Laughing Through the Darkness. How 1 Degree of Separation Uses Humor to Heal Depression and Thoughts of Suicide.

Can humor save lives? Join me, Jeff Holden, for an extraordinary episode where we'll uncover the potent mix of comedy and mental health with our special guests Brad and Victoria Bonar, and local comedian, DJ Sandhu. These amazing individuals share their raw and real experiences, including Brad's brave recounting of his 5150 hold and his journey to openly discussing his struggles with depression and thoughts of suicide. By blending laughter with serious discussions, they’ve created a space where difficult conversations about mental health become accessible and less intimidating for everyone involved.

We'll then shed light on the unique approach of using comedy to engage diverse audiences such as the military and schoolchildren. We explore how starting with humor makes audiences more receptive to addressing heavy topics like depression and suicide. We also emphasize the critical importance of having support resources like school counselors and community therapists readily available, ensuring that after the laughter, individuals have access to the help they need. Through touching stories and impactful events, we illustrate how this initiative is transforming the way communities talk about mental health.

Finally, we'll delve into the cultural perspectives on mental health, revealing that no demographic is immune to these struggles. Discussing the universal nature of mental health issues, we highlight the significance of self-awareness, proactive measures, and the transformative power of community support. Our conversation touches on the deep connection between comedians and depression, and our vision for expanding mental health awareness through comedy.  This episode  underscores how humor can be a powerful tool in addressing and managing mental health challenges, making a real difference, even possibly saving people's lives.

To learn more about the guests and their program, visit
https://www.1degreeofseparation.life/

Episode Highlights
(01:50 - 02:55) Uncovering Taboos in Comedy Culture
(05:43 - 06:45) Comedy Show Reveals Uncomfortable Truths
(14:58 - 16:07) Impact of Comedy on Mental Health
(21:30 - 21:54) Cross-Cultural Recognition of Depression
(25:42 - 26:37) Mental Health Group Dynamics
(30:08 - 31:05) Comic's Raw and Real Revelation
(43:23 - 45:02) Comedy and Vulnerability
(47:30 - 48:28) Comedy Show Comedian Anecdotes
(50:33 - 51:36) Trauma and Comedy in Healing
(01:00:51 - 01:01:55) Comedy Special With Mental Health Collaboration

Chapter Summaries
(00:00) Using Humor to Address Mental Health
Comedy and mental health intersect in "One Degree of Separation," a space for raw conversations and understanding.

(09:37) Laughter as Mental Health Aid
Using comedy to address mental health, we engage audiences and provide resources for support and dialogue.

(16:42) Fundraising and Impact in Mental Health
Establishing and managing a nonprofit, securing targeted funding, and the impact of mental health programs on communities.

(21:26) Cultural Perspectives on Mental Heal

Thank you so much for listening! We appreciate you. Please visit the website to sign up for our email updates. https://www.nonprofpod.com/ And if you like, leave me a voicemail to comment on the program, leave a question for us to ask in the future or a message for me, Jeff Holden. I may even use your voice mail message in a future episode. https://www.nonprofpod.com/voicemail. Thanks again for your support in listening, commenting and sharing the great work our local nonprofits are accomplishing.

Transcript

Brad Bonar: [00:00:00] What do we do that makes it better is talking about it. It's therapy, it's, for some it's medications. I've got so many other skills that I've learned without medication. Doing the show, you know, for the comics, changes them. For me it changed, this is the first time in my life I've wanted to live. We've done this show for six years, six and a half years, and most of my life I've spent wanting to die.

My New Year's resolution was always, every year, don't make it. Don't be here next year for this. Do it this finish it this year.

Jeff Holden: I'm Jeff Holden. Welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. Our purpose and passion is to highlight a nonprofit organization in each weekly episode, giving that organization an opportunity to tell their story in their words to better inform and educate the respective communities they serve, as well as [00:01:00] provide one more tool for them to share their message to constituents and donors.

Our goal is to help build stronger communities through shared voices and to both encourage and support the growth of local nonprofit organizations through podcasting. Thanks to our founding partners for their foresight and helping us transform the way conversations start. CAP Trust, Fiduciary Advice for Endowments and Foundations, Runyon Saltzman Incorporated, RSE, Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations Creating Integrated Communications Committed to Improving Lives, and Western Health Advantage, a full service health care plan for individuals, employer groups, and families.

Every so often, a concept presents itself that is out of the ordinary, unconventional, uniquely different. And so much so you have to take pause and ponder, is this really a good idea? This episode is one of those novelties. [00:02:00] The organization is one degree of separation, and I don't want to spoil the meaning of the name as we'll get into it during the conversation.

But who would have thought that you could take a very heavy topic like depression and suicide, turn it on its head, and approach it with comedy. laughter, and humor. Having experienced both depression and thoughts of suicide, that's exactly what Brad Bonner did with the help of other comedians and his wife, Victoria.

They've now taken their program to students at Grammar and High Schools, military and veterans, first responders, and so many more. The incidents of depression and thoughts of suicide have grown dramatically, and it's their mission to get the message of help and support out to those who need it by approaching them from a practical, comfortable, and familiar emotion, laughter.

You're going to be astonished at the twists and turns you can put on a deep, dark situation through humor. You'll laugh, you'll cry, [00:03:00] but above all, you'll see how this very young nonprofit is making a difference in so many lives. Brad, Victoria, and our local comedian DJ Sandu, welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast Network.

Victoria Bonar: Awesome. Great to be here. Thank you for having us. 

Jeff Holden: You are certainly going to be the most unique group I've ever had in the studio. Hmm. Yeah, the listener already has an idea. Just by appearance, or? That's, that's, that's, uh, that's rarely a compliment. 

DJ Sandhu: Yes, and yes. I don't know if I should be 

Jeff Holden: flattered or offended.

Right, right? The listener already has an idea of what we're going to be talking about, but they're probably thinking the same thing when I first shared it. You know, how is it that you came to the realization that you're going to apply humor to to such a heavy, heavy topic. And not to mention, when in reality, that's about as far from funny as most people would think.

Brad Bonar: Yeah. You know, a friend of [00:04:00] ours, Steph Garcia, she said, Comics will talk about anything. That's our superpower. And I had a 5150 almost 7 years ago, September will be 7 years, which if you don't know, that's an album Van Halen put out in 1986, or, unless you're a country music fan, it's a Dierks Bentley song, but I'd never talked about my depression, I was 54 at the time, and A couple months later, I got 

Jeff Holden: 5150.

Yeah, literally go ahead and explain because most people don't know. 

Brad Bonar: 5150 is a 72 hour hold in a mental facility, usually against your will for being suicidal, either a potential harm to yourself or others. And I'd never talked about my depression. I was sleeping with a gun in my head at the time and had been for a long time and had multiple attempts.

And then I found a suicide note I wrote in the sixth grade a couple months after that. And then, and so I know since at least the age of 12. I was thinking of suicide and to the age of 54, but I'd never been diagnosed. I'd never talked about it. But what really got me was this Robin Williams special. I think it's come inside my mind.

It's a two hour long documentary about [00:05:00] his life that they did after he died. 

Group: And they 

Brad Bonar: don't even mention the word depression, nothing. And I, and I watched this whole thing and I kept waiting for him to talk about that part of his life. Cause I could relate to that. And then it was over. And I was like, well, how did they, How do they do a story about this guy who died by suicide and not even mention it and you could see it as a Comic we could see it.

You see that you see you see all the signs all the things and 

DJ Sandhu: Having a documentary about the Titanic and mentioning everything except for the iceberg, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah 

Brad Bonar: It's saying but we don't want to get into that. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was 

DJ Sandhu: big and unsinkable and then that's all they talked about 

Brad Bonar: So I thought you know what he would have talked about it Right?

I can't see, I think if you were to ask Robin Williams about his depression, comics are open and raw and vulnerable, and I thought, you know, I bet I could get, I bet I could get a group of comics. To talk about this and I just wanted to demonstrate what it looks like just to have a raw real conversation And so that was the beginning of it.

That's what sparked [00:06:00] it And then from there we started having dinners together me and three other comics Carlos Rodriguez Ellis Rodriguez and Steph Garcia And we just talked about what should it be? How should we structure it? I didn't want I didn't want like four comics up there trying to one up each other and be fun I wanted a structure and a substance to it And so I interviewed doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, I go, what would you want to see talked about if you had four people on stage who have no boundaries?

Right? What are the things that are so taboo? Or what are your pet peeves? And from all these interviews, we came up with five questions that we use. And so the format of the show is everybody comes out and does five minutes of comedy. Not mental health comedy. I just want you to laugh. I want you to meet the Happy Clowns first because there's no depression on that stage.

Our darkest days are where we're the funniest on stage. 

DJ Sandhu: Right? Yeah. You want to see them as a clown and then after that, see them after they take the makeup off. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah. When 

Jeff Holden: the mask is 

DJ Sandhu: down. Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: So then we, then we answer these five questions about depression and we pass those questions out. So the audience gets a copy of those.

