Your Mind Matters With Maria Kempinska – Stefan Michaels & Sam Malhotra, Surviving Stress

Are you feeling anxious? Online therapy 24. 7 is here to help. We offer confidential support from the comfort of your own sofa. Our highly qualified therapists are experienced in a full range of daily challenges. You'll be in safe and trusted hands. Don't suffer alone. Change your life by calling us on 0207-5535080 and check out our website onlinetherapy247.com both Jung and Freud believe that stress and anxiety are the basis of our mental rhythm. I'm Dr. Maria Kimpinska and this is men's radio and women's radio station called you'd Mind Matters. My theory for discussion today is that creativity is the outlet for that anxiety, but not only to ease stress, but it can help us recreate ourselves. Stress and anxiety can move us forward, it can force us to look for new behaviour which creates our new patterns. It can be recreated, it can recreate ourselves, which in psychotherapeutic terms is the ultimate goal. My guests today are Sam Malhotra and Stefan Michaels who will explore this topic with me. First of all, Steph. Stefan, can you tell me I call you Steph. That's fine. Tell me about yourself, what you're doing, your experience, world and other worlds and just stress generally. Yeah, I'm a stand up comedian and an actor. I've played many places as a stand up comedian. As an actor I've been on. I was the regular Delivery driver on ITV's Emmerdale, I've been in Coronation Street, I've been in multiple adverts as well. I'm also a writer, I've written a feature film which is currently in production to be released next as well as lyrics for the West End shows. So I'm a general all round performer, entertainer, actor and writer and have been so for about since 1999, although prior to that I was always in the entertainment business in one way or another as a holiday rep and just as a general annoying child I think. And currently obviously the COVID restrictions this year faced a lot of restrictions on performance. Currently I'm working for a charity, it's my first day today called MySpace Housing, which looks after vulnerable adults in tenancies. And yeah, I've got a background in mental health. I've had OCD, depression, anxiety disorders and addiction disorders and I've been through the NHS system with CAT and cbt, EMDR and obviously medication as well. So yeah, that's me really. Hello, I'm Stefan Michaels. Everybody understands. I'm sure we're in another lockdown and everybody's trying struggling with the Internet connection from all over the world. I'm sure people are clashing here, but there's a little bit of feedback, Sam, but I think we've got you out before we go into more discussion and detail about your fascinating life. And thank you so much, both of you for sharing your worlds with us today on your mind matters. But Sam, can you now give us a background of your background and for everybody to listen to? Sorry, just had a bit of a. First of all, just like to say thank you for inviting me to this platform. Thank you for being an advocate for mental health. My name is. Being safe. Just thought it was just overwhelming fatigue. How my life goes into my background is I have a university. You're breaking up a little bit so we can't quite get. Get everything you're saying there. Of course. Is this better? That's much better. Do you mind starting again? Because a lot of that was faded out. So you're Sam Malhotra? Yes, I'm Sam Al Hatra. I'm a parent to two teenagers. I've been a single parent 15 years and I can share my struggle with mental health. I did mention I just had a little awareness of my struggle. I just thought it was very much the status quo of being a parent. The overwhelmed when I was label of depression, postnatal depression, you know, it really means a lot to me. So. Always been a sidelined arena for me, but now it's a bit more fun that I feel in a different gear now to start my career. Sam, a lot of that we didn't quite get because it's bouncing in and out, but I'm sure we can adjust that as we go along. Yeah. So we've just asked Sam to mute herself and if you can find some headphones, that would be great. In the meantime, can I just. There's an awful lot of feedback from your end, but I'm sure we can sort that out. Can I start with you, Stefan? While we're sorting out our technical hitch here, a sign of our times. Stefan, talk to me about yours. Let's start with your stand up comedy. When did that start? Well, I've always been, even as a child, I've always been interested in comedy. My earliest recollection of doing any kind of stand up at all was when I was 10 years old and I did a local sort of talent competition called Search for the Stars, which was my hometown of Skegness. And I did it as an impressionist. So at 10 I was fairly poor. Addicts. It was Roland Rat and Jimmy Cricket and George and Zippy. But that's my earliest recollection of sort of doing stand up on stage. But I've always, always been interested in comedy all the way through school and college, even if it was just, even prior to actually performing. Always writing things that were funny and I thought were funny and testing material and jokes out and I've always been that kind of person anyway. But I didn't actually start doing professional, professional entertaining as Stefan Michaels till 1999. Just asking Sam to click her microphone button for the moment to turn her sound off while we're speaking. So Stefan, isn't the stand up world, the sound up arena, much more stressful? Did you find that being in a much more stressful situation and sort of creative area helped with your stress? I think creative creativity always helps with stress. It's not just the performance side, it's the pre performance side which is the writing and getting things down from mind to paper. But I also think that I can't remember a time where performance and life for me hasn't gone hand in hand. So to get something back from being a performer, it is a very, very stressful arena. Yet it gives you that the kind of high effect, adrenaline effect of going onto stage and it gives you something back. So it's always worked hand in hand with kind of life. So although it is stressful and although suffering from anxiety is debilitating, there was never really predominantly anxiety about going on stage. There was always some anxiety about going on stage, there always is, but it was always the other things that created the most anxiety rather than the actual stepping out onto the stage and doing the job. Because I always felt like I could. So. Yeah. And does it help your day to day anxiety? What comedy? Yeah, well, I've always been that type of person that will crack jokes and play tricks and, and have a laugh and yeah, I've always find that that kind of personality trait definitely helps. Yeah, definitely helps. I mean the whole