's happening like I'm married and yeah you know with this with the man I had a baby so that I'm not I'm definitely not that person anymore and that was a really painful like it felt like ripping apart rather than like you said like I feel like maybe some people going like oh right I you know I moved into this part of my life I was like because that teenage life meant he's still there and I really had to accept he's dead and I think I honestly probably about maybe three or four months ago it was the first time she made me say it therapy I had to go my dad's dead and I yeah was like born in my eyes out and I've been practicing and saying it and being like yeah okay and also doing the show it's very emotional going into if you're to look at your life as a book going into the next chapter and closing a chapter on something and so many of these metaphorical words might seem again quite hippy-dippy but they're so helpful for your head to get around an idea but to end something like to really like I just realized recently had a big relationship a couple of years ago that broke my heart and I'm sure I broke his heart and it we were hungry with each other for a while and and then we both moved on in the last year but year and a half particularly we both really moved on and all that was left between us now is the love for each other but no romance and no anger and I got really emotional over that because even though it was happy that that's gone now you're you're almost a little bit sad for your old self that they didn't know was coming like if you could go back in a time machine and tell yourself it's going to be fine you're like I'll never let go of that's gone but actually to do that is emotional even though you know it's positive in like it's a bit like you know when you have to like reset a bone yeah yeah but it's sore but it will grow back stronger yeah and I just think let once you've had grief I find losses are very tricky because they bring me back to grief so anything any lot like a loss if I don't if I'm not speaking to a friend as much as you do I feel that I get this pain of like do you know I don't I don't I don't get that I because I think we grow up around death that growing I do know we were really blasé yeah we were we were growing up around death and Ireland despite having an unhealthy attitude to suicide we have a very yeah so in Ireland we go to every funeral even the people we don't know um I remember when I first came to London I went to drama school and a guy in my year his dad died and I said uh right lads um will you get a minibus together to go up north to go to Ben's dad's funeral and everyone's like they looked at me like I said do you want to do contemporary dance around the coffin because they were like we don't know him and I'm like what we know Ben yeah so a chorus will all go and in Ireland they they leave a body out I have been to children's funerals I have been to elderly people's funerals I have seen every type of body laid out my granny died and we all sat around reading sandwiches and everyone's like oh doesn't she look really well and I was like well she's look better and everyone had a laugh like no but seriously she doesn't want to say my favorite we did a live episode with Garnier McGuire Dolly Orton and Ahish and my absolute favorite moment was when Ahish and Garnier was like oh yeah I had this funny rumor that like Irish people leave the body out or like you might have it in the pub yeah and Garnier went yeah and you could see that Ahish thought it was like a kind of sort of like mean thing people said about Irish people yeah and Garnier was like no that's it do you know what I was just talking about this on Sunday because my sister's a boyfriend is Indian and he's never been to a funeral and wow we find that hilarious and myself and Shaneid because we grew up with like a dead parent or like our dad was a ghost like that was his job and sometimes we'd make a joke out of it like what's your dad do it's like always a ghost and we have a very dark sense of humor that some people get really uncomfortable around like if there was a creek in the house sometimes we'd say to our flatmate when we lived with her we were like oh there's a daddy trying to close the door we better close it and she'd be like oh my god guys that's so dark but we'd laugh our heads off and then that part of Irish life and death and joking about it is just so in our bones but also then if you're a child who has had death it's just a really it's just a really taken for granted thing also what's funny is that I think myself my sister have a real panic about getting everything done fast and getting as much things done as possible even with work because people are all like well you could be dead tomorrow and we're like yeah no we know yeah yeah so we better go and what if you what if you die tomorrow and you haven't all the seven projects you'd like to do that so we don't go on holidays I have that yeah you don't like just quick die you could die and I remember friends uni being like oh well like I'll probably get cancer and die who cares and I'd be like but you actually probably really will so like why are you saying here dicking around like this is not okay yeah I think the way it affects you is it's so we rarely live in the present myself and my sister we live in the past or the future yeah yeah yeah yeah just in case just in case but but that's something I'm trying to learn to do it's hard now it's really hard I think we wherever your life experiences it's hard to stay there it's interesting that you said I do find interesting about islander there is like gone you was talking about it like you know she've been to so many funerals she's seen many so many