‘i’d Had 28 Years Of Depression – Now It Was Gone’: Comic Paul Foot On Three Seconds That Changed His Life

For 3 years and 4 months, Paul Foot has been surviving successful a authorities of joy. He is successful it now, he says, sitting crossed a table, overlooking London’s Regent’s canal. He’s wearing 1 of his trademark bluish LF Markey boilersuits, and seems serene alternatively than ecstatic, half smiling. But that’s because nan joyousness doesn’t spike aliases yo-yo. It’s a “constant”, truthful reliable that moreover erstwhile personification he knows dies, “there’s still a bid beneath it and a joyousness successful it arsenic well”.

Life was not ever for illustration this, and nan communicative of really Foot, 51, overturned 28 years of “crushing, all-encompassing slump and anxiety” is told successful his critically acclaimed 2023 show Dissolve, nan filmed typical of which is released this week.

“I was ne'er bipolar. I ne'er had immoderate highs, it was conscionable monolithic lows,” he says. “To beryllium technically accurate, I had terrible worry that led to depression.” He felt he was locked wrong a solid box. “Too depressed to spell out, lying astir successful bed.”

Foot’s life took a hairpin move successful astir 3 seconds of convulsive enlightenment 1 Sunday day while he was driving successful nan suburbs of southbound Manchester. He’d stayed overnight, past stopped to spot friends aft performing his show Swan Power successful Carlisle. It was 4.59pm connected 20 March 2022 – nan juncture truthful momentous it’s time-stamped successful his representation – when, arsenic he puts it, “my consciousness exploded”.

To different motorists, nan magical rearrangement of encephalon chemistry – what Foot calls “the event” – going connected down nan instrumentality of nan Nissan Micra was invisible. “The car didn’t swerve. There was nary pulling over. I didn’t spot agleam lights. I conscionable carried connected driving,” he says.

“It was a infinitesimal that was some bonzer and ordinary” – for illustration stirring from a dream. “It was just, ‘Oh, I’ve woken up …’ And it didn’t matter that I’d spent 28 years successful a authorities of depression. It was gone. Everything was different. Immediately, I thought: ‘I’m not an irritable, angry person. That is not my existent nature. That is conscionable really I was. I’ve forgiven everything that anyone has ever done to maine aliases will ever do.’”

If that sounds for illustration a batch of forgiving, that’s because erstwhile he was 11, Foot was sexually assaulted. He slips this revelation into nan mediate of a hilarious skit successful Dissolve astir a fictitious meal pinch erstwhile Labour MP Chuka Umunna, which is emblematic of really he pulls nan rug from nether his audience. But for decades, Foot suppressed nan representation of this battle truthful efficaciously he had nary consciousness of it astatine all, and lived successful denial of his depression.

Foot won nan BBC New Comedy grant successful 1997 earlier experiencing ‘13 tricky, difficult years’. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

“I had friends who said, ‘You ought to spell and spot personification who tin thief you.’” It was his friend Ruby Wax who put him successful touch pinch a psychopharmacologist. “I retrieve thinking, ‘Please, please don’t show maine to do meditation! Because I conscionable knew I needed medication. I needed thing to alteration what was successful there,” he says, stabbing a digit astatine his head. He came distant pinch a prescription. “I was like, convey God. Thank God.”

This was 2017. Foot was 43. The lows evened out. He felt much stable. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is good. Hurrah! This is nan end!’ But it wasn’t nan extremity because then, wrong that stability, I started to say,” and present his sound becomes very quiet, “‘Oh, crikey. I’m remembering what happened to me.’ And those things were verified by different methods. Contemporaneous things. So past I realised. OK. So that’s why I became depressed.”

For each those years, he had nary consciousness of nan battle he had experienced? “I deliberation that’s rather common, having spoken to therapists,” he says. “Something happens to you erstwhile you’re a kid and it doesn’t really register. You spell done adolescence, and you don’t retrieve it. Then, astatine astir 19, a monolithic slump kicks in. This immense slump successful nan consciousness of absolute unease.”

Therapy helped him to “attempt to forgive what had happened to me”, he says. His sound turns warbly. “Well, Paul, you must forgive yourself arsenic well, blah, blah, blah.”

“Therapy sewage maine to a constituent wherever I had moved guardant from wherever I was. But successful a way, I was still struggling pinch nan forgiveness,” he says. “I’d much aliases little forgiven. I’d, like, 99% forgiven. But you can’t 99% forgive. You’ve either forgiven aliases you haven’t.” Foot studied maths astatine university, which whitethorn partially explicate nan binary attack to a analyzable affectional and cognitive process.