stand up arena is not just the stand up process on stage. You know, am I going to be funny? Will my material work here today and in front of this particular audience? But also the whole being a stand up is quite difficult because it's not a. There's no consistency, is there? You might have a series of gigs that fundamentally could all change as they have at this particular time with lockdown. So accentuate the stress, does it? Or do you think? Right, this is great because this is perfect for my sort of mindset. I think that I've always Been. Whenever I've got a booking, I've always created. Created a level of anxiety around that booking. Maybe a week, even sometimes two to three weeks beforehand, I'll get really nervous about it. I'll envisage all these situations are going to take place that will never take place about it. I'll worry about who's coming to see, I'll worry about what the venue is going to be like. I'll worry about. And it will eat me alive, all this worry. The actual performance side of it, there's a level of anxiety always before you step out on stage, whether you'll work, whether your material will work, whether how you'll go down. But it's the pre. It's the. That for me is normal anxiety around the actual. The job itself. It's the pre level of anxiety beforehand which. Which creates attention. And since. Since COVID obviously there's been hardly any work whatsoever. And I think that that lack of live performance certainly does have an effect on you, on your mental well being. Do you think that you should have chosen something else to do? I know you're. You've just done something else today. Yeah, yeah. No, because it's always been with me as a child, that's how I was. I don't think it was a choice. I didn't get to the age of 15 or 16 and think, this is what I want to do. It's always been with me, it's always been hand in hand with who I am as a person. So whether there's a psychological connection between that and the issues that, you know, I mean, like I said, and as you know, you know, I come from a happy childhood. I had no issues as a childhood. We had a happy family, loving, happy family. But through cat therapy, you are able to see patterns of behavior as a child that grow and embellish as you get older. So whether that ran hand in hand with that as a child, I'm not sure. But it was never a physical choice to be a performer. It was always something that I was in myself. That's who you are. Is there any other sort of creativity? Do you do. Do you paint? Do you write? I write, yes. So I've written a feature film that's in production. It's called Innocent Candy. It's been completely filmed. It's got John Altman in it, it's got Daniel Howell from EastEnders, Anthony Costa Rica from Blue. I've written that. I wrote that four years ago and we've talked that right the way through to finish a production. So that's now hopefully going to be released. The idea, the film. Okay, so I've always been. As a child, I've always been. When I used to go to sleep at night, I would create a television series. Sounds. Sounds strange. But I would create a television series in my head because I could never sleep as a child, but I'd create a television series in my head, fictitious one. And I would play the episode in my head when I went to bed at night until I fell asleep. And then the next night I play the next episode and so on and so on. So. And I had toys in my room. Like back then, there were figures of Star wars figures and all sorts. And I would create telling my own television programs using those figures in my room as well, to always kind of develop stories, and I've always kind of developed original ideas. The story for the film came about, really is that I one day woke up and just had an idea of. Of the last scene of a film and went to see my friend and said, I've just got this. It's the last scene of a film. And he said, we'll write the rest. So I did. And it's. It's. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of. Of two friends that go through a difficult period of time together. It's violent story as well, but it's. It's just something that came to me. But also along with the film, I've written other stuff. So I've written hundreds of original songs. I penned lyrics for comedy lyrics for a West End show called Helsing, which had Geoffrey Archer as the narrator and Shona Lindsay and the cast of Dirty Dancing. So for me, writing is always. I don't think it's ever something. I think I don't feel very well today or I'm not feeling right. I'm going to write. It just comes. It just sort of comes. And I always liken it to. I've always said this to somebody. I've always liken to. You put apples in a barrel and you leave them there and eventually they pop up and you leave the ideas in your head and eventually they pop up. If you think about what you want to write, generally it doesn't come out how you want to write it. You just kind of put the ideas in. It sounds as if your barrel generates apples, whether you put them in there or not. Stefan just. We're going to try our connection with Sam once more. Okay. Just to see if we're still getting feedback. If not, Sam will invite you Back on. So how are you, Sam? Have you got connection with us? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, if you can get a little bit closer. Yep, I am much better. So, Sam, could you just do your intro again, please? Your introduction who you are. Okay. My name is Samin Alhotra. I have two teenage daughters. I have been working when my children were very young. Sam, I'm so sorry. If you can hear me, we're still having problems with your connection. Okay, no problem, Jess. If I continue with Stefan for this particular next 45 minutes and I'll come and do a separate one with you about your world and your life, if that's okay. Because I don't know what's happened today. So we'll catch up next time, but I'll definitely have another program with you. Thanks for everything and sorry the connection's not worked. But, Stefan, can I come back to you? Yeah. And you say you either put apples in your barrel or your barrel creates these golden apples. Are they or only some of them golden? Yeah, that's. Yes, only some of them are golden. But yeah, you don't. I think I've always thought with writing, if you sit down and try and write something, generally you don't. It doesn't quite work for me. It's kind of, I think to myself, I want to generate this idea. I've got a few ideas and then I just leave it. And eventually it seems to pop back up or something seems to pop into my head or I'll walk around the house and suddenly I think of a tune that's original and I think that's quite good. I'll just try and drop some lyrics down to that. And it always seems to churn out the mind, seems to do it individual to actually attempting to do it. I mean, I could write if I was asked to, but