My Ripple Effect | Harriet Dyer | TEDxDurhamUniversity
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs0ZGperRp8 Video ID: Hs0ZGperRp8 ============================================================ [Applause] [Music] [Music] sort of tell you my journey the toys in with this at first I was like the ripple effect is when you've eaten far too much Galaxy so I guess this is a story by my partner says do not say that but it's a terrible way to start and I said dictionary based tumor apparently not um I so I um I've got bipolar and I uh well so I'll tell the story when I was growing up when I was a young world book I had I was I was always I felt like looking back I was in black and white and and always had a cloud over my head and I didn't really understand why I just didn't really fit in with with anyone else and I was so up and down and now I know you know that was Boy polar and skipping forwards I guess this is a story something what happened that sums up bipolar really well so this was when I was doing comedy I I had a gig why did I advisors and I was getting the getting the troll and it was a very hot day so be careful searches because it's quite warm in it and I learned my backpack on and my deodorant exploded in my bag and then um and then this lady on the train thought I was at them suspiciously but that's just my general Tamina you're already [Music] except that and so so this lady was told snitched on me uh it says I was active so anyway so I got taken off the train because I thought I was trying to blow up the this is a trade when the only crime was all my clothes were covered in whether one could be quite uncommon everybody got taken off the train interrogated and then after after they realized I just started deodorant they let me off but they wouldn't let me back on the train so they had to walk six miles I call initialize and to the to the gig and then my battery on my phone was dying so I sort of had to figure out where I was going and I felt because I had a lot on anyway and I just felt really bad and then I was like right when I get to the hotel I'm gonna kill myself I've had enough and then I got to the hotel and then the lady at reception goes oh we've upgraded you and I and I was like really she was like and I was like how much is this because it cost me she was like nothing from like a single bed basic room to like a honeymoon suite and then I was like this is the best day ever and now that's that's what it's like constantly um and uh so when I was when I was young I this sums up I think me at school I was trying to find the photo for this but I've got um so you just get off the trust me so when I was at school for one of a better word you know when there's like a fantasy dress party and even though this is going to sound awful because we're all kids but you know when the girls will try to look sexy but their version it didn't like kids sexy what and so for all my friends at school were there like all this business and I'm uh I think they went from like Gothic sexy they're just like a foundation and egg white and then all I was with them but just as David Hasselhoff wasn't made what channels eyeshadow but anyway and previously uh a previous Halloween I dressed up as a werewolf so my mom goes oh well as soon as you're going to stay in your Hasselhoff you buy it as well stick on the hairy chest that you wore as a werewolf so all the girls that are like there's another home in the photo like that because my stick on Harry chaps was very itchy so that's what I was what I was like at school and I I was I think when people because I'm getting so controller and stuff and I think that was strange I strictly last to play with I'm not wearing knickers I don't know what I've told you about to say sorry um it was good in the heat a lot of information to take and imagine being in my head it's just and a lot of you won't remember this but in 1996 that upset that there was this advert that used to go but I tell you that waffles fish is [Music] 1996 into everything else it's just um [Music] during lockdown when I was doing all the zoo gigs and stuff people will message me that said they work for the NHS and that and they were like oh we think you 've really got ADHD uh I was like please stop I can't have anything else perhaps this will so I think I've probably got that as well to be honest um where was I um yes and so a lot of people have had a lot of trouble with that you know they've had uh awful parents and stuff like that whereas when my mum and dad were ABS in wonderful absolutely wonderful um really good people and I've got a brother I've got five years younger than me when when I was 12 he was seven and we bonded over this game uh over to put a mask if you've heard of it I wouldn't know because I made it up it's called Uh the Pasty people and I ain't being from Cornwall available Plastics and uh we've played it every Sunday because God loves pastro and uh I get in my brother's bed to do they was pastry and then my brother would be eating zombie Beef skirt um potato onion sweet or it has been facetious salt and pepper and then I will be aggressively and then the object of the game is relevant to the story the object of the game is that I have to move like that and capture the ingredients and then uh and you think about it it has memory foam mattresses versus Zombies called Spring beds so we probably should have been an extreme sport picture [Music] okay so I um so when I played out with a rubber by my parents had this I mean I thought they had this perfect relationship but but I didn't because my dad was secretly gay but that's another story I always say that if I don't get swear I was saying his business it was illegal to be gay so imagine growing up knowing how you feel is so wrong that it's illegal and in cold Wars backwards of time alone when you're gay living on a farm in the in the late 40s putting on mobile sat in the seat so mum and dad when I was growing up I thought they had this wonderful relationship uh and I really wanted that like so I was I was very quirky child and from a really young age I was like I want to settle down and um because I was born with a son with an 80 year old an Atlanta companion and uh [Music] to a certain degree still now if like girls wear pink and boys wear blue and if you don't fit into that then what do the things are you that's pretty much what it was back then and I was pretty by four like this uh it's very uncomfortable for my poor mother with with high tops [Music] um so so so when I would because I was adamant to find someone um and my my um but everyone's just looked at me and go absolutely not I don't even know what you are which is quite upsetting and then something that was really upsetting who's well was because I was desperate for companionship and no one was ever interested then when people were interested I was so excited that I never really questioned it um and I had this scrubbing up out of this neighbor um that we'll call him Gordon Herbert's real name is one of the other tank engines and uh he was a couple of years older than me and like sexually curious but why was it well I didn't really understand what was happening and he was like let's do this together when I was that one I don't really know the the internet didn't even really exist then it was only the um the the dialogue everyone's like [Music] and [Music] um which I think it would take remember that guy for me was 17 the random stuff over because of a jacket potato I just find them very comfortable him obviously not so much uh because you can have to have it the number gives a [ __ ] about Jack okay it really does he's got one for his lunch uh so