So these are your tools for [00:07:00] you to have your own conversations. Now we're going to demonstrate to you what it looks like to answer them. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. And we will get to those questions. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not right away. I don't want to, I don't want to dive into that quickly. So you, you've got this concept, you do your homework on it to make sure that you've got it wrapped around some, 

Brad Bonar: some best practices or some structure or, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Holden: Who's it really intended for? I mean, obviously it's somebody who's depressed or, or possibly suicidal, but it's 

Victoria Bonar: for everyone, 

Jeff Holden: Thank you. It is. It 

Victoria Bonar: is for everyone. And it's called One Degree of Separation because if you don't struggle, you know someone that does. We're all connected. 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah, I actually think that it's more for the people who don't have it than, it's more for the people who know the people with it so they can try to understand us.

And cause they don't know how to talk to their loved ones about it. And they don't, and their loved ones don't always have, one, they don't have, like, They're not articulate enough to like express these emotions or two is just too uncomfortable. They're afraid they're afraid they're gonna make it worse They don't want to talk to their mom or the dad [00:08:00] about it and freak them out I don't want to 

Brad Bonar: trigger them and yeah, the me be the last thing they hear exact 

Jeff Holden: right?

Brad Bonar: Yeah, and it is It's interesting because because we're looking at the audience and what we what I see is people who struggle with depression shaking their heads They're an 

DJ Sandhu: acknowledgement. You can tell the ones that have the depression because they're the ones that are smiling. They're like, huh?

They're like, oh, I know this show. I've watched this 

Jeff Holden: before. But don't look at me. Don't look at me. It's not me. I'm okay. But the other people are just like 

Brad Bonar: The other people are like, oh, wow. I didn't, I didn't realize. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah, tell them about the lady that walked out of the show. Remember it laughs.

Victoria Bonar: She gets up, it was At laughs unlimited for first first responders, and I see her a mother walk out So the show 

Jeff Holden: the performance is the the we 

Victoria Bonar: did our training show. Okay, they know they're coming 

Brad Bonar: to they know what it is So she came here with her daughter who was probably in her 30s Maybe 

DJ Sandhu: got it. That would be horrible thinking that you're going to an actual comedy show

Victoria Bonar: They knew what they were coming for [00:09:00] but the the comics answers are so real and raw And so one of the questions is what do others do that makes it worse? It is the second question. And four comics are giving their answers. What, what happened was she was doing those things. 

Group: She recognized her daughter.

Victoria Bonar: And so she gets up and leaves and she's crying and sobbing. And I go outside and I said, mama, what's going on? Are you okay? And she's sobbing. She says, I do all those things. And I thought I was helping her. People have the best intentions, right? And it's like, well, but you don't know for sure. You have to have that conversation with your daughter.

Because those are their answers. You need to have a conversation to see what your daughter's answers are. And she did come back in, but it's, it's like that. Every show people are recognizing and going, Oh, yeah, I do that. We 

Brad Bonar: get, I learned how to talk to my wife today. I learned how to talk to my husband who's in law enforcement today.

I, we were in Reno a couple of weeks ago for, it was a tri regional rotary conference and we were the keynote speakers and we were, it was an afternoon presentation. And then that night there was a dinner [00:10:00] banquet and this guy, he was Scottish actually, we're both wearing kilts. I've never hugged a man wearing a skirt at the same time.

It was my first mutual, you know, skirt hugging. And he 

Victoria Bonar: would not let go. Oh, this 

Brad Bonar: guy, he said, you changed my life today. And I was like, oh, come on. And he goes, I've never known how to talk to my daughter. And I called her today. 

Group: And it was life 

Brad Bonar: changing, our conversation between, and then he just grabs me and he's sobbing and he won't let go.

And it's just like that's it's just very real. He learned that day how to talk. 

Jeff Holden: You sure it wasn't the kilt? 

Brad Bonar: He may just have, it was like, that's a nice looking kilt. I got a kilt. Let's hug. Let's hug. My Scottish brother. 

Jeff Holden: Freedom. And I would imagine you get a lot of that. We, every show. Which you think superficially, oh, this is just humor.

Yeah, they're breaking down some barriers. But you, you literally are. engaging people in spaces that they've unable to go to, if not for themselves, for the one that they're impacted by, or that they're trying to impact. It's not 

Brad Bonar: just an awareness. It's not just a cute idea to have comedians. This is real [00:11:00] training.

You learn, you leave with a skill and a comfort to have conversations you didn't have before you got there. We just signed a two year contract with the California Prison Industry Authority, and we are their suicide prevention training for all their new employees statewide. 

Jeff Holden: Congratulations. So every month we do 

Brad Bonar: training.

Fulsome up on the grounds and, and because that their HR director saw that this, Oh, this is so much better than what we do now. We do a slideshow, PowerPoint statistics and numbers, but with your, with yours, they leave with real skills and a capacity and ability to have a conversation. 

Jeff Holden: And 

Brad Bonar: you started 

Jeff Holden: this in 2019, which is a bit precarious knowing that not even a year into this year in COVID and lockdown.

That hurt. 

Brad Bonar: Right. We, our first show was January 10th, 2019. Oh, geez. Yeah. 

Victoria Bonar: And we were just getting momentum. In fact, we did our first high school show a week before COVID hit. 

Brad Bonar: Literally the Monday before the country closed. We were in South Dakota. South 

Victoria Bonar: Dakota. And we were kind of laughing looking at people with masks in the air.

We hadn't even heard about it. There were like two or three couples wearing masks on the plane. [00:12:00] We're like, look at them. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. Man, we're getting some great material just going on. Two weeks later, two weeks later, we're all hearing them. And then we 

Victoria Bonar: get home and the whole country shut down. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. Yeah. Where do you find your most prolific impact?

You mentioned prisons. I mean, you're traveling, you're doing, 

Victoria Bonar: I can't put a, I 

Brad Bonar: don't know. Cause we do, we do sixth graders. That's kind of our age limit. We recommend 12 and older. Cause like I found us just, I know, I know that I was struggling at age 12. You said six. So that's our, that's usually where we start at when we do schools, we tell them middle school and older or sixth grade and older.

Cause that's, that's the age. And you know, we have kids come up to us afterwards. We, you know, but we, we do the, it's funny. We did a show for the army in In New Orleans last year, and they had a media affairs officer interview me in the other three comics. It's always for comedians and we use local comics when we travel.

So she goes, so you do this for sixth graders? I go, yeah. She goes, so how do you change it? You're doing the army today, so how are you gonna change it up? I go, yeah, we, we don't. Really? The, the, the comedy, we always keep it clean, but it'll be more [00:13:00] adult. We can do a little darker humor, not crude, but darker with that.

I go, but more 

Victoria Bonar: than the fart jokes for the sixth graders, fart 

Brad Bonar: jokes and you know, and we do real short sets with the kids. I go, but when we do the panel and we answer the questions that it doesn't matter what the group is, it doesn't matter. Is 

Jeff Holden: it able to, you're able to hold a sixth graders attention?

Victoria Bonar: Every school we've, and we've done Oak Ridge three years in a row, we've done multiple around here. 

DJ Sandhu: I feel like it's easier to keep a kid's attention than an adult's attention. Sometimes. Much more, especially with a heavy topic. Yeah. Because adults will, adults will try to run away from it as much as they can.

But kids are, like, they want to learn. They're, they're, kids are way stronger than adults are. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. 

DJ Sandhu: Like, they're very resilient humans. And they're nowhere near as fragile as we think they are. Like, you can have a very direct conversation. The more direct you are with a child, the better that conversation is going to go.

And we try to, like, fluff it up as much as we can. Right. And that doesn't work at all. Because then they're [00:14:00] just thinking about the fluff. Yeah. And they're not thinking about the actual information that they needed to get. 

Brad Bonar: And the comment we get from teachers when they see our assemblies when we do schools is like, these kids sat for, leaned forward and listened to you through the whole thing.

They weren't on their cell 

Victoria Bonar: phones. They weren't whispering to one another. They sit forward and 

Brad Bonar: listen, because they know this as we say, Hey, you guys, you know, 30 percent of you statistically, if you're in high school or in school, 30 percent of you have struggled with mental health issues this year. That means that many of you, this is real for you.

Yeah. If, if you're not one of those, well then you're a friend of one of those people. Yeah. So. And the fact that we do comedy first, we had a guy, Doug Richens, he runs a company called Gray Space and they do mental health, you know, recovery and he goes, so you guys just do comedy first? I go, yeah. I go for the schools, everybody has three minute sets for, we do five minute sets for grownups and cause we have a little more time.

And he goes, and then you do these five questions. I go, yeah. He goes, do you have any idea what's happening neurologically to your audience? I go, he goes, I studied neurological responses at Stanford. He said, I want to do a seminar for you and your [00:15:00] team about what's happening to the brain of your audience.

He goes, you get a kid with ADD to laugh for the first 15 minutes, you have, they will not have ADD for a couple of hours after that. You literally have produced serotonin and dopamine in there. You have changed their brain chemistry. They are more receptive to kick, take in information. They will make wiser decisions, whether it's kids or adults, all of them.

You've literally. You've really, literally doped your audience to now listen to a serious subject. Just by the simple introduction. By the laughter first. 

Victoria Bonar: And then each one of those questions we go over. It's a different part of the brain that's triggering. They 

Brad Bonar: all access a different part 

Jeff Holden: of the brain.