the majority of the good stuff that I've written pops out of the barrel, so to speak. Yeah, this wonderful barrel. It's quite good in the I Ching. Do you know the I Ching? The Chinese? No, no, no, I don't. I Ching is their sort of. It's not really a fortune telling thing, but it's really. It's the dao. It's the philosopher's dao. And in there they have something called the cauldron or the well. And it's like your big depth of depths of the well where you get all this wonderful creativity. But I presume, you know, if you look at the earth, big creativity, big, you know, sort of mineral creations like the diamond and other Gems are all made out of the stress of the earth. So I presume, you know, so that as a metaphor, totally makes sense. So before we go into the therapies you chose or that work, you can I just ask you, how does the anxiety, stress, or depression, because they're all at different levels, how does that manifest? Can. How do you express it and can other people see it? I think other people can see. Other people can definitely see it. Well, I would say the people close to me can definitely see it. I think that, you know, you try and hide the depression because it's not something that, you know, it's very easy. I'm an actor. It's very easy for me to put on the smiley face even if I don't feel it when I need to do it. It's not healthy, it's not good because obviously once you put it on for half an hour, it's just a mask. And when you go back to the. The way you feel you are the way you feel. But it does transpire in the way that I converse with friends, in the way that I am personally. I mean, my friends can always tell if I'm feeling low by the tone of my text messages or the tone of my messages that I'm sending are very down, very negative. My anxiety is such that I physically can't keep still, and, you know, I will. There's always something in my body that's moving or shaking, and it affects sleep. If I'm suffering with anxiety too much and I can't sleep, and it's kind of the strange feeling like in the center of your stomach, which just eats, eating away. It's just I start to stutter, I'll start to make mistakes. And, you know, because it's eaten away, that's what anxiety does in that respect. And do you have to exercise a great deal? Does that help? I try to. Exercise is good for you. It's good for the mind and the soul. So I do try. And if I can't, you know, I'm not a gym goer, but I will, you know, go for walks and so on to try and clear your mind. And I think that's an important positive thing to do to get outside. I know it's difficult this time of year, but to get outside and to get some exercise and walk is good for you. Definitely. Without a doubt. Exercise is a good. Is a good medication to relieve that. Yeah, the natural medication. And do you change before we get into more pharmaceutical medication and from the allopathic side, do you actually do anything with your diet to help. Diet really is driven by financial constraints, you know, because of lockdown and so on. There's a long period of time where I've not been working and so on. So, yeah, I mean, diet is important. Eating the right food is important. Fruit and vegetables and so on is always important. And drinking lots of water. But it's difficult for not just me, but for a lot of people who might be in financial, difficult is particularly because of COVID that you can't. It's not as easy to think, well, I'm going to go and buy fruit and veg, I'm going to buy fresh ingredients, I'm going to cook. Because it's just some people can't do that because they just don't have the money. Yeah. Do you think it would make a big difference to you? Yes, yes, definitely. You know, you've got to eat healthily, you've got to keep your energy up and you know, it's very important to eat healthily. So coming back to. You've been to the doctors, I take it, at some point in your life have they helped with medication? Yeah, they did help with medication initially for depression. The medication was cytolopram with. Since you don't really feel like you're on them, it's not like taking a painkiller or anything like that because you don't feel an effect. It's obviously having an effect. And what it does is it doesn't fix your. It doesn't fix things. But what it does is it gives you the positive mental strength and mental outlook to be able to fix things yourself and to have that. Have that ability to do that. I can't remember the name of the tablets for anxiety. I try to avoid them if I want to see anxiety tablets because it's meant to make you sleep. I know there are alternatives out there, I know that for a fact that aren't as drowsy as cause drowsiness. But the ones I was on did and literally I could fall asleep in 20 minutes and it wasn't really working for me. So anxiety really is about breathing. It's about trying to see the right. It's about trying to think through logically. But obviously we have an OCD as well. It kind of works hand in hand. So it's. Yeah. So how did your OCD manifest itself? Okay, so my OCD manifested itself in a lot of different ways, but the two main ones that that really the way that it manifested were. I would pray that went on for years. I Would I developed a kind of mental relationship with God in my head, which just got out of hand. So I would walk down the street, for example, and I'd see an overweight woman across the road. And I might think, excuse this on the radio, but I might think, oh, look at that fatty, or whatever came into my head. And I suddenly then thought, oh my God, that's a really bad thought. I can't think that if I think that I'm going to get punished or something's going to happen to somebody in my life, because I've just thought that. So I need to pray. And I developed prayers. Like one was called Please forgive me for my sins and silly bad thoughts. It was just a prayer that I would say and kiss my finger at the same time to reduce the anxiety of saying what? Thinking what I just thought. And it was getting out of hand. It was everything. I was doing it all the time. And another occasion, I used to work as a sales rep as well. And I was given a drove past an unmarked police car which then issued me with a speeding fine for doing 40 and a 30. And from that point on, I couldn't drive past a white van without having to turn around, even if it was a mile later or two miles later, turn around, drive back and look for the van again to reassure myself that it wasn't a police van and I was getting nowhere and it was becoming impossible to live. And how did you change that? Because I take it you don't chase white vans anymore. No, I don't chase white vans anymore. I had CBT therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy over 13 weeks. And they, you know, get you to identify the fact that what causes your anxiety. So for example, you've thought this