dead bodies but then the the juxtaposition of that and suicide must have been hard growing up to be like yeah just everywhere we're cool with it but not this thing over here I always remember my mother saying and again I don't want to this is not about her so you don't want to tell someone else's story but I always remember part of her she's never held his death against him like I I did and I always I really my trigger you know when you're like if someone leaves you for too long you know I could be I have the opposite I have a thing that being taken for granted or not appreciated which all I know comes from my dad's death that I've only had to let go and it would happen with boyfriends or friends if I felt like they were taking me for granted because in my head that's what daddy did with myself and she made life because if you read the article erosion I don't want to double up on artistic forms here or force you to go and do a kind of like but I also don't want to kind of get you to like double up and do homework alongside the podcast but one of the things was that my dad didn't mention us in his letter and that has been the thing that's haunted me my whole life because I'm like in my head I was like oh we weren't worth your pen scribbling a few more letters for 10 more seconds and for me that has haunted me my whole life that I wasn't worth another bit of writing and shaneit who's my everything wasn't worth it even he could have shaneit didn't even get to know yet you could have written down her name like that was that was always my that was my biggest scar and what happened was again this is in the article um on his randomly it was Christmas and my mother rang me up and was like you never gonna believe what's happened I'm like what and she was like these people he used to work for at the veterinary surgery um basically found a box of his stuff they cleared his desk and put all his stuff after he died and put all his stuff in a box and they just thrown it into a filing cabinet uh this box or told it into a filing area and um then 28 years later rang her up and were like do you want this box or will you throw it in the bin and honestly these shits were just and this is like the week before Christmas to do this to mommy um he's like and when you could send it over right we'll send it over and they dropped it out after they'd kept it for that long and never thought that his wife might want um his stuff and when we opened the box there was like obviously all his veterinary notes and all those sort of things um but in it were all these photos and I like growing up I was obsessed with photos of him I just looked at every single photo because I was trying to work out and even then when I became a teenager and learned I learned about how he died I was trying to look in these photos to see could I see sadness in his eyes is there is there a clue the moment when he might have gotten sick or what had happened and he had had a um a back injury and was in quite a lot of pain quite a lot of the time but that's almost like that was probably the straw that quite literally broke his back um but like the the sadness was in him and it probably always been in him um but when are we open this box a mommy waited us for us to come home are we open this and it was just this like we were just like three little women looking into this shitty 1980 style brown yeah like one of those boxes you always see like when a bank closes down people leaving with the little offers desk and a little plant and then boxes like like this was Aladdin's cave and in the box were all these photos and they were nearly all of me and um and um he had died in his workplace and taken an overdose there and I'd been the you know when the last things he'd been looking at and in my head I'd had and someone got in touch with me recently and said that her dad had left them when they were kids and I'd never bothered to get in touch much around things like that and years later after her dad had died his other wife uh came and told her that his whole life he had carried around a picture of her in her wallet and she always said she was like god I don't know him my life or who I would have become if I'd known he'd cared to have a photo of me and for me that was I just I didn't totally take it in immediately but it slowly seeped in like these photos I'd never seen and I had seen every single photo I remember one one album he had from before he'd met mommy and I didn't know what a lady boy was when I was a kid and he would been a vet out in Australia and there was this one photo of him with a group of his pals and a lady boy on his lap and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen I would like such an exotic beauty yeah yeah and I was like oh my god does mommy know he ever saw this exotic beauty maybe she could have been my mother in another life and like only years later I went back and look at the photo I was like oh my god there's a beautiful oh it's a lady boy he clearly was in Bangkok and yeah so that that kind of meant everything to me but why I wrote the article that's not a lot of people get that like that was sort of like quite a filmic magical little bit of closure and I know most of what people I I can pretty much assume with most of the topic of suicide it's the why and nobody will ever get that why they'll never really know the why or what what what incident or what level of sadness pushed you but not someone else and in a way I felt like we got this message from a grave and I felt so blessed and honored to get this weird have this weird thing happen yeah I remember once and when I was in my second year of lambda which is drama school in London I didn't have a TV in our house and they had this