Comedians use laughter as a new tool for suicide prevention

Lisa Desjardins:

A warning. This next story discusses suicide, but it centers on an original idea for preventing it. In the United States, suicide is one of the leading causes of death, claiming more than 49,000 lives in 2023 alone that according to the latest CDC data.

But one organization has found an unconventional tool to combat these grim numbers. Laughter. The group is called 1Degree of Separation. It's made up of comedians who hold sessions that start not with advice, but family friendly jokes like these.

Sydney Stigerts, Comic:

I actually really enjoyed growing up here, except for the part where I actually had to live here. You know.

Ellis Rodriguez, Comic:

I was on a date with this girl and she was like, you're so tall and handsome. How are you single? And I was like, you'll see.

Lisa Desjardins:

Brad Bonar Jr. is the founder of the suicide prevention by comedy program 1Degree of Separation. He joins us as part of our look at the intersection of health and art, part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Brad, thank you so much for talking to us about this. You know, traditional approaches to this area are very serious, very straightforward. Why did you think comedy should get involved?

Brad Bonar Jr., Founder, 1Degree of Separation: A big influence was the biography about Robin Williams that was done after he died by suicide. And I kept waiting for them to talk about his depression or his suicide. And then the documentary was over. They don't even mention a word about it, and it upset me. I thought he would have talked about it. I don't think he would have shied away from this as a topic.

I wonder if I could get a group of comics together that would just give a raw, real demonstration and conversation about what depression looks and feels like.

Lisa Desjardins:

You are an advocate, you are a coach, and you're someone who's experienced this yourself. But I wonder when you get in a room with comedians, when they're talking to folks who maybe haven't opened up even to themselves about this, what does this actually do when it's happening?

Brad Bonar:

You know, there's so many steps to dealing with depression. The first one's to talk about it. If you don't get that one, none of the other things happen. And so we hear about people going into a mental hospital or volunteering themselves after they come to one of our events because it encourages dialogue and makes it feel comfortable.

One of our comics, Kevin Davis, he's a 20-year Marine Corps veteran, a master sergeant, and until he met us, he had never talked about his depression. And he's 66 now and he says, this is the happiest I've ever been in my life because I don't have the secrets, I've spilled them all on stage.

Lisa Desjardins:

You have about a hundred comedians so far that have participated. You'd like them to be from local areas, but you specifically make sure to go out to rural areas and also military bases. And I'm curious, those are two areas that we see really heavy incidents of depression and suicide. What have you learned by going into those areas about the problem and resolving it?

Brad Bonar:

One of the big things I learned is that depression's the same for everybody. Every culture thinks we don't talk about it, but no culture talks about it. You know, we always have a very diverse panel of comedians, but I tell people, I go, the diversity is just for the flyer. So it looks good because as soon as we start talking about depression, it doesn't matter. Kevin Davis, the first show he did for us afterwards, he's African American, he said, I didn't realize white people had the same depression.

And what I learned is even in these rural communities is that we're all first responders for a mental health emergency. The first person for a mental health emergency is not going to be an EMT, a therapist, a doctor. It's going to be your friend, the person next to you.

Lisa Desjardins:

I know you start with the comedy and then you show these five questions. We're going to show them to our viewers now. They center around the of what is helpful to you and what is harmful to you, either in your own actions or other people's actions. Why those questions? What do those do?

Brad Bonar:

I wrote these down. In two minutes, word for word. We've given out over 80,000 of these five question cards. We have clinics now that their intake questions for all new mental health patients are our five questions.

Lisa Desjardins:

Wow.

Brad Bonar:

They are all encompassing. They're this big umbrella, they're non-confrontational and everyone's afraid to have the conversation. Well, here's five questions. Ask these five questions, shut up and listen and you'll have an amazing ins into what somebody's depression feels like. The physical part of it, what others do that makes it worse, what others do that makes it better. And then that fourth question, that self inventory of what do you do that makes it worse? That's looking inward and acknowledging, I isolate, I lie, say I'm fine when I'm not, I drink too much. I, you know, all of these things that have a factor in it.

And then that last question is the positive one. What do you do that makes it better? All those five questions, they're simply there to teach people how to have a conversation. Nothing confrontational, they're really just open ended, simple questions.

Lisa Desjardins:

Brad Bonar, laughter is the best medicine, but laughter along with listening. Thank you for helping us listen.

Brad Bonar:

Thank you.