bad thought your anxiety level shoots straight up and the only way to bring it down straight away is to do the prayer. And that's ocd. So eventually we have to do is just not do the checking mechanism afterwards, bit by bit. And some things in OCD are a bit more difficult to do than others. So for example, you know, checking a door and walking away from a door to see that it's locked was my low OCD. So I would rank it from 1 to 10. So that was my low OCD. So that's something I could tackle quite easily. I could shut the door and walk away from it. And then over a period of time I didn't need to check the door. But stuff like praying and so one was a high, high, high level anxiety. So it took me a lot longer to kind of break that break that cycle. And you know, it's not, it's there still. It's not something that disappears, but it's something you control. And I think if you control it and understand it, then you can be perfectly normal with it. But it's getting that help to do it. And you said you also had cat. Can you explain that as a therapy and how the cat really was more looking at the patterns of behavior that that dictated the way that I behaved. You know, I could live a perfectly normal life that just on the, on a level and then I could go into hyper creativity and hyper and you know, for examples of that is that through my life I've done things such as I've set up charity events, raised money for hospices and I've created films and I've created so and so because I'm in a hyper level of creativity and I'm doing, I'm doing good, I'm using it for a good purpose. And then on the flip side of that is a hyper level of creativity, but it's a negative creativity which just goes around self destructing everything that is in my life. So I drew a mind map. It's good because you get to draw the mind map with a therapist yourself of how you behave, what dictates your behavior and from that you can see where you are at any given time. And. And it just goes back in time and looks through given the events as your childhood, things that you've done. And as a writer as well, it was important because I've been writing songs since I was 15 or 16 and I've written a lot of songs and I never really gave them much thought other than being the fact that I was creative and used to go and sing them to my parents or whatever else and record the odd one. I never really gave them much thought until through that therapy. And you can see that really it's kind of of a journal. Some of them are kind of a journal that are showing patterns of behavior as a youngster that develops so creativity, you know, played hand in hand that. But C8 is really good, useful therapy. I think it's about 18 weeks. And you said you had a diagram, did that diagram. Is that the visual representation of your. You and your pattern for that particular area? Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for example, mine was split as I said, into three sections. There was, there was sort of, you know, a normal level of Steph, if you like, who just was normal on a day to day basis. Then there was above that there was this Creativity that would spring and would produce things and would push things through and would develop things and was quite, not say, formidable, but got things done originally. And then underneath that was the flip side of somebody who would, you know, who quite self destructive. And it was understanding what patterns of behavior drove each one and putting them on a map. So that wherever you felt that particular point in time, you could refer back to that. And that gave you a sense of people, you to sort of like that created a dialogue within, did it for different parts of your mind and did you have voices, if you like, did you have different associations with each one? And what was one? What I'm getting at is were you more creative in a certain state than another? It's really difficult to kind of analyze myself in that respect. I think when I'm. When I was low, when I was in that section, I was, I was, it was, I was very destructive. I used all of my personality traits in a destructive way. When I was the other way around, I think I was still potentially driven by illness, but I was producing it in a positive way. Yeah. And it was useful to look on the map at any given time as to what was perhaps driving me in whichever direction I was going. But the fact that it's a visual map that you create something that you can remember and refer to. Do you have, do you know, are you conscious of the percentage of times when you are in that destructive low when you. Now. Yeah, yeah, I am conscious when I'm in that particular. And for some reason it's, it's. Sometimes it's a battle because it's either it's a battle between two mindsets. The one mindset wants you to be disruptive and just, you know, go to town on it. And the other mindset is saying, no, I'm in this particular mindset this minute in time and I can't do that. And in ref. On reflection, when you look at your more destructive approach, is it self destructive? Yeah, but it also has, because of that has an impact on other people's lives. So. Yeah, and now that you know that, once you recognize that, does that help, does it affect your creativity? Does it help you focus better? Does it become more positive or does it, does that worry you? Because I remember John Cleese saying that he was always worried about going into therapy because it might make him less funny, clearly. But yeah, I don't think, I don't worry about it making me less funny because I know I go into those stages, so I'm quite confident about that. But at that moment in time when I'm in that lower level, I'm conscious that it can drive me to make decisions which. The only way it comes out, creativity, is that I might write a song which is a morose song, you know, because that's what's coming out of me. But it can. It can drive me to make decisions which impact on other people myself. So, you know, you've got to kind of identify that. And it's all interlinked with anxiety and so on, because anxiety drives it and you've got to be really careful because, you know, it's like your anxiety. You worry about things that haven't happened, things, and because of that, your mood can drop and so you've got to get hold on all of it. And did you have a lot of anxiety? So you started performing at the age of 10. Did you have anxiety around you when you were a child? Oddly, I never had any family trauma, so I came from a happy family, mum and dad and two sisters. But my dad had a heart attack when I was three and I was very, very close to my dad and I'd always worried through life that he would have another one and die, which he eventually did. But that's what I worried about from a child all the time. And I remember as a child, I would sit and watch my dad's chest go up and down, up and down, up