I just saw randomly the metro newspaper over lunchtime that that night there was going to be a documentary about suicide on these kids who'd lost her father and I couldn't tell anyone why I wanted to watch it but I asked if there was any way weirdly I asked my friend I was like oh there's this random minute show on tonight can I go back to your house and watch and they were like yeah you can come right into our house and I remember going back to their house and going oh guys you don't need to talk to me I'll just watch privately like it's literally this like shitty thing I want to watch is for a character I'm trying to develop blah blah blah and they're like okay well I'll just be upstairs making tea I'm like yeah grand grand grand because I didn't want them to sit and I stared at this BBC documentary about these kids because I had not seen or heard another story and we're no podcast then this is like there was no I didn't know how to hear someone else speaking about suicide it's just nowhere to be seen and nowhere to be talked about and I needed to know that someone else felt angry and felt okay and because my only experience of how people dealt with suicide was my mothers and she when we talk about looking into the coffin and seeing a body she will always say that when she looked into the coffin at my dad she saw the face of the man she married and all of his stress lines were gone and he just seemed happy and she was like that's where that's what he needed to do with that that's him rather than he'd sort of not seem so tired and sad and stressed maybe she hadn't known how much he had been that and and with the I remember looking at this TV being like oh god like drinking every bit because he don't know when someone's going to talk about it again there was no like this wasn't that long ago it was probably 10 years ago but there was no videoing the TV and even if it happened I still don't know how to do it I know but people forget like it was this barren way son I remember watching a program about comedy that really waxed it about like funny women and she interviewed dawn French and suddenly they started talking about the fact that their dance were dead I know you know what the one you're talking about because I saw that too and also can I just say nearly every woman in comedy dad is dead yes I know there's so many ridiculous my mom says every week oh is it another dead dad you got so many comedians like yes mother I remember sitting on the sofa my living room and I froze because I was like oh they're talking about it like it's like it's normal like it's just a normal thing and they're laughing and they were both sort of laughing and telling stories and you know it was obviously sad but I meant you know that was such a thing for me I was like oh happens to other people and these people also still want to be funny and still making jokes and no crackers lost yeah and I felt like I just felt connected that that was such inspiration for this show as well of like going I like you said I remember drinking it in and thinking I wish I could watch that again but I can't because we live in the past yeah that's it it's gone but just freezing thinking taking everything they're saying remember what they're saying and then just going oh that felt amazing I wasn't alone for a second I wasn't alone I wasn't it is an interesting thing that element of either gone dads or dead dads in comedy with women because I wonder is there something and again this is looking at the positive is it that if you're then left in a house that becomes a matriarchy yeah yeah you have an ownership of your voice you are the probably going to be the funniest person in the family and you have to help your parent be in charge and that being in charge then means when you get up in front of people to talk or to be funny you're not used to being not the one in charge I don't know what I started with I think obviously everything family is different like my mum oh god she killed me for this and she does listen it's not as she got she didn't get happier but my dad died but like we've said I've said this before there was more air in that house because he was a very big personality he's not always happy yeah and there seemed to be this kind of weird like I think my mum had this kind of like the worst things fucking happened yeah so might as well just like start enjoying ourselves yeah and I think that was hard for other people perhaps to see us kind of being like well we're gonna just laugh and leave you see a lot of the thing what death can teach you to do is to bloody live yeah yeah and to not there's a difference between being alive and this is what I think happens a lot with depression is that you know you know what it is it's very easy to live miserably for a very long time and it's very easy to live sadly for a very long time until you get bored of it because everyone does no people don't generally mind being miserable or sad people really mind being bored and I think you have to get bored of your misery and I think that's where I got to I was so bored of having these issues of having these issues with even with men as a result of my dad these bloody daddy issues was so boring to me yeah yeah that I decided something had to change yeah yeah but I was very happy to be miserable and when you're miserable you can stay alive for a very long time without living yeah and I was definitely I was very happy to stay angry because angry made me feel yes made me feel alive yeah and powerful does a power in anger yeah and there was no power and my I remember vividly being at school and someone trying to teach a trying to say like a you're okay and I thought I'm gonna cry but if I get angry I won't yeah and it