TED Talk Tuesday #34: Confessions of a depressed comic

Watching TED Talks is a popular pastime at CN&CO. We visit TED.com regularly to clear our heads, have a laugh or get inspired. TED Talks open our minds, spark new ways of thinking and can lead to some very interesting conversations. Each week we pick a favourite and publish it on a Tuesday, because we like how “TED Talk Tuesday” sounds. This week’s talk was selected by CN&CO word nerd Colin Ford. Here’s why he chose it:

It’s difficult to describe depression to anyone who hasn’t experienced it in one way or another. It’s not sadness or laziness (as I once thought it was). It’s a real thing, and lots of people suffer from it.

The amazing Josie Dougall sent me this TED Talk the other day after a chat I had with a few colleagues about my own depression. It’s by a 23-year-old comedian, Kevin Breel, who suffers from depression. This is one of my favourite lines from the talk:

“There’s this pretty popular misconception that depression is just being sad when something in your life goes wrong, when you break up with your girlfriend, when you lose a loved one, when you don’t get the job you wanted. But that’s sadness. That’s a natural thing. That’s a natural human emotion. Real depression isn’t being sad when something in your life goes wrong. Real depression is being sad when everything in your life is going right. That’s real depression, and that’s what I suffer from.”

So you see, what’s happening on the outside is often completely opposite to what’s happening on the inside – and that is an exhausting dynamic to manage.

Check out Kevin’s talk: