David Granirer, comedian, author and founder of Stand Up for Mental Health, will perform at “Laugh Out Loud for Mental Health” this Saturday, April 16, 6 to 9 p.m., at North Hills Country Club in Glenside. Funds raised will help start a new chapter of Stand Up for Mental Health in our area.[/caption]

By Len Lear

“Anatomy of an Illness, as Perceived by the Patient” is a groundbreaking book by Norman Cousins, published in 1979, about Cousins’ successful attempt to combat life-threatening illnesses by watching lots of funny movies and TV shows, stand-up comics, etc.

You might say that David Granirer, a stand-up comic and author of “The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst can lead to Happiness and Success” and the founder of Stand Up For Mental Health, is using a similar prescription for those suffering from mental illness.

David, who lives with his wife and two children in Vancouver, British Columbia, is the son and grandson of Romanian Jews and concentration camp survivors. David lives with chronic depression and is an advocate for destigmatization of mental illness.

For example, he teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental illness as a way of increasing their self-esteem and allowing them to change their perception of their own mental health journeys. Here is a sample of one of his own routines:

“In the 19th century the punishment for attempted suicide was hanging. That’s not a punishment; it’s an incentive program.

“There is a lot of public stigma out there (for people with mental illness). Many times when one tries to open a mental health clinic in a neighborhood, anti-clinic people show up and oppose it loudly. Someone will get up and say, ‘These people are gonna come into our neighborhood…”

“And do what, art therapy? … I can just see them attacking pedestrians with glue sticks and macaroni … Stay in your house; there’s been an outbreak of collage!

“It all starts with finger painting, but pretty soon they’ll be killing people with chainsaws … That’s silly. When I’m medicated, I can barely operate a Swiffer. And it’s hard to kill someone by mopping him to death. And what these anti-clinic people do not realize is that we are way more afraid of them than they are of us. Studies show that people with mental illness commit about five percent of all crimes.

“That means that normal people commit the other 95 percent of crimes. I always knew they were dangerous. They are well dressed, polite, gainfully employed. People like that can snap at any moment!

“When it comes to crime, I feel way safer around people who think they hear voices and think they’re the supreme rulers of the universe. After all, when you’re managing 50 million galaxies, you’re way too busy to steal my car … Dude, we travel at light speed. Why would we want your minivan?”

Granirer began Stand Up for Mental Health to teach those with mental illness the art of stand-up comedy. “People (with mental illness) would come up to me after shows and go, ‘Wow, that was hilarious, that was really funny, I can really relate,’” he said in an interview with CTV News.

During workshops, student comics channel their problems into comedy routines and then perform their acts at conferences, correctional facilities and on college and university campuses, to name a few.

“You know what the problem with being a paranoid schizophrenic stand-up comic is?” said one student, trying out his material before an audience of peers. “There is always a built-in heckler.”

Granirer says there is healing in raw humor. “Getting in front of an audience and telling them all those things that you’ve never told anyone and having them laugh and applaud really diffuses the shame,” he said. “Shame is almost as bad as the illness itself.”

Scientific studies have demonstrated that this method actually does have therapeutic merit. The reason why this Canadian-based program for mental illness is in the Chestnut Hill Local is that a local chapter of Stand Up for Mental Health will soon be starting up in our area.

In fact, a group called Mental Health Consultants (MHC) in North Wales is sponsoring a fundraiser called “Laugh Out Loud for Mental Health” this Saturday, April 16, 6 to 9 p.m., at North Hills Country Club, 99 Station Ave. in Glenside, that will include a dinner buffet, drinks and a comedy show. All funds raised will go towards funding a new chapter of Stand Up for Mental Health in our area.

“We hope the public will join us in laughing out loud while giving back to our community!” said Valerie Salico, Executive Director of MHC. “Our president and creator of the event, Brendan Young, is a Glenside resident who has his own personal success story which led him into the field of behavioral health and inspired him to do this fundraiser.”

The fundraiser is being co-sponsored by NAMI Montgomery County & the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania. For more information or for tickets, visit http://www.mhconsultants.com/laugh-out-loud-for-mental-health/ or call 215-343-8987 x1207.