the the neighbor said to me want to know sound record and said do you want to see something cool I says does a bear have tits in the woods absolutely egos get in this wardrobe while I said really so I got in the wardrobe and we watched his sister on his sister's boyfriend it's at it and I again didn't really understand what was happening but it was quite traumatized um and I knew it wasn't right because I thought well if it is right I wouldn't be guys in the wardrobe and then so then I'd add enough of him because Gordon invited me to a party and they need cat food in front of everyone and I think we all have to draw a line somewhere so then I was like and then it wasn't as nice at home anymore because my mum and my dad were going through stuff so I go off cycling to clear my head which I think is really sad that the child would need to clear their head um and so where I grew up is like Terrace houses and then concrete out the back where the kids used to play so my mom was like we're going somewhere and just stay there but I uh I had to go cycling with my brother and he would just go round and round in a circle get bored and then throw himself onto the floor and my mum would watch be watching from the window and she'd be like blazzy out he's [ __ ] himself off again and I always used to laugh because I thought [ __ ] himself um at odds we went to visit monan and uh and then the taxi driver on the way back I think he was on driving like that but he's not even looking at the road and my mum goes not where is Highway code my my mom goes to my brother Joe get your strap on Joe put your strap on it's like put his seatbelt which was screaming put the strap on and then also made me laugh along the last similar isn't it of the um the uh himself of and I've considered it so I would go cycling foreign because I wanted companionship and all this and he was just great every single thing I said to he was like yeah no that's the same for me as well I was like oh my God Kindred Spirits um but it turned out he was he was grooming me and went on to abuse me and he said that if I had told anyone he'd hurt my little brother and I don't think it had the desired effect when I replied with but he's already been killed six times this week by the bristle and it was all that I don't know where the PTSD and the trauma ends and the bipolar begins really because I think it all but I don't know that constantly being around people that are never open about the what experiences they've been through and not being open and honest about mental health when I was when I was younger it just wasn't a thing I was at a little turn or it was something like it wasn't ever spoken about um and then that's like a like a pressure cooker which eventually causes bad decisions and then which lead to even more uh trauma and because I wasn't diagnosed with bipolar until 2015 when I was like in my 30s and then when I go oh my goodness it was just uh because I think it as a society for some reason we're told that if you if you need to take something for your brain then that's somehow failing as a as a human but like if you had a big fat gaping cyst I mean that is quite the image but then you take something for that I don't think anything of it I don't think it's um and ironically enough if I didn't take anything for my brain I'm like this is me as a very upstanding together human believe it or not I believe it's whizzing around um anyway um and so so yes it's changed my life really and I think it's um the only bad thing I say about on medication is that I see mice just scuffling on past all the time but I think impending doom mice you've just gotta weigh it up um and uh did you know that if you have a mouse in your house then you've got to take it five miles away because otherwise it finds it finds its way back and my partner said to me can you please stop making me take you through imaginary voice on excursions [Music] because I think it's the bipolar and very impulsive so I well sometimes I'll just be like absolutely not I don't need any medication and then I'll just come off if they're not like you should like if you're at the you suppose the doctor will tell you to come off it gradually I can't unable it um and then the last time I did that I tried to throw myself out of a moving vehicle so it's best to adjust this bomb stop us driving oh my God and then my part I said to a partner I said a man who just thoughts it I said to my part then he said he says oh no I said that I thought I was like um Daniel Craig and James Bond [Music] [Music] technology in the studio anyway hurry out uh so relationships and that when you're uh whether you've had a lot of abuse in your life relationships are difficult because when you date and stuff people are like I want to know everything about you and then you're like okay here's all the information they're like oh sweet Jesus that [Music] [Music] sorry and then I and I didn't really ever set out to talk about mental health really you know just comedians just tend to talk about what they know I don't know I'm very mental so I didn't really I didn't never make a conscious decision I was just sort of they are just always from what kind of spiders in my head really uh and then I just felt like I had to talk about it and I didn't realize um how realize how cathartic it could be and so I ended up doing a show about mental health at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival people were coming up to me and they were like oh what I came to see you showing my sister and I've got mental health problems and and uh watching you be so open and talking about it made me realize that like it's it's now opened up the conversation point because with us too and no well that's good and then at the time we're not good but you've got mental health problems you know I hope and hope she's a problem not seeing mice about medication um and um but [Music] there was it was uh in the media a lot that the comedians tend to be prone to mental health problems like more so than other people in the Arts while stopped at the French Festival so I was like well I'm not really ready for this to end and well comedians are mental so if I did a show where other comedians talk about it I wouldn't be I've always had people that wanted to do it so I started doing a show in Manchester local barking tales and that one of my Awards and stuff so that was cool and now I do a lot of stuff like this and it's changed my life because I guess my regular effect is that the things because now now I'm starting to do like my new hair different show is about the abuse and stuff and it's actually unbelievable very hilarious and so my original effect is that I've made things that were the darkest times ever and I thought I'd never be able to talk about them and now Rippling across it's it's like what I do want to talk about and in talking about it I'm owning it really um oh goodness can I just tell you that this just very quickly and about once when I went counseling and it was very early in the morning and it was snowing and and I've walked in and there was a thing on the on the floor uh and I thought that's a glove that is so I will bring it to the good people at the counseling place and they'll go what a lovely lady I will now have two warmer hands and I will give her extra good counseling so I picked it up uh walked in and everyone's looked at me horrified because I've picked up a dead rat isn't that really good yeah I'm Gonna Leave You with that genuinely a lot of times it was a bit like because I'm very like that that's what happened uh so it's a lot but thank you ever Swatch uh and uh take care of each other all the best [Applause]