literally I thought oh get angry then and then I turned fuck you what the fuck do you know and it just made me go oh great it means I can get out of a situation I don't have to explain myself I don't have to be they don't get it tap into what I'm actually feeling and it just was like oh because I felt so scared when anyone got near it I was like I don't know how if I open this door what the fuck's gonna happen basically I think I didn't use anger even though I was very angry I think I use jokes yeah because I think I knew my I knew how sad my mother was and I hated that and I knew that I could make her happy but also if I was making other people laugh I seemed okay yeah yeah that was her biggest worry her biggest worry wasn't her own sadness her biggest worry would I like are the girls okay because what do you bloody do like she had to just like feed us never mind all the other stuff and if I seem happy or okay and I always remember when she sat down and told us that was clearly like a massive day for her oh god and I always remember from that moment I was like I I'm going to protect these two children like I got totally livenies and intake and I was like I have a very specific set of skills and that is to make people laugh and I'm going to so determinedly make people laugh that my mother will never know if anything's wrong with my and I remember she was out in the car talking to our neighbor like they both sat into the car by the gate so clearly not wanting to be in the house or we could listen in and she was clearly telling my neighbor that she told the girls after all these years and because I think a lot of people around us now I know didn't know when or if we knew or watched would say yeah because they didn't know if we knew and I remember deciding seeing that she was out in the car and deciding I was going to skip to the car to ask her if we were having dinner or a cup of tea some silly thing and they went and I went hi there and then I decided to skip back and I was like that woman will never know I'm not okay because that will break her heart but what that did in my mind oh I just kept it all inside and from then on I made a pattern of they're literally so so many of my friends after the article he had oh I didn't know he never told me about that with your dad and these are close friends yeah I didn't know I remember asking you when we went in L.A. yes and I'm somebody was asking Brett was asking me about he didn't know that my dad had died which I was like yes I don't know I tell everyone the car together and Brett was eating loads of pepperami for protein to keep himself both yeah and then I was like oh yeah my dad okay and then he said something like like the he he must have known your dad was dead I think and I was really like oh and because I'm so Brett was one of the first randomly one of the first pals I told and I don't know why I think Brett it's Brett Goldstein big shout out to our friend Brett Goldstein but Brett doesn't do small chat yeah Brett doesn't do small chat so we go had your dad die straight away I remember asking you because I'm so you know I'm so into asking people about death and I'm thinking oh I didn't know like and and you didn't answer and I remember just thinking oh oh like and you were so good at changing the subject that I don't think I until I got hurt you know I don't remember that at all yeah I remember I remember us being in the car I don't remember changing the subject because I did that all the time it was incredible like because I'm somebody who I love talking about it I'm ready to go there so when I found out and you said oh my dad said I was like oh well this is a great chat we can have and then the subject and I remember going home and thinking I didn't know that hang on she didn't what hang on she didn't I just still don't know and which is so rare for me because I'm always like let's I'm saying as Brett I can't do that let's get to the meat you know I'm doing her son carry out very good I yeah I'm at that but you obviously like you said how got incredibly good uh yeah I I on yes because I honestly the words wouldn't come out of my neck yeah of course and I didn't it was like some even no matter how and that was only like what three four years ago yeah it wasn't long ago yeah yeah it was like something in my childhood brain go we keep that secret and so that stays in there and even a big part of like writing that article a big scary part was the fact that I as a public figure public figure I talk about myself looking at some Mandela but I'm in the public eye but my family aren't and they haven't decided yet here I am yeah going through the shop kicking over all the glass vases that we've kept for so long yeah and it's hard on my own I mean I'm not nearly as a public figure as you are but I no no no carry out you're more a public figure than me please except that you're more of a bigger than Nelson Mandela but not as big as you know but I I really know that feeling of being like the way I process things is out loud and in public and through comedy and through talking for an audience and I don't know if you had this thinking oh shit I wish I didn't I wish I didn't have to now go and talk about my dad's death because it would be much easier if everybody if I packed away those glass vases but I know me I know I've got to do this and look at my family have been okay about it but I definitely I mean we've talked about it's full of like there's definitely days I'm like what have I done why if I why did I go and kick all those glasses yeah it seemed like I really needed to but I don't I don't regret it lately I did a little bit at the start just because of the amount of people who understand the big off to mommy