MAA #014: With Bec Charlwood

Interview with the lovely Bec Charlwood, Comedian (and self-professed IKEA Meatball Inspector) from Perth.  I was very fortunate to catch Bec in person while she was doing a run of shows in Melbourne. We discuss: Bec’s recent tours of Melbourne and Sydney (and the scoop that she might move to Melb next year!), the connectedness of the Perth comedy family, poking fun at East-Coast-ers, mental health issues in Bec’s family (including depression and suicide), Bec’s consciousness of monitoring her own mental health, staying active and healthy with exercise, good diet and sunshine, the huge natural high from Zumba, the catch-22 of depression/lack of motivation and needing exercise to counter it, giving up personal training for comedy (conflict of late nights and early mornings), doing around 20 thousand steps a day working at IKEA, seeing signs of mental health issues in the comedy family (anxiety, depression, PTSD), supporting her friends (encouraging them to exercise,, eat well and seek professional help), getting “check ups” with a psychologist every now and again, the problem of pre-conceived ideas about therapy (eg. “What if I’m crazy?”), Man Therapy, checking in with friends and helping them to make an appointment with a professional, the commonality of thinking distortions, Bec’s pre-date “snowballing” (“What if he hates toes??”), Shae’s mani/pedi catastophising and general “Manicure Anxiety” (coined by Bec!), Bec’s surprising "snowballing" story from outside a nightclub, her even more surprising story about her first boyfriend (and talking about it on stage to help her come to terms with it), and Bec’s final message of encouragement to reach out to talk if you need it.