Laughing Through the Darkness: The Dave Mowry Story
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Cathy:Hello. It's Cathy Worthington.
Merry:And Merry Elkins.
Cathy:Welcome to season 5 and our 5th year of the Late Boomers podcast.
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Cathy:Hello. I'm Cathy Worthington. Welcome to the start of season 5 on late boomers. Today, we have as our guest, Dave Mowery, a comic who tells his story of living with severe mental illness, one joke at a time. He also teaches stand up comedy to folks with mental illness, helping to transform their lives.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Dave is the author of 2 books, OMG That's Me and OMG That's Me 3 with more than 20,000 books sold. Quite impressive. He's a blogger with over a 1000000 reads and a comic who has overcome hospitalization and homelessness. We look forward to hearing his story.
Merry:Welcome, Dave.
Dave Mowry:Hey. Thank you very much. It's great to be with you.
Merry:Great to have you.
Cathy:You were a successful businessman before your mental break due to your bipolar disorder, and you lost everything but your family. You've come out the other side, and you tell your story about healing with humor. Tell us more about that. How did that come to be? How did you find humor?
Dave Mowry:When when, it was 1996, I was you know, we were successful in business, then I was driving down the highway, and, I was under less stress and anxiety. My mind was racing, and and my mind just snapped. It was like I could hear the twig. It was like a twig, snapping. And, I felt it was like an electric shock shock in my brain, and I just muscles went slack in my face.
Dave Mowry:My voice went and I could barely speak. My eyesight went blurry, and, I went home, and I just went to bed, and it's everything I could do. So and and, you know, I I entered my 14 last years and and my my dark days. And and so living through that and and all the challenges and, you know, we were homeless for 18 months. We were 100 of 1,000 of dollars in debt, and I I couldn't function.
Dave Mowry:And and my wife, stepped up and took care of things. And, you know, she's the hero of my story. Without her, I'd be living in a in a, you know, a hotel hotel in Old Town and eating in a soup kitchen. And I just know I never would have recovered, never would have healed. Mhmm.
Dave Mowry:But then then, she suggested, that I go to, IMAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. They're the largest grassroots mental illness, organization, nonprofit. They have a What
Cathy:was the name?
Dave Mowry:NAMI. NAMI. NAMI, n a m I, National Alliance on Mental Illness. Oh. And she they had a meeting and she said I should go.
Dave Mowry:And so I went and, that was kinda my first connection with NAMI. A few years later, they had a stand up comedy class for folks with a mental illness.
Cathy:Oh.
Dave Mowry:For some reason, I thought I could do that, and so I went, and it changed my life. It it helped with my recovery. It made, you know, the PTSD that I had was was overwhelming. The anxiety I attacks I had were constant.
Cathy:Mhmm.
Dave Mowry:And, you know, if from the stand up comedy class, what what happened was when I had to hear that song that triggered my thoughts of the dark days and the bad times and the break, instead of having a panic attack or anxiety attack or reliving that trauma, I'd I'd say, okay. Where can I find humor in that? And just that little switch from going back to those dark days by saying, where can I find the humor in that? It it, you know, it was transforming transformative. And then I found out I had a yeah.
Dave Mowry:It was magical. And I found out I had a talent for, writing jokes. I mean, I took the class of 59, so you're talking ballet boomers and and reinvention and and all that kinda I took the, STEM comic class of 59 and started performing at 60 and started teaching classes at 61. And hey. When you performed,
Cathy:did you find little clubs around town? Or how did you find an audience where you were?
Dave Mowry:We we did little clubs. We did events for other mental health for mental health organizations. Oh. And then, we had comics from different classes that were particularly, life out loud funny, so we put on some shows. We did Helium Comedy Club here in in town and, sold out.
Dave Mowry:We had a 185 people there.
Merry:That's great.
Dave Mowry:We had, we did Portland Center Stage, which is one of the premier, venues in Portland, and then we've done smaller. So we've done, you know, shows for, 200 people, shows for 20 people. We just you know? And the point is, here we are. We're people with serious mental illness.
