I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at the start of lockdown, age 58 – so as you can imagine, by then I’d already lived a rather tumultuous life. Before the diagnosis I just thought I was bad at ‘doing life’ – it turns out my brain was the problem. I only got the diagnosis because a younger family member got it and they told someone else in the family: “I think Barbara has what I have”. They told me, I looked up the symptoms online (I had never heard of borderline personality disorder before, despite having done psychology courses at university) and, well, once I saw the symptoms, my first thought was ‘Oh no this sounds horrible’.

I consulted a specialist who said I was such a typical example of someone with BPD, you could ‘put my picture on the cover of a book about it’. Hmmm. I had had therapists off and on since I was a child, but people always thought I had depression.

For the first few days after getting the diagnosis, I walked around in a state of shock. But when I looked back at the roller coaster ride that had been my life, I felt in myself that the diagnosis was correct.

While going through two years of treatment – learning how to identify and regulate emotions and other ‘fun’ stuff – what really helped me in the most difficult moments was watching comedy videos and memes.

Fast forward to the end of treatment, and when I was feeling like I had a better sense (finally!) of who I was, my therapist was like “Now you need to find a purpose for your life. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” And before I could think, my mouth said “Standup comedy”. Then I got really scared, because I’d wanted to do that since I was 22, but I figured I would be awful at it because I couldn’t remember other people’s jokes. Turns out it’s easier to remember jokes when they’re your own!

Now I’m not suggesting that everyone do standup comedy – unless you want to – but what I have noticed, having performed comedy for 3 years now, is that going to watch live comedy shows is extremely helpful for my BPD brain. There’s something soothing about being in a room with other people where you don’t have to interact, you don’t have to talk, in fact you don’t have to ‘be’ or ‘look’ a certain way. Unlike other art forms I’ve done (theatre, music, dance), it doesn’t really matter what you look like, how much you weigh, or how old you are – you can do – or watch – comedy.

Unlike watching funny videos or online shows, being in a room with real people gives you a community experience that can be quite freeing and even cathartic. And as we know, laughing releases endorphins – feel-good brain chemicals much like those we get from exercise – so comedy can be not only good for the mind, but for the body, too. There were times towards the end of my 2-year treatment where I was really struggling to ‘stick around’, as they say, but knowing I had a gig to go to made all the difference – once I was in that room, I was able to get out of my own head long enough to change my emotional state.

Fortunately, there are usually a lot of free comedy nights with new comedians trying their stuff – so it doesn’t have to cost money to go out and have a laugh.

My wish for you is that you too discover the benefits of live comedy. It has helped me tremendously, and still does today.

About the Author: Barbara Fernandez (on Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube @barbarasvoices) is a musical comedian with lived experience of borderline personality disorder. Her blog is featured as a guest piece on This Borderline Life. You can listen to her comedy song, The BPD Song, or find links to her comedy here.