and down, just to reassure myself there was still room. My mum, I think, was more. She would always write a note to primary school. I don't know why, but she'd always write a note to my primary school selves. I couldn't do this particular sport because I got a chest infection. Stefan can't go swimming because he's got a chest infection. And I might have had a chest infection if I had. I was the one kid in England that had quite a lot of chest infections. But I think it was predominantly more of a anxiety thing. And I developed this saying of, will it affect me? And as a child I used to touch things or if I put my hand in the mort, or if I fell over and caught myself, I'd need to get to my mum for that reassurance and say, will it affect me? Will it affect me? And it became a running joke that I was in my cat's ways at the time. So, yeah, there was definitely anxiety as a child which. Which drove the behavior now. And have you passed it on to your children then? How many children? Three. And I. I hope not, that's all I can say. But does trauma in your own life now, as an adult, does that make it much, much worse? Anxiety can make the mildest, minutest, tiniest form of trauma seem massive. So you have to kind of. You've always got it, I think you've got two heads. You've got the one head which wants to play with you and wants to create all these issues. And then you've got the logical part, brain, which. Which. Which needs to work at least to function alongside it. Say, no, that's not right. No, this is going to be okay. Yeah. You know, I've had a lot of traumas. I'm not unique in that. But on a personal basis and. And, you know, they. They don't. They just tend to sort of. For example, you know, my mom passed away. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer with six months to live at the time. And I nursed, along with sisters, nursed her through that. I lay with her when she passed away in the hospice, and I got through it and did it. And we gave her the funeral and we sold all the bits and bobs out. We did it, but it was probably three or four months later or so that rather than generating new anxiety, it just made all the. All the ones that were there already become extenuated. Were you aware that it would be amplified? No, not at all. Not at all. Were you aware when it happened that it was relating to your mother's death? No, to be honest with you, no, not at all. I think when my partner passed. My ex partner passed away, she committed suicide. I think that. That my therapist mentioned at the time I might have had some ptsd. And I think that that amplified out of control, and it was that point where I needed to get. I sat and went and got help and therapy because it was just becoming too difficult. Can you give us a little bit more around that? Yeah. She was bipolar and she commits suicide by jumping off a motorway service bridge and was. Was. Was hit by a vehicle on the. On the motorway. And I don't want to sound like any kind of martyr or anything, but at the time, you know, we had to go for all of that, so. And we did. And again, you know, you do go through all of it. You get. You find that strength inside, like a performer, really, to get on with it, but then it comes back and bites you. Yes, because what I'm trying to explore with you, and it's really kind of you to go into the detail, Stefan, because when other people hear this, it's not just a case of that's gone as you said about, you know, lots and lots of people have their parents who die. But it can traumatize people. There's no question. It depends on the relationship you have with that particular parent, the support you're given and so on. So, you know, it doesn't mean it's. You can undervalue it just because it's happened to everybody. I think what we try aiming to do with these programs and by being more mentally aware is to so others know that at this moment in time, there's a lot of stress and a trauma response that's going on within you. So it's so important to announce it and not minimize it, because in your world that it had a great impact, it was very powerful and at times can be very explosive internally. I'm sure your ex partner committing suicide must have had a big effect on you, even though you might not have been together, but the effect may not hit you straight away. And if you read things like Crime and Punishment, you know, sort of, it talks about things, you know, illnesses come three to six, four months maybe after the event. This is where we educate the world. You're helping educate people to understand the world, the internal world, which is a vast territory in its own right. So, you know, did that equally take a lot of time before it came out? Yes, yeah, yeah, without a doubt. I mean, obviously it was, it was traumatic at the time, but yeah, yeah, probably. Again, you see, if you refer back to the mind map, probably then I started dropping into the lower level of that mind map and just stayed in it. And then over a period of time that developed and, you know, a deterioration that comes to a point a few months later where you start realizing this is, this is not sustainable. And that's when you went into therapy? Yeah, self referred. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And did you find that generally very helpful? Are you in therapy at the moment? Do you go, no, no, no, no more, no more, no more therapy. The CBT was 13 weeks and it was helpful. We got rid of that. Wouldn't get rid of the ocd, but helps you manage it and you can live a perfectly normal life. Give me manage it. Because of the waiting list on the nhs, I think it was another year before I go into cat therapy, but that was helpful too. And I did really look forward to going every Thursday to have that done and that was really, really useful. And did you find something creative that came out of these experiences? Yeah, again, you know, most of my creativity around traumatic events manifests itself in songs and I'm not a musical performer, so no one will probably ever hear them, but it's. It manifests itself in songs, and it comes out in songs that. That I've written and. And, yeah, it will always come out in. In a song. If you look up the songs that I've written, as opposed to everything else I've ever done, that's where it seems to come out. Yeah. And do you think that when you're with a new partner, do you think by sharing this information helps, by having somebody else recognize and help you deal with it? It's always good to talk to. Yeah, I think you have to. You have to be. You know, if you're with a partner, then you have to be honest and open and share that information. Yeah. You know, I understand people that say it's embarrassing or. I understand all of that. I understand that if you've been with somebody a short period of time, the last thing you want to say is, well, well, this