Dave Mowry:We've lived our lives our whole life with it, And here we are. We're able to tell our stories, you know, one joke at a time, humanize it, show people that we're not dangerous, that we're just regular people, and help people who live with a mental illness, their family members, other people to find, you know, find the humor in their lives or to relate. I think that's the biggest thing is people relate to it. If someone, has had an experience and we tell a joke about that particular thing, the people who live, they laugh the hardest, and they laugh almost. And and I remember the first time I laughed after after my 14 last year.
Dave Mowry:It was, it was I just remember it was so amazing the first time.
Cathy:And
Dave Mowry:and I see other people, same thing happened with them, and, you know, they think, hey. I'm not so bad, and maybe I could do that. And a lot of people sign up for class.
Merry:Yeah. You mentioned PTSD. Do you work with veterans at all?
Dave Mowry:I haven't specifically worked with veterans, but it's something that I wanna do because it works particularly well for folks with PTSD. Yeah. And the thing we do go ahead.
Merry:Yeah. But you're still living with bipolar disorder and anxiety. How do you find humor where most people find pain and loss?
Dave Mowry:You know, there's a lot of pain and loss. I don't dwell on it. I can't dwell on it. I can't go back there. You mentioned my book, OMG, that's me.
Dave Mowry:And in that book, I wrote about my personal experiences, the hard times, the the really, you know, challenging times, and and what it was truly like. And but I've I've never been able to read the book. I've kinda read it a little bit back to front. I wrote it. I edited it.
Dave Mowry:I did all that, but I can't read it because it takes me back to the
Merry:Therapy.
Dave Mowry:Yeah. So so, you know, it it, you know, I I think one of my messages to folks when I talk to, people in groups and, you know, on podcast is, you know, I I didn't get stuck. It's so easy to get stuck and to think, this is how things are and how they're always gonna be. Took me years years years to accept the fact that I live with bipolar disorder, and and it still affects me now. And, so I it took years to accept it, but there's a big difference between exact and standard resignation.
Dave Mowry:Mhmm. I was never I I just never thought, okay. This this is always gonna be. I just kept trying.
Cathy:Did the title come from audience reaction saying, like, hearing your you speak and then they them saying, o m g. That's me? Is that an audience reaction?
Dave Mowry:It it was the the blog post for bphope.com. Uh-huh. Every time I wrote, and I wrote about I wrote about anxiety and living, you know, experiences that I had and wrote about it as, you know, as it being current and things. And people would read that, and they'd say, o m g. That's me.
Dave Mowry:You're telling my story. I I don't feel so alone now. Mhmm. So that was the response. That was the most common comment from from readers, the million folks that that read, you know, the blog post.
Dave Mowry:The most common comment was, OMG. That's me. Mhmm. And and, you know, that that gave me the idea. I I ended up I I had the title for the book before I even had the thought of writing the book or putting the book together.
Dave Mowry:Mhmm. And that gave me the impetus to put through the book. So, you know, it's kinda backwards, but I got the title first and then wrote the book.
Cathy:Whatever it takes. Right? I'm sure that people listening everything. Yeah. I'm sure people listening have an interesting vision when you talk about teaching stand up comedy to folks with a mental illness, including the criminally insane.
Cathy:So what is what's it really like? Can you describe the process to us? How do you do that?
Dave Mowry:Sure. Yeah. Sure. And folks that live with the mental illness, you know, they're all all sorts of there there's a, continuum, so people are at different places at different times. And, you know, someone's decompensating and is you know, needs to be in the hospital.
Dave Mowry:They, you know, they're not gonna fit in. It's not the class is not gonna work for them. But the class works for about 90% of folks with mental illness. Because first of all, you can be who you are. The more challenge you have challenges you have, the more material you have for comedy.
Merry:True.
Dave Mowry:And people start looking and thinking and the change in the thought process, and it's freeing. And so, you know, speaking of of teaching at the Oregon State Mental Hospital, you know, to to folks that were there, except for insanity. And, you know, we just get into a place where where we're just all together, where we are all comfortable with each other. You know, I live with mental illness. I had my challenges, my legal challenges, and so we're just folks that are there, and we have a lot in common.