And you told them, of course, that's why we structured it this way, right? 

Victoria Bonar: Exactly, 

Jeff Holden: because that's how smart I am. Yeah, we knew that. Wait until you see our charts, you know? You think you got a chart. 

Brad Bonar: There's just so many things about it that Like, we're open to change and adjust and we're always doing seminars and, and, like I had somebody send me a, it was specifically for media, like for movies, television, about best practices for dealing with anything with suicide, things [00:16:00] to say, not to say, and every one of these things I go through just reaffirms.

There's nothing that's out of line with what we're doing, you know, lived experience. We don't lecture, we don't do Q& A at the end of our show, because we don't give advice. Right. We're not up there because we got depression figured out. Look at DJ. You think he's got depression figured out? No. We're up there because we'll talk about it.

Like Steph said, that's our superpower. And so that's, You know, that's what we bring to the tables. We teach you how to talk about it. And then we have resources there. Yeah. It's like, we're going to teach you how to talk about it. Now you do. So there's a, we bring in 

Jeff Holden: a counselor of some counselors. 

Brad Bonar: The school counselors are available.

When we do, we did an event at Sierra college a couple of weeks ago. We had a dozen over 12, 12 tables there from everything from NAMI to AA was there to dog therapy, 

Victoria Bonar: therapy, therapists, local, local therapists and counselors. And we just tell everyone come and Show the community that you're here, because we're gonna teach them how to talk, but then they're gonna need someone to talk to.

We're like, we're gonna teach you how to talk, but don't talk to us! Yeah, we're, we're 

Jeff Holden: just here to facilitate. But they do 

Victoria Bonar: talk to [00:17:00] us. I mean, usually, at a, at a regular comedy show, Watching my husband on stage, you know, they'll get people coming up and okay, get a selfie. You were awesome See you later And they're gone 15 minutes or so The whole place is empty but at one degree we stick around hours 

Brad Bonar: sometimes it takes us two hours to get out of the room after we're done 

Victoria Bonar: and there's people coming up and and there's there's just this feeling as a Watching my husband Men coming up and saying thank you Thank you.

I talked to my wife. I didn't know how it's just It's changing lives. 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah, but ultimately, we're just like Home Depot. Like, you can come to us and you can get the tools and we'll tell you how to use the tools, but you gotta go home and build the shed yourself. Oh, I love that. Yes, yes. We're not doing it for you.

Right. We 

Brad Bonar: are the Home Depot of Mental Health. Yeah. Is that our new T shirts made up of that. There's 

Jeff Holden: the title of the podcast. We're doers getting done. 

Brad Bonar: That's on a different aisle. I don't know. That's not my department. 

Jeff Holden: How many people are involved in the organization itself? 

Brad Bonar: The structure [00:18:00] of it, we have There's four or five of us.

We just brought on a new person onto our board, but we've had over 70 different comedians do the show. 

Jeff Holden: Oh, that's because when we 

Brad Bonar: travel, we use local comics and I always try and bring new comics in even here locally, you know, at Sierra College, Cole Black, Cole had never he came to one of our show in January at Laughs Unlimited.

And he goes, I think I he goes, I think I need this. And he had never talked about his mental health. He had never matter of fact, the week we did the show where your comedian is one of our comedians here in Sacramento, the week we did our show that when our show was on Friday, that Wednesday was the first time we ever signed up for counseling.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because at work they had all these tables set up and they had donuts. And they, so if you're going to have a donut, you should set up a, and it's like, ah, I probably should get some counseling. And it literally is because they had donuts there. Oh, if you ever want to catch cold black, 

Jeff Holden: just put out a donut and either.

But they knew, they knew that dopamine. Maybe, maybe sugar, sugar, right. Yeah. Yeah. That show 

Brad Bonar: we did was his first time [00:19:00] ever publicly talking about this and you could see it and the audience can see it. And that's, that's the beautiful part. They can see we're not all up here because we got to figure it out and we've got our drugs and therapy and everything it's like no we're just gonna this is where we're at right now and we want you to see that and see that we're we're screwed up and we're okay with it and we laugh and we still love each other and 

Jeff Holden: And we still function.

Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. Functions, you 

Jeff Holden: know, relative. How about funding? How do you get funded? It sounds like it would be a fee for service. They hire you or contract you. Most of the time. 

Brad Bonar: We're a pretty new non profit. I mean, last year was our first fiscal year of being a 501c3 and We've gotten some donations like a Sierra College event.

We had somebody she said hey I want to make a donation to a nonprofit, but I want to know where the money's gonna Go is it gonna go in a big pot of money and just get lost in it. I go You're lucky. We don't have a pot of money. Yeah, I go But here's what we charge to do a local event and I don't know what you want to donate But this is kind of our fee and if you donated that then we could [00:20:00] do a free community event And so she said, I think I want to do that.

And so we contacted Sierra college and they let us use their theater. They promoted through the college and we did this free community event because of this donor who made that happen. But usually like schools have, they have the funds set aside for assemblies. You know, when we do the military, they have money for training, the prison industry, they have budget for training, but we, we haven't figured out how to raise money yet.

And, and what that, what that does for us is it gives us the ability for groups that don't have the money. For example, NAMI, it was before COVID, they had a grant to pay us to do 12 

Jeff Holden: shows. 

Brad Bonar: National Alliance on Mental Illness, the largest non profit mental health organization in the country. It was before COVID, they got a grant for 12 shows.

So what that allowed us to do is we have a group, maybe it's a charter school, we don't have that money for assemblies. Well, what do you have? Oh, we got a thousand bucks. Okay, well, we have this grant from NAMI, that'll pay for the rest of it. We don't ever want money to be a reason not to do it. And so we've been able to find a few sponsors, Sear Health and Wellness is a sponsoring event for Cal [00:21:00] Voices that we're doing in June.

You know, it's been a hustle to try and figure out how can we make it work. And we're so new as 

Victoria Bonar: a non profit. I mean we've been going to class trainings just this week. We spent three and a half hours for the training of non profits. That's like 

Brad Bonar: 20 ADD hours. And it was 

Victoria Bonar: just overwhelming. Just there's so much and most of the nonprofits were well advanced and established.

So This was like normal talk to them and i'm like, wait, what's that acronym? Well, we need a committee It's just me and you babe. How do we get a committee? So, we're learning and we're done with the program, 

Jeff Holden: we're going to be able to help you with some great resources that will help align. Dangle that carrot, 

DJ Sandhu: huh?

Where were you a month ago when we needed you? But only if we make it to the end of the show. Just 

Victoria Bonar: today we had a meeting. We did with the VA. Veterans of the VA. And they want us to put on a show for them, but they don't have money for for sponsors to help us do that for the vets. 

Jeff Holden: Right. 

Victoria Bonar: But we don't, the [00:22:00] grants on us.

And I know there's 

Brad Bonar: tons of mental health money out there, we just don't, we haven't figured out how to get to it. And 

Jeff Holden: you will. Yeah. And you will, because what you're doing is so unique and so necessary, and the impact of what you're doing, I can only imagine you go to school, kid gets to 6th, 7th, 8th grade or whatever it is, they come home, what are they going to talk about for like three days?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, whereas in so many other situations, it's an, it's, it's in as opposed to, it's in coming. The service is in coming. This service is actually outgoing. That's going to be professed so many times about, look what it did for me. Look what I did. Look, I can't believe I shared this with my friend.

I never talk about this. 

Victoria Bonar: Right. 

Jeff Holden: You know, 

Brad Bonar: we did a show at Silverado Middle School in Roseville and when we do schools, we charge them a rate for the day. We'll do up to four assemblies, and this is our rate, if we do one or two or four. But we always encourage them to do an evening event where parents can come.

So, because parents don't know how to talk to their kids about it, right? And so it's just as much for the parents as the kids. And, and so that evening we see the principal, we go, so what was the after [00:23:00] effect of the school? He said, every group of kids I walked past for the rest of the day, they were talking about the assembly.

And he goes, the shocker was, the school jock, this, the most popular kid at the school, this 8th grader that everybody loves, that everybody, he goes, he broke down to his teacher and said, that's me, I don't want to live. And he goes, nobody, nobody would have guessed that kid. He was 

Victoria Bonar: like, I would have never thought of him.

For being. 

Brad Bonar: And that's the after effect is they, the kids, because we hear over and over again, nobody knew their best friend, their parents. I saw him the day before. Nobody had any idea. It's literally the ones who are so afraid or don't know how to talk about it at all are tend to be the higher risk. So 

Jeff Holden: we're going to take a quick break to give the people who make this program possible an opportunity to share their messages and we'll get right back to the conversation with our guests from one degree of separation.

I was in the media business for over 35 years and had the great privilege of working with Runyon Saltzman RSE, Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations. We collaborated on many different [00:24:00] campaigns, but their commitment to the nonprofit sector hasn't changed since their founder Gene Runyon started the agency.

Over many years and many campaigns, Runyon Saltzman has been committed to improving lives by tackling California's most challenging issues, guided by research informed strategies and insightful, creative solutions. RSE develops innovative communications campaigns that raise awareness, educate, and reduce stigma in diverse communities throughout our state and beyond.

