Today on the blog we welcome author Harriet Dyer, with her guest post ‘Writing my Book Saved a Fortune in Therapy‘. Harriet’s new book ‘Bipolar Comedian’ was released on 25th November 2020. This post contains affiliate links.

Writing my Book Saved a Fortune in Therapy

Harriet Dyer (BBC3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 4 Extra, Comedy Central, Absolute Radio) has been a full time comedian / writer since 2013, has had numerous critically acclaimed shows and before lockdown worked for the majority of comedy clubs and festivals. She prides herself in being totally original with a lot of her material drawing from her experiences with mental illness.

I’ve had various therapists: One seemed distant and upon questioning this I found out she was thinking about moving to India so we made a list of pro’s and cons and off she went. One asked if she could be my friend and another I almost handed a rat.

I feel that might need explaining further. It was snowing, I was about to enter the building when in front of the entrance I could see something dark underneath the snow. “I bet that’s a glove that someone inside has lost, they’ll be well chuffed I’ve found it” I thought so grabbed it and had the fright of my life.

So yes, it’s never quite worked out.

I sort of fell into stand-up comedy which is the greatest of all my accidents. I genuinely think it’s what I’m supposed to do in life. I’m one of those people that doesn’t function properly with normal. When I was younger I’d long to be like the other kids whose lives seemed wonderfully dull when my own life was chaotic and at times quite traumatic.

It was once I started talking about my life and about my mental health onstage / publicly in general that things started to change and not even just for me, for people around me, people must have started to know me for that as comedians I’d previously seen be shut off would come up to me at gigs and start conversation with me about their own mental health woes.

Writing Bipolar Comedian dredged up things I didn’t even realise were there to be dredged up. Comedy first got me to accept my bipolar diagnosis and secondly helped me process trauma by documenting it all then adding humour to it for the book. I’m not sure I knew what, ‘labour of love’ meant before but this definitely was that which feels liberating to finally be finished, now onto the next chapter.

From dying twice to wanting to be a boy, her Dad leaving her Mum for a man and once doing so many drugs she thought she was Kat Slater from Eastenders… It’s been eventful.

Of course there was the abuse too.

A funnier than it should be, honest tale of a bipolar, working class girl from Cornwall who overcame an awful lot of trauma to become an award winning comedian and mental health advocate.

From dying twice to wanting to be a boy, her Dad leaving her Mum for a man and once doing so many drugs she thought she was Kat Slater from Eastenders… It’s been eventful. Of course there was the abuse too.

A funnier than it should be, honest tale of a bipolar, working class girl from Cornwall who overcame an awful lot of trauma to become an award winning comedian and mental health advocate.

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