In immoderate case, “that small 1% of non-forgiveness” lodged successful him, a burning “1% of resentment”, arsenic profoundly embedded and lurkingly achy arsenic a part of shrapnel.

Still, he was amended than he had been, and aft a fewer years he stopped nan medication. His friends worried. “They said, ‘You’re going backmost to nan aforesaid aged Paul.’ Ruby Wax said, ‘You tin spot it successful nan eyes.’ My eyes were becoming benignant of dead.”

His predicament came to a caput nan nighttime earlier “the event”. He had made a correction during his capacity of Swan Power successful Carlisle – “so minor” that nary 1 appeared to notice. But up started nan voice. “‘You stupid idiot, Paul. Why did you make a mistake? You can’t get it right.’”

Alone successful his edifice room, he “was subjected to nan afloat unit of my ain … agony of myself. My ain encephalon was torturing me. My soul sound was saying, ‘You’re useless, Paul. You’re hopeless.’”

He met friends and had “quite philosophical conversations”, successful which Foot based on for nan beingness of nan psyche – “There must beryllium a soul, because if we’re conscionable each collections of cells and chemic impulses, past what does emotion mean? What does sadness mean?” – and recounted his 3 near-near-death experiences (he doesn’t want to overclaim them), including six hours spent connected nan toilet pinch a very upset stomach.

Everything was swirling erstwhile he sewage successful his car that Sunday afternoon. He had made a committedness to a friend that “if I ever became really, really low, I would spell consecutive backmost connected to nan medication. No ifs aliases buts. No delay.” But nan medicine was 350 miles away, astatine location successful Buckinghamshire, and anyhow he really didn’t want to spell backmost connected it. But he was moving retired of choices.

‘A batch of group spell done their full lives pinch nary thought what they want to do.’ Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

“I had solemnly promised my friend that I would ne'er do thing unspeakable to myself,” he says. “So that had been ruled out.”

This was thing he had antecedently considered?

“Yeah, I mean … ” He looks unsure whether to continue. “Well, possibly it’s not specified a bad point to opportunity that I had felt suicidal.”

Essentially, and he says this arsenic if he’s eliminating variables successful an algebraic equation, his slump dissolved because “I’d ruled retired each azygous anticipation isolated from one: instantly to go better.”

In much than 3 decades of standup, Foot has mostly avoided individual revelation. “Well, obviously, I’m not going to do a show astir that. Obviously, there’s nary drama successful talking astir 28 years of depression, and really it each vanished successful an instant,” he told his penning partner, Aaron Kilkenny-Fletcher. Besides, he didn’t cognize if he would “still beryllium funny” aft his large life change. He kept wondering, “Was nan productivity intrinsically linked to slump aliases angst?”

But six weeks later, he and Kilkenny-Fletcher were successful Bermuda connected a penning travel and Foot’s translator infused each their conversations. They couldn’t flight it. “I was truthful different. It changed our full dynamic.”

For instance, erstwhile Kilkenny-Fletcher forgot their formation times and nan telephone reception was bad, “I was very calm,” Foot says. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s each right’ … This was truthful different to nan aged Paul.”

Walking done a hilltop fort successful Bermuda, a statement came to him: “It’s nan extremity of suffering and it’s correct there.” His hands move to clasp an imaginary entity while he replays this scene, because what he realised, connected that hilltop, was that he wanted to connection his acquisition to others and connection it fully: nan joyousness “is for everyone”.

Dissolve flips betwixt very funny, silly and surreal sequences connected really group woody pinch change, Tutankhamun’s troubled rule, homophobia, and giving blood, and intensely superior passages of individual revelation that elicit nary laughs but long, heavy silence, heavier pinch attraction and affirmation than immoderate applause.

“It’s wonderful,” Foot says. Comedy has changed hugely since he started retired successful nan clubs successful nan precocious 90s, erstwhile “silence was an force … Someone would beryllium consecutive successful and you’d suffer your authority connected stage.”

He’d known he wanted to beryllium a comedian nan first clip he performed, successful Oxford, astatine 19 – he publication maths astatine Merton College (in nan twelvemonth supra Liz Truss; they went to nan aforesaid parties). His debut, mostly unscripted riffing connected fruit, wasn’t brilliant, but he didn’t explosive either, and afterwards he told his friends, “I’m going to beryllium a master comedian.” “And they said, ‘You’ve conscionable started a maths degree. Don’t beryllium silly.’ But I knew instantly what I wanted to do. So that was nice. Because a batch of group spell done their full lives and person nary thought what they want to do.”

On shape successful 2016. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

Foot grew up successful Buckinghamshire, pinch a younger relative – not a cardinal miles from wherever he lives now, “in a boring, forgettable spot wherever thing happens”. His mother was a master photographer (“‘You’re opinionated ever truthful stiff! Try to beryllium much natural!”), and his dada “did activity arsenic a in installments controller concisely … but he wasn’t personification who you’d really opportunity had a career.”

I wonderment if Foot was ever nan funny 1 successful his family, but he says not. “I was very quiet.” At 17, 18, he started to beryllium funny astatine school, a boys’ grammar successful High Wycombe. “But I was ne'er funny earlier that.”

Really? “No. Never astatine each funny,” he says. He sounds alternatively flat. Maybe he was funny inside? “I don’t deliberation so,” he says. “Until nan property of 17, location was thing funny astir me. I was ever truthful serious. Very quiet.”

As a comedian, he was initially extraordinarily successful. “A batch of things happened very quickly.” There was a BBC New Comedy grant successful 1997; nan Open Mic grant astatine nan Edinburgh festival. Caroline Aherne praised his work.

But past followed “13 tricky, difficult years. Playing really reliable gigs wherever group weren’t willing successful what I was doing. It was unspeakable and they didn’t want it.” The different performers would say, “You really request to deliberation astir what you’re doing, Paul.”

Looking back, he whitethorn person turned master excessively soon. It was difficult to make ends meet; he built up debts. “But successful nan end, it turned astir and I started to make money.”

In galore ways, nan play successful his 30s erstwhile he was repaying his debts “was 1 of nan astir carefree times of my life”. It’s not really galore group respect debt. “Yes,” Foot says. “Because I didn’t person immoderate spare money. So location wasn’t immoderate money to interest about. It was conscionable a simple, straightforward life of surviving frugally.”

‘Because I was truthful ill, I conscionable carried connected and connected and on.’ Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

He built an audience, going from array to array aft his shows. “I wonderment if you’d beryllium willing successful joining my society, nan Guild of Connoisseurs?” he’d ask. (Today, nan guild – a fanclub, fundamentally – flourishes.) “They’d say, ‘We were successful hysterics! Where do we sign? Then astatine nan adjacent array they’d say, ‘Why would we want to subordinate that? You’re nan slightest funny comedian we’ve ever seen.’”

He was amazed 1 nighttime erstwhile an assemblage personnel asked to bargain nan “disturbance” he’d utilized successful his group – nan comic punctual cards he holds up, pinch 1 of his sketches connected nan reverse. “I said, ‘No. It’s a prop. I request it.’ And he said, ‘I’ll springiness you each nan money successful my pocket’,” and handed complete £13.33. “And I thought, “That’s each correct for a small picture.” Now nan disturbances waste for £70 each.

Still, it must person been reliable to persist done those thin years while spending periods bedridden pinch depression. “I had to beryllium very beardown successful a benignant of way,” he says. “Aaron has said that he doesn’t deliberation I would beryllium a comedian now if it wasn’t for nan depression. Because personification who was not successful that authorities would person stopped earlier. They would person said, ‘This is going truthful severely for truthful long. For my ain intelligence wellbeing, I request to not do this immoderate more. I request to sphere my ain consciousness of self.’”

But Foot didn’t person that small heart for self-preservation. “Because I was truthful ill, I conscionable carried connected and connected and on. I couldn’t deliberation of thing other to do.”

We person been talking for astir 2 hours. Is he still successful a authorities of joy? “Yes,” he says. “I consciousness joyousness each nan time.” He knows now that he tin “just beryllium happy … conscionable take happiness”. Even that small part of non-forgiveness has vanished. He is moving connected his adjacent show, which whitethorn aliases whitethorn not beryllium much individual than Dissolve. Recently, though, he listened to a signaling of 1 of his very early performances, and evidently location were differences, evidently he has evolved, but he was struck, he says, by really “there’s something, immoderate halfway thing, that’s unchanged. I someway managed to enactment precisely nan same.”

Paul Foot’s standup typical Dissolve is released connected 21 July.

In nan UK and Ireland, Samaritans tin beryllium contacted connected freephone 116 123, aliases email jo@samaritans.org aliases jo@samaritans.ie. In nan US, you tin telephone aliases matter nan National Suicide Prevention Lifeline connected 988, chat connected 988lifeline.org, aliases matter HOME to 741741 to link pinch a situation counsellor. In Australia, nan situation support work Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other world helplines tin beryllium recovered astatine befrienders.org

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