To learn more about RSE, visit rs e. com. 

Scott Thomas: Hello, this is Scott Thomas with CAP Trust in our Sacramento office. I specialize in working with local non profits and associations. Annually, we survey private and public nonprofit organizations across the country to better understand challenges they see in today's environment.

In our more recent survey, we heard concerns about proper board governance, mission aligned investment, and how to implement all term investments. If you would like a copy of the [00:25:00] survey or to discuss your organization, look me up, scottthomasatcaptrust. com. 

Jeff Holden: I'm thrilled to have Western Health Advantage partnering with us as they do so much to support so many non profit agencies in our community.

As a truly local health plan, you'll find individual and family options, employer options, plans for CalPERS and Medicare Advantage. From medical services to pharmacy, health and wellness support, as well as behavioral health care, Western Health Advantage has a plan that fits what you need. As an employer for profit or non profit business.

Individual or family, you can find more at WesternHealth. com.

The, the incidence of depression to suicide, and I don't mean like the quote unquote success rate of it. But the, it is the precursor. And the [00:26:00] magnitude of that depression and the duration of it, and the longer it goes, the worse it gets. The worse it gets, the more likely you are to start thinking suicidal thoughts.

Do you see amongst any groups, differences, let's say it's those sixth graders versus the first responders versus military. I mean, what do you see in the various groups that you deal with? Is there something to say? Honestly, 

Brad Bonar: honestly, the thing I think that's been surprising, because every culture feels like their culture doesn't talk about it, right?

Yeah. In your family, in your community. And, and, but what happened, we've, we've heard this, this phrase so many times, I never realized white people had the same depression as us. 

Jeff Holden: Really? 

Brad Bonar: Because we get up and talk about it, and it's like, oh, wow, it's, it's the same. It doesn't matter that you're 12 years old, or that you're in the military, or that you come from an Indian ancestry, or that you come, the African American, everybody thinks our culture doesn't talk about it.

The truth is, no cultures talk about it. Right. You know, my dad was born in [00:27:00] Wyoming, rub some dirt on it, you know, suck it up. Right. Right. And how's that different than, you know, the Hispanic culture? Oh, no, no. Don't talk about your feelings and your emotions. It is. It's the, and I always say for 

DJ Sandhu: us, it's why are you telling, why are you telling outsiders our drama, our family?

That's like, that's like our biggest thing is don't go pay somebody 200 an hour. So you can gossip about me. And that's right. 

Brad Bonar: So you can talk about your 

DJ Sandhu: mom. Yeah. That's like their biggest worry is, oh no, they're going to blame me for everything. And it's like, 

Brad Bonar: And mine, it was, oh, you have to be really screwed up, really crazy if you're going to a therapist.

That was, so, but I think, I think it's the consistency of, it's, I, I tell people, I go, I always have a very diverse panel. I, I, one time I accidentally booked four white people once out of over a hundred shows. And that was the first time we heard that after the show, I didn't realize white people had the same depression.

But when I tell people, I go, the diversity is for the flyer. Because when we start talking, it doesn't matter if Sidney's in her 20s, you know, I'm 61 and she's [00:28:00] gay and this cute short little, you know, and it's this unifying language that it feels the same for you as it does for you as it does for me.

It's colorblind. 

Group: Yeah, 

Brad Bonar: it doesn't matter how wealthy, I mean, you look at the rich people, you know, from Robin Williams to Anthony Bourdain to Naomi Judd, it doesn't matter how much money or fame. 

DJ Sandhu: Mm hmm. Yeah, but then the, the flyer looks more like a rally than it does an informational. 

Brad Bonar: Yes, that's what I want.

I want the rally look for it. But that's, that's been a surprising thing to me is how, you know, as a matter of fact, we were talking about doing a show just for the African American community and having four African American comics on it. Cause I don't have to be on the show, but the more we do this, the more, I don't think that that's a good idea.

I think there needs somebody to show that it's the same. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think that that's a good idea to have a panel that's all that because I think So they know that they're not alone. 

DJ Sandhu: Your culture's not alone. When you're doing stand up, if you're, if it's If it's a crowd of all white people, when I do a black joke, it will get no laughs.

Right. [00:29:00] But if there's a mixed audience group of people there, like that brag joke, well, cause then they're like, Oh, everybody thinks it's funny. Otherwise, if it's a hundred wives, you're going to be like, is that funny? Or am I a horrible person for laughing at this right now? 

Brad Bonar: And the other thing is that we, there has to be a camaraderie on stage.

And so we always have a dinner. It's a requirement. If you're going to do this show, you have to have a dinner with the comics, you have to have a dinner as a team. Meaning you 

Jeff Holden: guys prior to the show. Yes, prior to the show. It could be a week 

Brad Bonar: before or the day of sometimes. Because if we're traveling, sometimes we're going to have a breakfast because we have this 3 o'clock presentation and I've never met you.

We've talked on the phone, but this may be our first time. Yeah, because there's got to be that camaraderie and people see us on stage and think, Oh, these guys have been together for years to have that camaraderie. It's like, Oh no, I met him last night. We talk, but there's this, there's this camaraderie because you're both comedians.

Victoria Bonar: And also, you've got to be able to share openly with us your struggles, your suicide attempts, your, [00:30:00] you know, where are you at on a one to ten today, before you go out on stage and tell two, three hundred strangers. Yeah, if you're not going to share it with me, you're 

Brad Bonar: not going to share it on stage with strangers, so.

Jeff Holden: So, so the comics actually do share their situations. 

Brad Bonar: It's all lived experience. Jokes 

Jeff Holden: to begin with, loosen the room up and everybody's comfortable, and then you all do each individually share. 

Brad Bonar: Yes. 

Jeff Holden: Okay. Okay. 

Brad Bonar: Then we each answer the five questions. Question one, and we all go through and we answer it. And 

Jeff Holden: you each have a pretty good understanding of what the next person is going to say at that point, too.

No, no, no. Not 

Brad Bonar: at all. 

Jeff Holden: Okay. We all know what the five questions 

Brad Bonar: are. Yeah, but we don't want it scripted. And we all know what the five questions are. 

DJ Sandhu: I'll know all their jokes before. Yeah. But like, 

Brad Bonar: I don't 

DJ Sandhu: know. They're set 

Brad Bonar: the entire through, but, but not their live on 

DJ Sandhu: this, on the actual conversation. Like when we did, what was the, the medical group that we did?

Oh yeah. Solano 

Brad Bonar: Chapa Day. No, Chapa Day chap. Yeah, we did that was was me, mark 

DJ Sandhu: Gaffey, right? Gloria was that Mark? We knew each other as comics, but we don't know each other. Was Mark first one as mental health? I'd never known that Mark struggled this at all. Right. I [00:31:00] had no idea. So like and how long had 

Victoria Bonar: you known him?

DJ Sandhu: So, yeah, and I mean, 15 years saw him in the group and I was like, mark yy what I thought this was like. A very well adjusted, like, solid, mentally strong dude. And, I mean, he was up there almost in tears, like, and I had no idea where he was gonna go with it. And our responses to the questions were very different.

Like, when it was like, what makes it worse? What made it worse for him was what makes it better for me. And what makes it better for me is what made it worse for him. I was like, I sometimes need to just be left alone. He's like, I need somebody to come over and hold me. And I'm like, ah, no, no, don't touch me.

Go away. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah, give me space. Don't give me space. Yeah. If you give me space, I feel abandoned. Exactly. Right? You don't know until you have that, your own conversations. 

Jeff Holden: What has been the most surprising thing you've heard out of one of the comic's mouths? 

Brad Bonar: Oh, it, multiple times we've had comics tell an audience of strangers things they've never told anyone before.

We had a comic talk about cashing out his 401k a few years ago to get all his affairs in order [00:32:00] for his suicide. Because he had a son. He just has one son. And he didn't want him to have to deal with his financial stuff when he killed himself. And so everything except his mortgage, he cashed out his 401k, got everything all arranged so that his son wouldn't have to deal with any of that.

And then about that same time, he met a therapist that he connected with. Because finding a therapist is like shopping for a car, right? And he found this guy and he worked, helped him work through it. And he goes, he goes, well, I'm here, you know, because that was a few years ago. And he goes, and so after the show, he comes up to me, he goes, yeah, he goes that, that for hope, all whole 401k cash out story for my suicide.

I go, yeah. He goes, I've never told anyone that except for that therapist. I go, but you told 200 strangers tonight. He goes, yeah, it just, it seemed safer. 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah. I call, I call that the farewell tour. If I get a, if I get a call from somebody I haven't talked to in a while and they're like, yeah, just catching up, how you doing, blah, blah, whatever.

If in that conversation, they start talking about all the other people that they have recently recently talked to that they haven't talked to [00:33:00] in a 

Brad Bonar: while. I'm like, 

DJ Sandhu: you're on your way out, man. You're cause that's what my cousin did was. Said his goodbyes. He went house to house and Was like, Hey, auntie. Hey, uncle, how you doing?

And just like literally did a goodbye tour. And so now like, I know to look for that. When I hear somebody, when I hear somebody reaching out and, and I hear that they've been reaching out to other people. I'm like you're you're you've got a plan in motion right now You might not even know that you have this plan.