not me not I didn't care about me it was my mother you know people coming up to her a lot about something that's just so sad for her and that's not something she likes exactly but what came out of it was three men who were best friends with daddy when he was at university have all gotten touched from around the world and one of them got in touch with my agent they were like we have photos of your dad from the 70s when we went to Chicago and these three men we honestly I felt a bit like in mama Mia you know the way there's these three different men she's not sure what her dad is myself and my sister sort of met up with them for tea one of them came over from Australia one of them came over from England and another one was over visiting her his daughter who lived in London and I'm staring at these men who are the exact same ages my dad who are all also vets I don't mean Vietnam I mean horses in case and I'm looking at them going somewhere in you is what my dad would be like like some version of you and they all have good senses of humor and stuff and it was really it's been quite ghostly and so they all had a big night where they got back together and met up in my mom's house and luckily I wasn't able to go home fresh because I think if I'd been there it would have been about me and the article and I look really like my dad but I think without him there they could just sort of remember because at the time as well when something happens I think everyone thinks of the kids in the immediate leaf after I'm here first but what I've sort of realized since we've all started talking about it was my uncle lost his pal and he was only 26 when it happened my aunties lost their brother-in-law some neighbors lost their neighbor that they pop into for a pint like all these people who hadn't been able to deal with their grief and their version of could I have did I miss something did I know what I don't so that time it's a very different and a lot of people held onto some guilt there was one man I know who who got very upset he'd never said it to mommy and she's known him for like 30 years but she um he just got very upset because he just and this is only since the article came out he was like hell and I'm so sorry I was the one who found Brian and I tried to I tried to revive him but I couldn't bring him back and I just felt so sorry for that man because he'd when would it have been his time to grieve yeah like when is it the it's all the priority was us and the what but when when would his bit when he got to say that he didn't there where's the platform of the place where and that's why I think therapy you know that and not everyone can afford therapy that's why these podcasts are important that's why books are important because books tend to be a tenor therapy can be a hundred quid a session and very few people I am honored to work in a job that gives me enough money that I can go and ask someone to pay to listen to my problems but that's where as a society at least if we chat more a big thing is and I know I'm jumping around here a lot but a big thing I found is so many people are afraid to talk to anyone because they think someone will get upset but if you don't get upset living in a state of almost upset if you don't talk to your wife because you think telling her that you are down and don't feel like living anymore is upsetting and will upset her you will live in a state of upset illness which is like living with your shoulders up around your ears it's stress and you will get sicker and more and well if you get upset then you can start to work to get better if you never get upset or upset someone you're you're you're you're going to stay in that paralysis and that numb state for a very long time and I will catch up with you in the end and that is for women as well and I'm only being gender specific here because of all the messages I've gotten through because I think this happens a lot with wives and husbands in particular allow a space where your husband can get upset and where if they tell you that they don't want to live or they're really struggling that is not a comment on your worth as a wife or a girlfriend or a partner that is not a comment on how much they think of your children or the value of their family it's just that something inside's broken and needs fixing and that's the one thing I'd that our mental health services are not going to get me better any time soon and there is no magic monetary as Theresa May would say to fix the system to get therapy in that it's not coming and that's where we all have to do the the harder work is not with a stranger in a room that we've paid £100 a bit like a prostitute to sort of sit and have sex with us for an hour the harder is fixing the problems in your own bedroom and don't get a prostitute in for that I don't get it though I have to say apparently that's what a lot of them doing is having a chat and that is where the work is a society to deal with mental health problems and the stigma around it and change has to start because and it has to start from a place of you deciding that you are worth fixing or being helped is that just being helped yeah but there's someone there's a lot of chat say for example there's there's two sides where I suppose one is starting this now in young boys and young girls and that's where like I was saying before getting vegetables into kids before they get sick yeah yeah it's the same thing with emotional language and talking therapy and teaching them how to emotion my emotional language has like come on so much in a year but three years ago I was not I had no English words to tell you a friend in front of another friend what I didn't have the words of the English to get it out of