is what happens to me when I understand all of that as well. But obviously, there are times, you know, the more they know about you than when you do slip into some sort of behavior which is not great, then they understand why. And do you teach them how to help you? If I'm honest, Maria, no. I have my own ways of dealing with things. And maybe that's a bit ignorant on my part. Stefan, I don't know the answer to this. Just. I think everybody is so individual in relationships, but I was just wondering whether it was something that could work for others. Because it's ignorance, I think very often that leads to all sorts of problems. Yeah, you know, it is. It's that. And it's also a level of not embarrassment, but awkwardness, I guess. Yeah. You know, particularly if you've not been with someone for a long time. Time. And you. It's all about fun and smiles and laughter that the last thing you want to do is, you know, I am. You know, you don't want it on your Tinder profile, Which, of course, you've got rid of now that you've got a partner. Of course. Yeah, I got rid of a long time ago. Yeah, a long time ago. But coming back to your creativity. So you're a songwriter, you're a playwright, and we've talked about how it does that accumulation of, you know, sort of the intensity of performance. Does it help or alleviate the stress? But what about criticism? If you are the person that releases so much from your cauldron or your barrel or apple, your barrel, what happens when people criticize? Does that plummet you down? Well, I'll tell you what, I'll give an example. I've always been able to take constructive criticism on board. If someone said, I like this step and it might work better if you do that, or it might change, then I'll go away and think about that. I might get a little bit Marty about it at first, but I'll go away and think about it. But the other type of criticism. I did Britain's got talent in 2009 and I'd been booked to do a number of shows locally at the time as well. And I was kind of updating people on Facebook how the Britain's Got Talent audition was going. So I got right through to see Amanda holder and Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff as it was at the time. And, you know, I was backstage doing the ITV two bits and bobs and whatever, and I was, you know, sending message out saying, backstage now, this kind of thing. And I was getting almost good look back, good look back and everything else, and went on Mountain Deck, went on stage, did the. Did the performance and I didn't get through. And that in itself was difficult to take because it's quite, you know, it's quite brutal. But I didn't get through and put the message on Facebook. I not got through. And people were like, oh, never mind, Steph, that's all right. You've been there, you've tried, that's fine. And I was driving home at the time and got a message through from my sister to say, have you seen what they're putting on Facebook? And I said, I have no idea what's going on Facebook. And some woman who ran Facebook so site locally had put that I'd not got through and that wasn't very good anyway. And I'm war in this town. I wasn't very good anyway. And. And it was just this slanderous attack on me, on my character, from all these people that I didn't even know about me. I've been to places I've never been. It was just. They'd open the floodgates. So this slanderous attack at me and people that I knew were going back on Facebook and saying, you can't say this about Stefan, and they were deleting those comments and I lost a lot of work from it because it was like a local Facebook group that thought itself more important than what it was, but it was slanderous and very difficult to take. And that was. The personal attack was huge. It dropped my mood a lot, A lot. And how did you get yourself out of that because you're back on the stage and you're performing. Yeah, it will. Just to have support from people around you, to be able to talk to other people, get their support, get their, you know, words of encouragement and, you know, what I actually did was challenge the people who ran this page and got it shut down. Oh, well done. But that was terrible. Yeah. So when you did your audition, was that as stand up? Yeah, yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah. The reason I'm asking is because, you know, at that time they weren't, they didn't like stand up comedy. It's a very difficult art, creative art to do in, in especially when you're amongst all musicians and, you know, magicians and, you know. Yeah, it's very difficult. You've got to set the scene for comedy. Difficult to do it in two minutes. And I've watched the one this year where they've done it on lockdown and they've had no audience and respect to all of them because it's very, very difficult to do without an audience and timing and everything else. No, everything's difficult. If you don't know, let's just do a brief resume of stand up comedy. Having run all the comedy clubs, as you know, Stefan, to be a stand up comedian you have to have an audience to know what they are feeding you and what's the worst one you've done and what's the best. Start with the worst and then let's move. Oh, my God. What's the worst one of them? Everybody's had that. Everybody, but everybody. Doesn't matter how famous they are, they've all failed in a gig. Yeah, that's right. Nobody that is famous on TV has ever succeeded. On every gig that I went to play, it was a. It was a. I went to play a holiday camp. I'm not going to mention the name. I went to play and I've been booked for an hour and an hour's a long time to do stand up, but I've been booked for an hour and I knew how to fill it. I knew what I was doing. I've done it before and I went on. I don't know whether I was feeling right or not because it was last year and I'd been through a lot and it affected my. If I'm honest with you, it affected my confidence and I've gone on stage and I'd been too anxious and not managed it and I'd done the first 20 minutes and I knew after 20 minutes this is not going well. And their Energy had gone. The laughter wasn't coming back. My fear took over and eventually they started shouting things out from the audience. Get off and everything else. And I just thought in my head, please, somebody get me off. I need to get off right now. I can't walk off. Will somebody bring me off now? And thankfully, the comp air came on and went, well, thank you very much. Stephen went, thank you. Bye. When it was an awful, awful, awful experience. Mind you, I had to take Julian Clary off in the early days. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's with the best, and I. I'm sure we can. If we were to spread this around, we could get the stories from everybody that's had a difficult time. Okay. So that was tough because you feel that you've got to keep going. Got to. Yeah, because there's that element of, oh, that didn't work. I've got to keep going to get them back. Yes, that's what happens. And you suddenly realize you're still on stage another 20 minutes, and you think, oh, Christ. And then you think, this one works and it doesn't work. And you think, that's it, then I'm done. Yeah. The only reason I'm saying this, Stefan, because I did do 10 minutes stand up myself, and I did it for charity, and it was in front of 200 people. The very first time I did it, I put it together within six weeks and I knew I was going to be taken to pieces in the intro, which I was with Pat Monaghan. Oh, yeah, she's doing this to buy another house. Blah, blah, blah. All those things that they say, comedy. And fortunately, I just. Those 10 minutes. Fortunately, I knew what I was letting myself in for. That was the good part. The bad part was that 10 minutes is like 24 hours, isn't it? God, yeah. It's not so bad when it's going well because it just seems to, like it's feeding. It's gonna. Sometimes you do more than you. And I've plugged into places before and thought, oh, I've got to get off now. I've. I'm having a really good night, or I get off. I don't want to get off. But when you're having a bad night, it's like, get me off, please. And you're thinking, how long have I got left? And it's, oh, really? I've only done that much. Or, God, and you can feel it coming back and you think, oh, please. Yeah, it's incredibly hard. And especially if you talk to the audience and they don't want to give back or you can't see it in their faces. I remember early days when people used to say, you know, if you're having a good time, let your face know it. So that you see as a stand up, get that feedback to some extent. I think that's part of. So before I ask this question, but what was your best ever performance? That's a good question. When you just don't want to get off because you are just in the flow and people are with you because not everybody in stand up they can do one set in front of one audience to say and have. Do you know what I used to enjoy more than ever in my early days? A place I used to test a lot of my material out was a big holiday camp, big holiday camp. And I went there regular and I used to test my material out and I've been heavily influenced by watching the late Des o' Connor show as a child with Freddie Starr. And I used to watch that when he was on because I'd know that although Freddie was on for 10 minutes, he would wreck the entire show. And I used to find that funny. And I used to get my own material. I used to get. I used to write big intros. They got a big television screen behind me. I used to make my own DVDs so that I could interact with interactive forms of comedy and so on. I loved it. And I used to go there and people would know that if I turned up that from the start of the show through to the end of the show, even though I was only on one segment, I would be involved doing something funny throughout that show. And I used to just do the Eric Morcom thing whereby they would open the curtains and stuff. Suddenly I'd be on a step ladder undoing the light bulb and a work thinking what, you know, what's happening here? And I just used to try out my material and they gave me so much scope to do it. Some of it works, some of it didn't. But the feedback used to be great. And I used to come away thinking, that works, that's good. And was that because you knew the audience as well, I think that you. Well, yeah, you develop a rapport with the audience, but it just. Because obviously they come back. It's different audiences, but some of them will repeat book. But it was just. I used to try all my material out there and it used to go down so well and it was a great, great thing. And then I used to really look forward to doing that. I mean, you know, it's I'm trying to pick it off my head. It's quite. You picked me a difficult question there. I know. I'm sure there are lots of occasions, but that sounds like a really fun, you know, sort of an exploration. So would you recommend people who have stress to do something creative? You know, there's that book, there's that saying, feel the fear and do it anyway. Yeah, I think if you, you know. Yeah, I mean, do something creative, try and get how you feel out there, whichever way you can do it. I mean, whatever, you know, everything is therapeutic in that sense, whether you knit, whether you paint a picture. But it's not just creativity, you know, like you say you go for a walk, do something positive to make yourself feel better. I think not everybody is creative, although people do have creativeness inside them, you know, at different levels. So it might be that they choose to do something else, like walk or like something healthy like sport or something like that. Even that is creative in its own sense. So, yeah, I think I'm thinking of something. Creativity that's making something out of nothing. That's creativity, not necessarily just in the arts. Yeah, I think creativity is a great way of getting out without sometimes even knowing it how you feel on a piece of paper or on something and it's therapeutic and it just releases it. In Greece, they used to the old fashioned sort of therapeutic spas when people went in there to hopefully heal part of their wound and it was a physical wound. When they had a dream, they would then manifest that dream and that healing component into a play or a song or a poem. And just I think at the moment, and this is one of the questions I was actually going to discuss with you is because art has become. We've outsourced a lot of it to theaters, to art galleries and there is such a high price for this sort of work. Do you think we are now with great shows? I really quite like some of the shows. It's not, it's not something against the shows, but say singing and everything because everybody quantifies it as a. As a form that has to have greatness around it. Do you think then that it sort of undermines the ordinary person engaging in just singing in the bath or single singing in the kitchen? Because everybody expects everybody to be perfect? No, I think if you can't sing, can sing or whatever and you feel like it, just go in the kitchen and do it and do it in the bathroom. I think that obviously in this day and age, everything is about, you know, you see these talent shows where people go on and they can't sing and then they're absolutely slaughtered for it. But, you know, I know people that can't sing the sing feel bad and I think that's what you should do if that's, you know, if that's within you to just, you know, I don't think that that should play a part in your judgment as to how creative you should be. I think it's more of a personal thing, really. Do you love going to the theatre and art galleries and does that help? Yeah, I went