Hey, remember that guitar you really 

Brad Bonar: like? Yeah. 

DJ Sandhu: Hey, dude Yeah, man, just come come grab it. I'm just i'm trying to downsize like no, I don't think I think that you're yeah, that's interesting. You're liquidating for a specific purpose. Yeah, that's interesting I 

Victoria Bonar: think the one perspective I did not see coming was how much it was going to change the comedians You know, the whole purpose was to help But it absolutely changes the lives of our friends.

And for the better. 

DJ Sandhu: That's what I was gonna say when you [00:34:00] were talking about Drew Schaefer saying, he was like, I think that this has helped me out so much that I don't belong on the show anymore. Yeah, 

Victoria Bonar: yeah. He's got so many better skills. 

Brad Bonar: Now I worry I'm too happy and Brad's gonna fire me. He's like, 

DJ Sandhu: I'm too mentally well adjusted now that I can't be a part of this show anymore.

You know, like that's incredible. Because 

Victoria Bonar: when Brad first, you know, he does an interview, he has to make sure they're sad enough. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. Sometimes I interview, like if I'm traveling, like we had a show and we were in Bristol, Connecticut a few months ago. And so Rick D'Elia, a buddy of mine's from Boston's like, Hey, I need some comics in that area.

And he's like, Oh, you got to talk to Stacey Kendra. She's like, Oh, I love this. Yeah, me. You got to talk to AJ. Okay. You got to talk to Jay Whitaker. You got, so, you know, we make it, but I have to interview him. And it's like, all right, here's what the show is, and I need to know that you struggle. It's your, and there's comics, I interview them and I go, yeah, I think you're too happy.

I don't think you're sad enough to be on the show. And they'll laugh and they'll go, yeah, I don't think this is for me. That's not me. I've had depression before, but it's not part of my life. 

Jeff Holden: But let me work on it. Let me work on it. I'll 

Brad Bonar: get there. If [00:35:00] your mom dies, call me. Right? You know, something tragic.

Let me know. You know what 

DJ Sandhu: really makes me depressed? Rejection. Losing 

Victoria Bonar: There was, um, and I didn't get to see this show 'cause I didn't go on that trip at the Kentucky one where the gentleman, oh 

Brad Bonar: yeah. There was a, and I tell the comics, I go, this show will change. It'll change how you do your comedy. It'll change you.

And this comic we were in, we were, he was from Louisville and so he went and did this show with us and we have the pa, we went to the panel apart and one of the questions is, what do you do that makes it worse? And it gets to him and he goes. And you can see him stop and he's struggling and he goes, I had an answer that I thought was funny because I didn't realize how real this part of this was gonna be.

And then he goes, I think, I think I lie. I think I lie. I think I lie. I think that's what I do that makes it worse. I lie. I say I'm okay when I'm not okay. And I won't add up to it because I think, I think that's what I do and he figured that out on stage and the audience watches and sees this and it just, [00:36:00] that's what makes it raw and real.

That's why we use comics, right? It's not scripted. We don't know what their answers are going to be. 

Jeff Holden: Let's walk through the five questions. 

Brad Bonar: Okay. 

Jeff Holden: Shoot. 

Brad Bonar: The number one pet peeve of every mental health, physical health, every professional I talk to, their number one pet peeve is people don't think of it as a real illness.

It's just in your head. People talk about mindfulness and getting grounded and all these different things. This first question hits all of it with this simple, easy to question. I have therapists that work with kids that won't open up and talk, but they'll answer these five questions. And the first question is, what does it feel like, your depression?

Not your feelings, just physically. What does it physically feel like? And you're really, you're acknowledging, without saying as much, you're acknowledging, I know this isn't just in your head. There's something real, and something medical going on with you. Yeah, that's a visceral. And I know that, and I see that.

Just tell me that part of it. With that, just tell me what it feels like. That's the first question. And it does. It's grounding, and it helps it get out of everything else. It's like, oh, it hurts. It hurts. You [00:37:00] know, mine feels almost like indigestion. I get a foggy head. I can feel pressure. When my depression is real bad, I feel pressure on my forehead.

It doesn't hurt, not like a head, but I could feel almost like an altitude change or something behind my head. My forehead and and there's a physical the lethargy that I could sleep for days and just never Feel rested and have absolutely no energy like a flu almost, you know, what about you dj? 

DJ Sandhu: Mine is I there's a like a specific part of my brain that I can feel like it feels like a cramp Like and it feels like it's kind of twisting like it's it's pulling on like as it's twisting It's pulling the top and the bottom like closer closer together 

Group: So 

DJ Sandhu: And it's the same spot every time and every now and again it'll be like over here, but usually it's like directly in the middle on the back.

And then, yeah, sleep, it doesn't matter how much I sleep, I'm still exhausted. Like, when I'm, when I'm there, like In the deep throats of it. Yeah, there's no, there's no amount of nutrients or sunlight or exercise. [00:38:00] There's nothing that will just get me out. Mm hmm. Like, there's definitely things that'll make it worse, which we'll get to that.

Which was not the other question. Yeah, but But 

Victoria Bonar: the one thing that's mostly common with all of them is the exhaustion. Exhaustion. There, there was It's something that I think Sydney said one of the last shows. She goes, yeah, my parents always called me lazy. And there were so many people going, yes, 

Jeff Holden: that's what it looks like.

Victoria Bonar: That's what it looks like. But that's not what's going on. I'm not purposely just not getting up to do it. It's like, I'm trying not to 

Brad Bonar: kill myself today. I'm so heavily weighed 

Victoria Bonar: down physically that I can't function. And yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Number two, 

Brad Bonar: what do others do that makes it worse? 

Jeff Holden: Oh, here we go. Mom walked out.

Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's what do others and it's such a great event. Oh, I'll tell you that you want. Oh, yeah I can do that right and and it's different for everybody. It's like like DJ was talking some people It's when you leave me alone because I'm not being funny My ex wife used to say nobody wants to see you like this go somewhere else until you're not like this anymore Mm hmm Nobody wants to see if you're not gonna be the happy clown and be the [00:39:00] life then just go somewhere else and and that dismissive No, you know for me that was a big one a lot of church guilt You know, if you pray you can pray this away if you love Jesus more you wouldn't have depression Right?

Oh, you must not be reading your scriptures. You must not be saying your prayers. That's why you have this. Not that I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. You know, that's, so that's the second question, which is that venting. Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Number three, 

Brad Bonar: what do others do that makes it better? So that's that gratitude.

Jeff Holden: So we start to see something 

Victoria Bonar: that you need people. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. You've now, you've now pivoted into the positive side. Yeah. 

Victoria Bonar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We need each other. So, what do others do that helps you? 

Brad Bonar: And it's different. It's like, you know, one of the things that's helped a lot, a friend of mine who's a doctor, he's one of the people I interviewed extensively, he, he writes, he's in South Dakota, which is always in the top five for suicides.

Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, they like take turns for the number one position. And so he writes a lot of scripts for depression meds. And it came, it was kind of routine for him until his son spent a month in an [00:40:00] inpatient facility for being, for a suicide attempt. And he goes, it changed his whole perspective.

And he says, what I noticed is if I asked somebody, do you struggle with depression? They will always lie. They will lie. Say, no, I don't have depression. If I asked them specifically, do you ever think of hurting yourself? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do sometimes. Oh, do you have a plan? Yeah. I kind of know how I do it.

Are you making steps towards that plan? Are you? And, and he goes, so if I ask specific questions, I get, I get real answers. Instead of this broad, you struggle with depression. So with my wife and I, what we've figured out is I will still lie. If she asked me, are you struggling with depression today? I'll still say, Oh no, 

Victoria Bonar: no, I'm fine.

And that's that when he says I'm fine, that's my red flag. I didn't ask the right question. Yeah. All right. Where are you on one to 10, babe? Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: Okay. All right. And for some reason, I will give an honest answer to that. I'm at a five. I'm right in the middle. So I'm not doing great, but I'm not that bad. And we've talked about if I'm a five or lower, if you're a little sick, you only need a little medicine.

If you're really sick, you need more medicine. So if I'm a five or lower, you know, it may be, you know, do you need some [00:41:00] space? What was it? Drew? Drew saw a tick tock. He goes, do you, do you need space? Do you want to talk about it or distraction, which with those lower numbers, those are good options. And it's like, sometimes you want to, do you need a motorcycle, right?

You need some wind therapy. And I'll go, yeah, I just, I, but I've learned to have to put time limits on it. Right? Like, if I take off on my motorcycle and I come back, like, at three or four days later, yeah, she's pissed, so. So, he used to do that. I did. I used to, I would leave my wallet, I would leave my phone, I would leave my dog.

Oh, you would leave everything. And I would leave everything, and I'd say, yeah, I'm done with everything. And I would 

Victoria Bonar: know if he's coming back, or if he's alive. 

DJ Sandhu: Right. And he would just go see a tree in Utah. 

Brad Bonar: Yes. 

Victoria Bonar: Oh, no, he'd go and look over the bridge, sort of sight of people he wanted to jump. 