my neck to you the other thing is then if you're in a place where you're really low being like we need to talk more about mental health or it's like you have a broken leg people wouldn't judge if you've written like that you're in such a place that you don't want to pick up the phone or ring you know you don't want to ring your friends you ring your friend normally once they're really the crux of the sadness has passed you rarely actually ring someone crying and screaming going I want to die people don't do that enough and so in that moment where you feel on your own and alone in that moment if just it's almost like where what is and I don't think I don't know if I've the answers at all but a little bit of help might be what is the in case of emergency break this glass which is something my friend was talking about he lost a friend to suicide recently and in that moment if you can hopefully go and make yourself a cup of tea and hopefully wait that 15 minutes for cup of tea and if you can find not happiness but hope not that you're going to win the lottery tomorrow but just hope that tomorrow might be a little bit better or that you might get out of bed a bit earlier or that you won't have a sense of failure tomorrow or that if you go to bed early and tomorrow might be a little bit better if if that's what you can hold on to then they're the sort of skills and things we need to start talking about slowly but surely what we we know the number to ring if there's a fire we know as ladies if you if you're getting attacked shout fire because no one will come and save you if you shout rape we know all the little things to do in certain situations but what about when our when our souls run out of juice when we don't want to go on anymore we don't as a society know our own in case of emergency break glass and I think those are things we should start to do before it gets to that point but even for people who are listening in who we're trying to deal with their own lives in any way start with the tiny small habits someone said to me about self-care I think we all think that once you care about yourself then you'll start looking after yourself so once I care about myself then maybe I'll take a shower or then maybe I'll start eating properly or do you know what when I actually give a shit about myself I'll start eating my vegetables but he said to me know you have to start from the outside which sounds like a vacuous thing and work your way in so in the mornings get up and shower put on your clothes don't sit around your pajamas which is a my favorite thing to do look after yourself eat the right food don't drink too much start with the outside stuff try and get some sleep and and that will signal to your body and then to your mind that you are worth dressing and you are worth being healthy for and you are worth getting out and those slow tiny messages that you are even worth vitamins and vegetables because that's where a lot of people are that they're not even worth that will then go maybe your worth a relationship maybe your worth love maybe your worth work maybe your worth success maybe your worth all of the friendships you have all of the love that you have in your life because you have to feel that you're worth those things for them to actually come in and I think what you're saying is so it's so it's just life to be in it super eloquent just like because it's also what we say so much about grieving so so much of what I say on Twitter but on the grief cost Twitter is like you know if you got dressed today congratulations yeah if you have breakfast congratulations if you're standing up and you're not lying down congratulations and I always talk about it in terms of grieving because that's my experience but I think what you're talking about in terms of just general mental health it's just I think that's really nice what you said have just giving yourself an extra 50 minutes just like I and I think well I often think depression who can feel like um grief but no one's died so you sometimes when you're really you go to yeah so you go to like you get up in the morning and then you you get dressed and you're ready to go to work and you press a button on the kettle and you go oh shit someone's dead and then you look around you're like no no one is but yet I've still got the same feeling inside like something is really awful and that's so this podcast for example grief doesn't necessarily have to be because of someone I know that might be right off topic what grief can can be in your life for a number of reasons and dealing with grief we're just we just deal with the dead grief yeah exactly all sorts of things and I get plenty of emails about your deaths yeah yeah I mean he must be saying I'm not in the club but it helped me yeah I had no idea that it would relate to you in that way because I only have my experience yeah and I think it's been really yeah really interesting to understand my therapist that say as well she was like look at us I know it's changing therapists' stories she was like it's just different losses and I'm so harsh that I'd be like well no one died so why are you so upset about that yeah everything's measured by a death and she was like but losses you just feel losses and I was like oh right yeah so I feel the loss of my teenage self or the loss of you know yeah me or me with before I order yeah and then you're like oh I see and that can be a bigger loss yeah and it's just okay to feel them like it's okay to feel and I to feel sad it's all right just to feel those things because I think we know that from the outside the problem is when you feel sad you have to feel sad so he can say to someone else it's okay to feel sad but like today I'll be honest I