Dave Mowry:And we just start. We talk about, you know, some of our experiences, some of our challenges, some of our hopes and dreams. And the first class is, like, a little bit of therapy introduction. 2nd class, we start talking about our experiences. 3rd class, we look for the humor.
Dave Mowry:Yeah.
Merry:So what does a a class look like?
Dave Mowry:We have 6 to 8 people generally.
Merry:But as far as Wednesday, we'd sit them down and and what would a
Dave Mowry:I see. Yeah.
Merry:Yeah.
Dave Mowry:Yeah. We've got a a a conference table or, some table of some kind that we sit around, and we've got the 6 to 8 people that are that are there. And, I make sure they all have notebooks. And so we go around to each individual, and we you know, they talk about some experience, part of their mental health, and some of their challenges. And then oftentimes, I'll identify a place.
Dave Mowry:They'll say something or talk about an experience, and I'll say, you know, there's a joke joke there. Write that down. There's a joke there. And we don't, at that point in time, necessarily go through and find create the joke at that point, but it's a start. And so we go around with folks and with everybody, and and we get, you know, everybody's got, you know, there's there's there's just humor everywhere, or I say it everywhere.
Dave Mowry:So, you know, we find places where there's jokes, where there's potential, and some of them work and tend to fruition. Some of them don't. One of the key things we do is we go everywhere. The the you know, everywhere we go and some of the jokes from the class, you know, we don't tell.
Merry:I could imagine.
Dave Mowry:Yeah. But we go everywhere. We talk about we talk about everything. We talk about, like, the folks at the Oregon State Hospital, the crimes they committed, the reasons they were there, and how they felt. And it was interesting in the beginning of the class, we went around and talked, and they gave the road answer that they give to all the therapists of the people when they meet with them.
Dave Mowry:Mhmm. You know? Yeah. I was yeah. I did this bad thing.
Dave Mowry:I'm, you know, contemplating it. I'm feeling better about it. I'm getting over it. I'm doing my work, blah blah blah blah blah. You know?
Dave Mowry:And and, you know, we don't we maybe they say that the first time, but then we go everywhere. And once once they start going everywhere, you know, this one got They
Cathy:get real. They get real
Dave Mowry:after that. Yeah. They talked about chasing somebody down, the street with a knife. And, you know, I I know you you know, there's humor there.
Merry:But you have a lot of success stories. I know I heard in o m g three, your chapter 6 is about Molly, a a doctor who lost her career due to due to her bipolar disaster disorder. Molly's performing comedy around Portland, Oregon. Now tell us more about her story.
Dave Mowry:Molly's mom brought her to class. Molly was a doctor, and she lost. She was unable to continue due to her bipolar disorder. She was that's everything she wanted to do from as young as she she was. She wanted to be a doctor and and practice in her hometown.
Dave Mowry:And then she lost that. And, she was suicidal. She was her mom brought her to class, and she said, look. Molly's suicidal. You know, can she join the class?
Dave Mowry:And it was kinda like, you know, see what happens. And and so Molly joined the class and started writing jokes. We started writing jokes for her and talking about it. One of her jokes is, little did did she know going through medical school that the MD after a name would stand for manic depressive?
Cathy:Wow.
Dave Mowry:So so it seems just like a, you know, a small thing, but in your mind, you're going from from you know, you're going to acceptance. And and then instead of Molly seeing herself as failed doctor, she sees herself as a as a stand up comedian. And, you know, that's that's who she is now. That's her that's her identity, and it's amazing to see it. Her mom told me, you know, I don't wanna over traumatize.
Dave Mowry:Her mom said, you know, you you know, the company saved her life. Mhmm. And,
Cathy:Yeah. I can see that. Do you think she was do you think she had bipolar disorder while she was in med school or came on her later in life?