Brad Bonar: But yeah, there's my tree out in the desert, too.

Yeah. Yeah. So. Number four. Number four. All right. Then what do you do that makes it worse? And that's recovery, self inventory, checking in, okay, admitting, yeah, all right. If I isolate too much or if I'm on my phone too much, uh, [00:42:00] if I, if I lie and say I'm fine when I'm not, if I don't reach out to my friends or if I drink too much or drugs or, you know, it's, everybody has their own answers, but it really, it's that self inventory to recognize You know, when I compare myself too much, you know, for me, it's when I listen to the voices.

It's like, you're worthless, you're no good. The sooner you're gone, the better this world is. It's like, oh, really? Tell me more. Tell me more. Oh, that's all you got? Come on. Nobody can beat me up like I can. You can say whatever mean things you want. I can do way, way better because I know what will really hurt.

And, and, and so for me, that's what I do that makes it worse. What do you do, DJ? What makes your depression worse? 

DJ Sandhu: There's a lot. I've gotten, I've gotten much better about recognizing when a wave is coming. 

Brad Bonar: Hmm. 

DJ Sandhu: So when I know it's coming, I know it is going to come regardless. Can you, can you 

Brad Bonar: feel it for a couple days coming on?

I can feel it like, it'll, 

DJ Sandhu: well, it'll be like, it'll be like three or four days in that I'll be like, Oh, I've been behaving a little different. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. 

DJ Sandhu: I'm like, Oh, this is what's happening. And then I'll be like, all right. Can't go to the [00:43:00] bar. I need to go to the gym. I'm gonna drink some water and eat some salad.

No fried chicken or barbecue for a little bit and I'm gonna try to keep it a little quieter. I'm gonna stay in. 

Group: Yeah, I 

DJ Sandhu: won't watch Well, I guess this is going into what makes it better, but it's kind of hard to have those as, yeah, like I'll, I won't, I'll watch comedies and I'll specifically watch comedies that I've seen before.

Because with, along with depression usually comes anxiety and not knowing what's going to happen next amps up your anxiety. So, Just re watching Family Guy, where there's no real plot. You know, like, there's no actual plot, and there's It's just silliness. You can just tune in and out and come back, whatever, and it doesn't matter.

You didn't miss the 

Brad Bonar: plot line. But then if 

DJ Sandhu: it's Game of Thrones, you're like, Oh no, what 

Brad Bonar: happened? I gotta go back two episodes. Oh my god. 

DJ Sandhu: And every episode leaves you on this massive cliffhanger that makes you need to watch the next one, which is all It's all anchored in anxiety. So it won't [00:44:00] Take in any new information that I don't know where this is going to go And I specifically seek things that like people sat down to try to make you happy instead So i'll avoid anything that That is going to worsen like the ancillary symptoms, 

Brad Bonar: right?

That's gonna amp it up. 

DJ Sandhu: That's gonna make it a little worse but one thing that I do like I If I start comparing myself to others, even if I start comparing myself to myself Thinking this is where I thought I was going to be. This is where I'm supposed to be by now. I'm not there You Like i'm not in with these cruise ships.

I'm never gonna be there. I'm never gonna make it My buddy got it when he was 27 and i'm about to be 40 and like once I start comparing what I have And other people have what I don't have That everybody else does have that starts bringing me down. And so as soon as I start feeling it happen. I'm like, all right not going to be looking at Instagram because that's where brad is going to be announcing his upcoming tour, right?

And then i'm gonna get jealous And it's gonna make me [00:45:00] feel bad about myself, so i'll stay off 

Brad Bonar: Yeah, 

DJ Sandhu: any kind of social media anything that's gonna bring me I have any 

Brad Bonar: comparison. There's a there's a phrase in recovery that comparison is the killer of joy 

Jeff Holden: thief of joy Yeah, it's a thief of joy comparisons.

I was gonna say that but yeah, and it's so true It's so true. 

Victoria Bonar: This question really is my favorite because you can't get any help really until you look at yourself 

Group: Yeah, 

Victoria Bonar: you can't there's nowhere to go until you acknowledge that You're on part you own it that I do contribute to my own health. Yeah And so that's one of my favorite questions because once that light bulb goes off like hey, I can have some control I can stay away from things that I know that makes it worse.

Yeah, 

Jeff Holden: and then that brings us to the fifth one Which we what do you do that makes it better up? What makes it better? Yeah 

Brad Bonar: it and that we talked about therapy Some comics have done it. We have a comic, Kevin Davis, he calls himself the Marine of Comedy and he's never been in therapy. The only thing he and as a matter of fact, he had a VA appointment a month or [00:46:00] so ago and that they asked him, do you do any therapy?

He goes, Yep. One degree of separation. The only therapy I've ever done. And it's been life changing for me. And so. What do we do that makes it better is, is talking about it, you know, it's, it's some, it's therapy. It's for some, it's medications. For me, it was medications for a season there's, I've got so many other skills that I've learned without medication and, but I'm, I'm, I don't rule that out that I may have, that I may have seasons where I can't shake it, right.

And all these things aren't working. And so I've, I've had to be on medication before and we, and we talk about the good of it, the bad of it. We, you know, therapy, having, doing the show. You know for the comics changes them for me it changed. This is the first time in my life. I've wanted to live 

Group: Mm hmm.

Brad Bonar: We've done this show for six years six and a half years and and most of my life I've spent wanting to die. My New Year's resolution was always every year don't make it Don't be here next year for this do it this finish it this year 

Jeff Holden: and we're so glad you didn't succeed at that Yeah, 

DJ Sandhu: there's uh, there's there's definitely I mean I've [00:47:00] known you over 10 years.

Yeah There's, I was, when I sent you that photo of me, you, and Peabody? Peabody, on stage. Yeah, 

Brad Bonar: yeah, 

DJ Sandhu: yeah. I was looking at your face and I was like There's no life in your eyes. It was like, you were smiling and we, the three of us got the top three spot for World Series of Comedy. And we Well, I have 

Brad Bonar: the top spot, just to It was like, 

Group: you were smiling and we, Fred!

I was just talking about how comparison 

DJ Sandhu: makes me feel worse. And you had to rub my nose 

Group: in it, 

DJ Sandhu: Brad. But, like, I was looking at that photo, and I was like, there's, like, this, since you started doing this, this is the first time that I've seen, like, an actual shine, like, like I can see your soul in your eyes now.

And I didn't use to see that before. You were only smiling in every photo. The first time 

Victoria Bonar: he said that on stage, I cried. Because you have to know, through my, our relationship, we've walked through all this stuff to be able to, We had to learn how to [00:48:00] communicate and learn to talk. But the first time he said that on stage, there was this hope.

There was this relief. I don't want to cry. It's fine. You don't have to be so afraid to find him anymore. Because he has this purpose now. And this mission. And it's saving him. You know, it's giving him a reason to live. 

Jeff Holden: Well, and he's giving back. You're giving back. 

Victoria Bonar: It gives the comics. It 

DJ Sandhu: changes gifts. I think that's the most common response to that answer is, like, for me, what I do that makes it better is I do things for others.

Like, oh, you need help moving? Yeah, I'll be right over there. Like, it can be something as little as that, but then for, for comics, Like now my my closing bit is about my suicide attempt and which You wouldn't think is Going to be funny and then at the end. There's just this massive punch line Every time I get to do that because there's a few things that's happening there one.

I'm I'm telling people that's helping them identify and they're like, I 

Brad Bonar: like this guy and he struggles too. Yeah, [00:49:00] and they're like, oh 

DJ Sandhu: wow He just did 45 minutes of all this goofy ignorant stuff. And now here's like a five minute chunk of like actual humanity and then every time there's somebody coming out saying like The first time I did it that's where I knew I was on to something because I was doing a show in galt And nobody was paying attention to us And then I was like, you know what?

Yeah, we'll start talking about this. Why not? I have no idea where i'm going with it, but I feel like killing myself right now. So let's talk about that And then at the end of the show this guy came up to me and he was like that little piece you just did Was incredible. He's like I just lost my son three weeks ago And I didn't understand him and thank you.

You really helped me and I was like, oh this actually matters 

Group: Yeah, 

Brad Bonar: and more people are connected than you realize. Yeah, 

DJ Sandhu: and more people are willing to You to go down this path at a show with you than you thought. Because you made it 

Victoria Bonar: safe to talk about it. Because you really thought that if I 

DJ Sandhu: started talking about something so real at a comedy show It's going to like my yelp reviews are going to plummet, right?[00:50:00] 

And it's the opposite. That's why I came here to 

Brad Bonar: laugh not think about our emotions. Yeah, right 

Jeff Holden: Disarmed them back to your very beginning of the class or the course In front of the kids or the get them to laugh 

Brad Bonar: first But there's a few other 

DJ Sandhu: things that's happening like just like in your brain when the time because one like you're saying it so now You're feeling that you're also hearing it as you're saying it.

Yeah, you know what I mean? Then when you when they're reacting you can see What's happening. So like you're activating a few different parts of your brain and every time I get to do that bit like it brings me a little because also like I'm one thing that I do that makes it worse. It's trying to be happy.

I've stopped it. Yeah, I have. I have given up on the goal of happiness and this is a big problem with like with such a an overly capitalist society is this. Transcribed by https: otter. ai Every time you're watching TV, like, they're trying to sell you happiness. Take this pill, wear these clothes, drink this 

Brad Bonar: drink, buy this [00:51:00] ice 

DJ Sandhu: cream, get this car, move, like, go to vacation on At this place, like, it's all selling you happiness.

And I finally came to the realization that, like, your brain doesn't want to be happy. It doesn't want to be sad. It wants to be neutral. That's where it's going to make good sound decisions. If you're walking through the brush and the Serengeti and you're happy, you're distracted, you're not going to hear a lion come behind you.

Like, you can't be on either side of the spectrum. That's why your brain sends an A and B reaction. When you win the lottery, you start crying. This is the happiest thing that can happen. When you're about to say I do to your significant other and you start crying, like this is the happiest moment in your life.

Why are you crying? That's not, but your brain is like, yo, dude, you are. You're kind of getting off the charts. We need to bring you right back down to neutral because that's not healthy 

Brad Bonar: Happiness is sustained. Yes. 

DJ Sandhu: It's a that's why every drug emulates a happiness component 

Brad Bonar: of it Yeah, 

DJ Sandhu: like everything like [00:52:00] heroin and cocaine and all that stuff like they all emulate serotonin and dopamine They trick your brain into thinking that it is dopamine and serotonin and then you know What happens once that cocaine leaves your system?

And now you crash any kind of drug will have that I mean alcohol like yeah, it's going to come with this horrible crash So happiness has the same thing happiness is freaking exhausting like if you like on the best day of your life you are Exhausted the next day, so I'm just trying to be neutral and that's one thing that I've to maintain on Uh To make things better is when I whenever I do that bit whenever I close the show with that bit It reminds me to just try to get back to neutral and the longer I go about doing comedy the longer I go without giving that message to other people and The higher my chances of hitting the low are gonna be so it just helps me flatline 

Brad Bonar: keep a [00:53:00] gig on the books 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah, yep 

Victoria Bonar: And what's interesting is we've had over 70 different comedians on our shows and multiple times, right?

And what is he's on the spectrum? I can't think of his name. Diego. Ocho. 

Brad Bonar: Ocho. We renamed him Ocho Diego. You know, he had two of his toes amputated. Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't know that. Like, the week before our show. We call him Ocho Diego now. 

Victoria Bonar: What? What do you mean? He had diabetes. And so he had And right before he gets up, Brad goes, I have a new name for you.

Ladies and gentlemen,

but one of his, one of his things, you really have to sit down and think these questions through. They're not just something that comes. It'll be like a moment where you go, Oh, this, this is making me feel better right now, playing my guitar or playing with my dog. And He said, and it was beautiful because it was at a school, too, with young kids, and he said, When I was young, I got bullied and picked on at school because I'm on the spectrum of autism.

And I gave up some things because kids made me, made fun [00:54:00] and called me names because I liked poetry. And now here it is 10 years later, what makes me, what makes my depression better is when I pick up a pen and paper and I write stuff out and it's beautiful, it's poetry and I don't care what other people think anymore.

But just to see his progress of 

Brad Bonar: recognizing 

Victoria Bonar: that I gave these things up because I was too concerned about what other people thought, but that brought, that was good for me. So I'm going to do that now. So, I mean, just so many different answers. 

Jeff Holden: And you can see where that can go into a bit. 

Victoria Bonar: Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah, they can turn it into something that you'd be laughing.

Hysterically about the way it's presented, but it's cathartic. 

Brad Bonar: Yeah. When you can take dark, tragic things and laugh at it, it gives you power over it. The monster becomes smaller. We had one of our comics, uh, Arnie States, Rob Arnie and Don Cho. Arnie attempted suicide, cut his wrist. He talks about this. And he goes, yeah, he goes, it coagulated, he quit bleeding.

He goes, so I cut it again, cut it up good. He goes, and it coagulated. It quits bleeding. I go, you know, that's why you use a warm bathtub. He goes, well, I know that now. Yeah, , right? So they did a wellness check. Sheriff come in. So he ends up in the mental [00:55:00] hospital. He is all bandaged up, and his dad comes in.

It's him and his dad and the psychiatrist, and he's embarrassed and ashamed. And his dad says, so what happened? He goes, oh. He goes, I cut it. He goes, it quits. It clogs, it quits bleeding. It coagulates. He goes, so I cut it again. He goes, it, it, it coagulates. It'll quit bleeding. And his dad goes, Mm-Hmm, . Well, damn it, son.

You know, I've got blood thinners. If you would have just asked me, and he said, we started laughing. He said, the psychiatrist looked at us like, what the hell's the matter with you two? He goes, we laughed so hard. He goes, and I swear to God, he goes, I swear on my life. That was the moment I knew I was going to be okay.

That was the moment when I knew, oh, okay, I'm gonna get through this. 'cause I laughed. Mm-Hmm. . I used comedy and laugh. What did we learn to? Trauma? 

Victoria Bonar: Trauma. 

Brad Bonar: Trauma. Trauma. And comedy. Trauma. That was, we met with Acal, that works with the va. That's what she calls it. It trauma. Like, oh, that's a great, 

DJ Sandhu: yeah. The way I always looked at it as like, if.

Like, if you, if you start making fun of your bully, your bully stops picking on you as much. Like, they're, they're not gonna, they're gonna go to somebody who's not gonna fight back. [00:56:00] Especially if he's on your shoulder. Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: Yes. Yes. Yeah, for sure. 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah, so making fun of it, just, that's, I mean, like, we're, we're very good at making light of a heavy situation.

Brad Bonar: It's our superpower. Like, 

DJ Sandhu: my, my best, oh my God, Kristen Frisks. Celebration of life that was probably the funniest show I've ever been to like we were all just out there cracking 

Jeff Holden: jokes Everybody's benefit. This is somebody who passed one of our talking about literally the celebration of life where you all got up and spoke 

Group: Yeah, we're just like 

Jeff Holden: out on the 

DJ Sandhu: patio and just like inside the show We're like that's like the way that we all deal with it's the hurting pain with trauma is through Comedy and like I'm in the front talking to Ellis and I was like, I was like, dude, if you come to my funeral and you don't get at least one booking, you're not a real comic.

Group: I'm gonna 

DJ Sandhu: be over there. It's just, just so sad what happened to Brad, but I heard May 17th is available, huh? It's an opening on the calendar. Just [00:57:00] saying, it's what Brad would have wanted. And, we're just out there, just cracking. Then Ellis is like, my biggest fear is that my death isn't going to be funny enough.

Like, what if It's 

Brad Bonar: going to be boring. He's like, oh my god, what if it's just a boring I need 

DJ Sandhu: to sleep. 

Brad Bonar: No, not my sleep. 

DJ Sandhu: And all the normal people are like gathering around us, listening to this kind of, this is not how you would want to hear somebody speaking about your mother at her funeral. And like her kids were just sitting there listening to us.

And it relieves that tension and it makes. It just makes life more livable. 80 

Brad Bonar: percent of comedians struggle with depression. 80%. And the other 20 percent probably aren't funny. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. The other 20 percent are not getting booked. Or 

Brad Bonar: they're lying. 

Jeff Holden: And we know, we know of several major figures in the comedy world that killed themselves.

So it's not a secret. And if 

Brad Bonar: it wasn't an obvious suicide, it was from overdose. It was slow suicides. Overdose and drugs. It was still Sam 

DJ Sandhu: Kinison or Jim Belushi. Yeah, absolutely. Robin Williams, just keep going, the list goes. [00:58:00] Chris Farley, like, all the, I mean, like, it's, it couldn't be 

Brad Bonar: They were trying to medicate, medicate 

DJ Sandhu: the pain.

Yes. It couldn't be, like, Amy Schumer or something like that. 

Brad Bonar: Oh, wow. Wow. Can't we pick the next one? No, bro, 

Jeff Holden: if we could, if we could take, if we could vote for the next one. So, bringing it around to, to a couple of things before we close, if funding were not an object Mm hmm. How would you grow 

Brad Bonar: the non profit?

My big picture, my big dream, before we did our first show, we've done over a hundred, before we ever did our first show, my dream is to have teams of comics that do this. This show isn't about me. It's not me and my story. It has a structure and a format to it. And I, where I want to see us going is that I spend my time training comics on how to host the show.

So that we have a training program where I take DJ. All right, DJ. You're, this is a demographic or a group whether it's school. We have, like Drew has worked as a schoolteacher. Aurora's worked as a schoolteacher. They're great in the schools. So let's, let's build a team of comics [00:59:00] that just do schools.

Let's have a team of comics that just does military. And, and my dream is that I have teams of comics all over the country that, that do this and that we're able to expand that way. You know, we have people that don't have money to have us. And this is, this is all this is all we do. We have no other income than doing this event.

And what Fundraising or what funds would do is we can do it for every group everywhere. We can take a school district and say, we're going to do all of your middle and high schools in your school district during the month of September or August or, and be able to have an impact on an entire community, inner city, 

Scott Thomas: inner city kids that, um, yeah, to be 

Brad Bonar: able to do a show any place anywhere and say, look, don't worry about the money and the funds.