just wanted to wash love island yeah and yet I instead I felt sad and I was like oh to do really wanted to not be sad yeah you know it's that sort of thing of going we can tell everyone like it's okay to have your period yeah but it's really boring as well oh yeah it's so lovely if he didn't but what I mean is more that it's normalizing that everyone is going through it isn't it yeah yeah and here's here's again what I learn every bloody time so this whole day I've been grumpy I've been feeling weird and I think it's a hangover from doing that show on Saturday and I'm knowing again I was gonna come to see one of my best friends but to talk about this and it felt so overwhelming we have been here for how long and hour who knows carry out and actually speak a lot dance a lot move our asses a lot laugh a lot we do not have a concept of time and try and get a soul stage just dry without a cane but I feel lighter now yeah than when I came in and if there's anyone listening and you're like no no no resist resist resist genuinely sitting down for an hour and this hasn't been the best gig I've ever done there's been a very few jokes so I did like my reference to lean knees and I will say I love it's great yeah but even though it you know we're out the other side of it and I can feel I know tonight I have a gig tonight and I was worried about doing this when I was in that mood earlier on I was like a gig tonight I already know I'm gonna die my ass because I have to talk to carry out about death and I can already feel yeah lighter now because I've spent probably an hour in your company not having the crack but I know the cracks gonna come back and by crack I mean the Irish crack Google it's not actually well we're not here doing crack they might say like we are I know that I'll be a bit better now yeah I just know that you can go there and come through and come through it and because I did get upset during this podcast and I met the other side of it and I was like I was thinking I was like oh God I better get all my words together I was like you know what I'm gonna tell carry it I'm grumpy because it is part of like I'm going to talk to her about the fact that I was grumpy to come here and I know you won't mind being like oh as she said she was grumpy like but she was getting to meet me oh no so I feel exactly the same and there's days when I look at my week and I book three of these fucking talks and I think what the fuck is wrong with you and I'm like I'm gonna have to and I my bookshelf and thank you if you sent me one it's full of books about death yeah literally at the moment it's letting go living a good death last two soon gone too young and I looked and I thought yeah I thought right Magnum the crown like sometimes you just you need a break but it's also it's like it's oh again and my therapist said this to me I always thought don't open the door because if you open the door to the sadness it won't stop yes and she has taught me again big shout out to my therapist that you can open the door the sadness can come in for a bit and that sadness will go and then it will be the window like our Kelly in the music video and there'll be some different sadness but I really believe for so many years that yes no the sadness is frozen where it is and if you talk about it it will destroy you it's so the same and I think that's why in LA four years ago when you were like how do you dad die and I was like you'll never believe a voice I can do carry out doesn't that sound like an old robin in a hat and you're like good that is a great thank you I think I thought the same I thought if I start it will never end so keep it back but actually that's what I'm saying about living in it in a state of almost upset will cripple you it honestly it went into my neck and my bones I have back problem from being hunched over from being stressed from sleeping in a bowl afraid that someone is going to find me out or a story was going to break or someone's going to ask me in the middle of something I'm going to get upset but genuinely just after this hour I feel a little bit lighter and like the little twisted thing in me has gone you know when they say to go for a walk when you've got period pain big shout out to all the boys with no experience listening and you're like I can't I can't stand up but then you go for a walk and it does actually help stand up and you think oh yeah oh yeah yeah thanks I genuinely think maybe that's what we have to start doing for our mental health and part of that is and for our grief and loss and sadness and upset just try and push through it and yeah you might ruin someone's night in a pub but if they're worth their salt and paper like yeah but there'll be another night tomorrow that'd be fine I mean maybe don't go out two nights on the trot of the pub but what I'm saying is there'll be it'll it'll be grand no one's going anywhere yeah I think it's really important to remember everybody yeah everybody gets upset it's okay there's always tomorrow and I know it sounds so fucking cheesy but it's cheesy because it's true it's a cliche because it's true and I think if you don't want there to be a tomorrow and you're listening in please give it a go please give it a go well on that very lovely night thank you very much Ashley I'm coming to talk to you thank you very much Kerry had for having me you can follow Ashley on Twitter @we miss b and you can find out what she's giggling if you heard to ashting b.com you can also follow us on twitter and instagram at the grief cost and you can email us the grief cost at gmail.com music was provided by the glue ensemble and the show was edited by Kate Holland with thanks to whistle-down studios and remember you are not alone