to the theatre pre lockdown and enjoyed that. But it's this past sort of eight months have been difficult, but prior to that would go, you know, I've been to the West End and watched Shoney Falls and Horses and Mamma Mia and so on and the likes. Yeah, I enjoy watching that. And do you ever watch yourself as a stand up or. Is there a reason for that? Yeah, I can't stand seeing myself, I'm telling you. I don't like how I look. I don't. Maybe that's a mental health thing, but I can't look at myself and that's. That's. That even photographs when like. No, I don't want to see that. I don't do that. So my girlfriend, because of lockdown, cut my hair the other day and said afterwards on a picture, you look ill. And that was it. I was distraught. So I can't really. Yeah. Do you know I always tell people how to give me criticism? I always ask them to cushion it in a certain way. Yeah. I can't, I can't look at any of that. I can't do it. I just, you know. Oh, look, you're on an advert. Yeah. Watch it then, because I can't. I have to, because I have to like put them on showreels and stuff. Yes. And do you think, though, they're coming back to your film? Have you watched that, that you've made? I've seen footage of it, yeah. Yeah, I've seen footage still in production. I've seen footage of it, yeah. And does it help you, knowing that you've made that? And does it give you some feedback? It helps me a lot, yeah. It's, you know, because it's a big. It was a big creative thing, you know, it's like it was 93 pages, so it's about an hour and 45 minute film. And it's a really good feeling to know that that's what we've created. All the characters, all the stories, all The. You know, it's a quiet sense of achievement to that, and it gives you a sense of pride and positivity that can do that. And do you ever look at it, or. Now that I'm going to ask this question, you might go away and do this. Do you look at it? Parts of yourself, each character, you know, when you have dreams. Yes, there are. There are. There are, yeah. Yeah, of course there are. Yeah, yeah. And does that. Is that helpful? Yeah. Because again, it's you that's coming out in the writing. And I think whatever writing that you do, there's parts of you that come out in it. And so whether you're aware of it or not, it's therapy and it's. And it's a therapeutic thing. And then it's getting out there and. And it also helps all the people to kind of. Well, I wouldn't say that they understand your mindset, but they see what's going through your brain when you've created something. And, yeah, it's therapeutic. And there are a lot of characters in the film. Without doubt, there are some of them that have got my character traits. And maybe at the time I didn't realize, but when you look back on it, you think, you know, that's what I do. That's what I'm like. And if you were to teach. I know you're now working with young people, am I correct? Yeah. What will you pass on to them about your anxiety or not? Your. How to manage anxiety? I think it's very important that you always go and get help. I think it's very, very important that you always reach out to somebody because you're not alone. And when you've got anxiety and when you've got depression, it can feel that way. It can also feel that your behavior and the way that you are can manifest itself in a way that other people can be standoffish from you if you don't understand what's driving that behaviour. So talking to other people and getting that support network is first and foremost the most important thing to do, because you're not alone. I think you'll get treatments and therapies that are available out there. Take them because they work. Take them. You're not alone. Take them. My big question, actually, and can you just give us an idea of who you're working for? Because I think this is quite a. Yeah. I'm working for a company called Mysterious Space, which is a charity that houses vulnerable adults and looks after their needs and helps them get back on the ladder. I love Them. I love the fact because it sounds. How many. It sounds quite well organized and a small number of people in the house, is that correct? No. Individuals in each particular one, they have their own space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they might have come from different backgrounds, so. Ah, so that's going to be a fascinating journey for you. But can I just. One thing that I'm always actually asking myself about people because I used to work as a Samaritan and the whole thing about reaching out for help should not. I believe that we should learn to reach into somebody to help them as well. Right. Okay. So that should be a two way system. So creating a community where we can go to somebody and talk to them, tell them, you know, explain to them that we're there, but also recognize the signs. So do more than just themselves and yourself. Do we need, does each person need a small community around them? And I'm talking about groups of people together that can talk. And so you know, in the AA they have a buddying system but here we can talk about a number of people getting together so they can all say, ah, you know, Stefan needs help or Maria needs help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. It's vital to have a support network and the more people that understand the processes and what you're going through, the better because you can support each other and it's vital, it's key. You have to have that. And you said you've got people that recognize when you're texts are off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I think, you know, sort of this is something that we should. And I'm really glad that you've talked about this because I think this is something. I know we're going to do more together and I know we can do something with your charity and talk more about how people can get further into a community, understand each other's messages, subliminal messages and create a more positive engagement for health, physical and mental well being and health. But Stefan, can I just say thank you so much for joining me today. Your mind matters. It's such a pleasure talking to you. And this is going to be on men's radio station and women's radio station and I'm delighted to be working with the radio stations to explore what does mental wellness mean? What does mental stress me and all the other attributes that go with it. And just to help alleviate that, thanks again. It's been a pleasure. Maria, thank you. Thank you for having me. Are you feeling anxious? Online therapy 247 is here to help. We offer confidential support from the comfort of your own sofa. Our highly qualified therapists are experienced in a full range of daily challenges. You'll be in safe and trusted hands. Don't suffer alone. Change your life by calling us on 2 oh. 755-350-80 and check out our website.