We've got funding where we can do this for whatever group it may be, you know? 

Victoria Bonar: Because it comes down. We're just saving lives by getting them to talk. You could get someone to open up and talk. You saved a life. And what was the statistics that they? Was it Ward that said, out of all the suicides? And El Centro.

Brad Bonar: Oh, so it was, he was a school superintendent in El Centro, [01:00:00] California. And we did a show there and we say, Hey, can we, I knew his, I grew up with his sister and him and say, can we pick your brain and find out, you know, cost wise, what can we charge with schools? What's typical, what's average. And he gave us kind of best practices for that.

And he goes, don't change anything about the show. He goes, it's interesting. The two years he was a school superintendent, he said we had about, we had three suicides. He said we had over a dozen 5150s, so over a dozen kids that got sent to mental facilities for being suicidal. None of them were the suicides.

Jeff Holden: Oh, geez. 

Brad Bonar: He said the three suicides to the person were kids that nobody knew, their best friend didn't know, their parents didn't know. They never talked 

Group: about it. They, 

Brad Bonar: it was literally the kids who didn't know how to open up, didn't know how to talk about it or didn't have people they felt safe 

Group: with 

Brad Bonar: talking about it.

And so it's the ones that don't, you know, that we hear over and over again. We, how many do you hear? Oh, I talked to him yesterday. I had no idea. Last week, he seemed so happy. Well, it might've been on his farewell tour, you know? So that's our big picture, is just to be able to expand and have this not be just me being on every show and having other people.

We did 

Victoria Bonar: a show for [01:01:00] a hundred Sergeant Majors 

Brad Bonar: Command Sergeant, major Command Sergeant Majors, 

Victoria Bonar: and, which is 

Brad Bonar: the equivalent of a gen. That's the highest rank you can achieve as an enlisted. And it was, 

Victoria Bonar: it was her first time on the show, she'd never seen, oh, Stacy. Stacy, Stacy. She'd never seen a show, never heard about us.

But we interviewed her and had her on the show and her, her answer was so powerful to me because I've said it before. And I've heard so many other people say it. So what, what do others do that makes it worse? She's just looking for attention. They're just looking for attention. She goes, yeah, talked 

DJ Sandhu: about this.

Victoria Bonar: I was, 

DJ Sandhu: yeah. 

Victoria Bonar: I didn't know how to deal with this. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't know who could help me. So yeah, I was looking for attention and it was just this, Oh, I've been guilty. Of dismissing someone's pain and hurt and thinking oh, they're just trying to get attention Well, no that baby girl was saying because they need it I'm hurting and I don't know how to deal with this and 

Jeff Holden: sometimes think about the class clown.

Yeah Oh, yeah, someone is funny funny as heck. He's great. He's funny. He's [01:02:00] so he's so funny as we love have him around He's looking for attention. He 

Victoria Bonar: is. 

Jeff Holden: I 

Brad Bonar: think, I look at, especially with what we do now, you know, you really try to look back and analyze your childhood. I didn't have childhood trauma, I didn't, I didn't have PTSD, I think my brain doesn't produce enough.

I, chemically, my brain is, isn't wired and doesn't produce enough serotonin, dopamine, and I look at my childhood, the only time I would pay attention to teachers, when I'd really concentrate, was to think of something funny to say to get the class to laugh. That's when I would sit there and I would just with all intensity.

And if I could whisper one thing to one kid and they'd go, that was a dopamine hit. 

Group: Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: And that was it. I was like, Oh, I can, I can, I can do this for another until recess. Now I get the whole class to laugh, dude. That's you could send me to the office. I got the whole class to laugh. I'm going to, I'm going to ride this out for a few hours.

Yeah. And it really was that whole 

Victoria Bonar: time too. He was also having suicide ideation and writing suicide notes in his journal. So. 

DJ Sandhu: You know when somebody whenever somebody because i'm i'm very open and honest about and that's another thing that's that that's [01:03:00] helped is If I am in this i'll just go on facebook and fill up a post be like Hey, this is what i'm going through right now and then My dm trying 

Brad Bonar: to get attention 

DJ Sandhu: and somebody said that one time So I started like I just get a bunch of dms and it'll be a bunch of people that will be like i'm Not strong enough to say this in public.

Thank you. Like it's comforting that somebody else is going and like Well It'll it will save somebody else just being open and honest but then one time somebody had commented like you're just trying to get attention blah blah blah and I was like Yeah, this is literally a cry for help. Yeah, this is Yes, i'm glad that you see it the same way you dumbass Yes, I am trying to get attention right now I need help dude.

I heard this is what i'm doing But when you're talking about you found your your sixth grade, no Somebody had asked me like how long i've been struggling with depression And And I'm like thinking back. I'm like, yeah, I remember like in my teens, but like that's everybody like that's right That's just [01:04:00] puberty and then I was like, oh wait when I was in like fifth sixth grade All of my cousins and my brother and sister.

They all called me Eeyore

Okay, and they just that was my nickname 

Group: Wow 

DJ Sandhu: and I was like, oh damn this I was a child man And then I thought about it further You And I was like, Oh, I actually had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck when I was born. I was like, dude, I've been trying to hang myself since I was 

Group: in 

Brad Bonar: the womb. I came out this way.

I was 

DJ Sandhu: negative three months on my first attempt. Yeah. 

Brad Bonar: Kicking the doctor. No, no. I'm almost 

Victoria Bonar: there. I was like, Oh man, this has been 

DJ Sandhu: literally my whole life. Is that 

Victoria Bonar: in your 

DJ Sandhu: jokes? No, I never, I never put it on stage. Two tunnels at the same time. I was going to, I was going to share this. There was a bright light in there somewhere too.

That's a bright light one. I was about to share this episode with my mother. I think I'm, up [01:05:00] until that point, I'm like, nevermind. I don't think my mom needs to see this now. And I made the whole hour without cussing 

Jeff Holden: once too. I don't know which light to go to. So on that note, what I do want to ask you, best way to get In touch with the organization, 

Brad Bonar: our website, the, the number one, one degree of separation life.

Jeff Holden: So the numeral one, numeral one degree of separation 

Brad Bonar: life. And, and that gives all our contact, my phone number, email. You can message us on there if you forget, if you just do a Google search, comedy, suicide prevention, we pop to the top . There's not much. That's though, there's not a lot of people in's that space.

So yeah, it really does pops us right up. 

Jeff Holden: And then dg, is there a place where people can go and get your, your work? 

DJ Sandhu: Yeah, just Instagram or TikTok or whatever social media is. It's DJ Sandhu two Zero. That's DJ, S-A-N-D-H U2 zero. Okay. 

Jeff Holden: And Brad, do you have anything up? 

Brad Bonar: I do. I've got a dry bar comedy special that's got over 20 million views, and so if you just type in my name, Brad Bonner, [01:06:00] B-O-N-A-R, or Brad Bonner Jr.

On YouTube, anything else, it'll pop 'em up and send you to Drybar. I 

Victoria Bonar: always tell people if you're having a bad day and you just really need to laugh. Go watch him because it just laughter changes your brain. It'll change your mood. It'll change your day Just sit down and watch Brad with the squeaky toy.

He'll make you laugh 

Jeff Holden: Looking forward to that one too because I haven't seen it yet. Well We know humor can cure so many ills. And then we've been told laughter is the best medicine. What you guys are doing, I think is just amazing. And it's so unique. It's so unique. I'm, I'm happy to be here. I hope I can help.

I hope I can facilitate, integrate you with some of the other organizations that we work with, you know, from a collaborative standpoint, because we work with mental health organizations that come through and do a podcast. So I'm, I'm thinking now we've, we've got to integrate you in so many of these others.

Group: Absolutely. And, and 

Jeff Holden: I know you're, you're certainly willing. It's, you just don't know yet. 

Group: Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: You know, the novelty of what they're doing, right? 

Brad Bonar: Nonprofit babies. 

Jeff Holden: Right. 

Group: And 

Jeff Holden: I'm so glad I met you at that Impact Foundry event. 

Brad Bonar: Absolutely. 

Jeff Holden: So [01:07:00] thank, thank you guys for what you're doing. For 

Brad Bonar: putting us all together.

Jeff Holden: That's right. And DJ, thank you for being here. Victoria, thank you. 

Victoria Bonar: Thank you. 

Jeff Holden: Appreciate it. You bet. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide, or is in crisis, Please know help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Somebody does care about you.

Thank you for listening to the Nonprofit Podcast Network. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If what you heard moved you, please reach out to that organization and do what you can to help. If you like and appreciate what we're doing to support local non profits, visit Please give us a positive review, subscribe, and share.

If you're a non profit with an interest in participating in an episode, you can reach me at jeff at hearmenowstudio. com. If you have a need for the services or products our sponsors [01:08:00] offer, please reach out to them. CapTrust, fiduciary advice for endowments and foundations. Runyon Saltzman Incorporated, RSE, Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations Creating Integrated Communications Committed to Improving Lives, and Western Health Advantage, a full service healthcare plan for individuals, employer groups, and families.

The Nonprofit Podcast Network is a production of, is recorded at, and edited by Hear Me Now Studio.