Dave Mowry:Yeah. It it manifested earlier in in college, and she had some ups and downs. It just but with bipolar disorder, it comes on, and it just, you know, it gets worse as you get older. The the lows get lower and the highs get higher. And so that's what happened to Molly.
Merry:Well, is it is it inherited, or is it just something that that is in not necessarily in your genes? Do are there studies on that?
Dave Mowry:There are. And, most people, the the consensus now is that it's it's hereditary. It's somewhere because it's a chemical imbalance in the brain, and it doesn't just happen. Some people, though, it's there and it doesn't manifest itself or just does a little bit. But others, when they go through a trauma or into, experience a traumatic experience, something that could trigger and can make it worse and bring it on worse.
Dave Mowry:And with me, the, you know, the the the lows got lower and the highs got higher, and that's how, you know, that's just what happened. It got worse and worse, and that's how I lost everything.
Cathy:Mhmm. Well, on that note, what what do you advise people? What do you say to people who are facing hardship right now?
Dave Mowry:I say don't get stuck. You can accept that where you are is a tough place, and it's challenging, and it's bad, and it's rotten, and you don't deserve it, all those things. But don't get stuck there. There's another there's an opening. There's a there's there you can get through it.
Dave Mowry:You will get through it. It takes time. And if you can look, get out of your head just a little bit. And and one of the keys to getting out of your head that I teach is to do something nice for somebody every day. Look to do something nice for somebody, even the smallest thing.
Dave Mowry:And what that does is it gets us out of our head. We start thinking about other people, and then we start to heal. So that's one of the the things that I I work with people on. It's it's just small. So many of the things that really help are are simple things.
Dave Mowry:They're not big things. Mhmm. They just, you know, get out of your head. It it's it does get better. That's it is if you stick stick you know, if if you just don't give up, it does get better.
Dave Mowry:That's wonderful. Have to it doesn't happen all at once, and it's not meant you're not there because you're a bad person. And, you know, I I got knocked down on my knees so many times, and I just kept trying. And maybe I don't know why, but I kept trying, thinking, okay. I can do that.
Dave Mowry:So I'd go apply for a job, and 2 weeks later, I was unable to continue. But I I kept trying. I went back to college and, to get my degree when I was 45 and got my degree at 47. That's right. And it was hard.
Dave Mowry:I had panic attacks almost every day in classes, and it was one of the hardest thing, maybe the hardest thing I've ever done, but I kept going back. I kept trying. And, eventually, I got I got my degree.
Merry:Congratulations. Thanks. OMT, that's me. 3 just came out on audiobook, which, should make you feel really, really happy. But what should people expect to experience when they buy it and listen to it?
Dave Mowry:I think, you know, OMG, that's me. It's always been a great book, but it's the one about the comedy, and it's very hard to really communicate that. But the audiobook is truly amazing because what we were able to do is take the audiobook and cut in and splice in the live performance of the comics on stage. So you can hear them telling their jokes. You can hear the audience laughing.
Dave Mowry:And it really is you can you can really relate because, you know, Molly's up there telling a story one joke at a time. Martin is. Lorraine is. And and, I am. And you hear the audience laughing, and, you know, we've never bombed because we're sincere.
Dave Mowry:We're truly telling. We're honest, and we're open, and we're telling our story. Mhmm. And the jokes are laugh out loud funny. It just that's where we get.
Dave Mowry:There are a lot of jokes that don't make it up on stage, but the ones that do are laugh out loud funny.
Cathy:Yeah. That's neat. That's so neat. Well, you know, to pivot a little, this is kind of a dark subject, but you talk about sitting on a park bench with a gun in your hand. And today, you say your favorite joke is the one you tell about suicide.
Cathy:So why is this your favorite? And do you wanna share that joke with us?
Dave Mowry:Yeah. I will. It's my favorite because it is such a serious thing. It's not something that people joke about. You'll never hear somebody I I I don't know if you'll ever hear anybody else tell a joke about suicide.
Dave Mowry:If they do, it's in bad taste, and it's probably, you know, wrong. Yeah. But, you know, I sat on the park bench. I had to get on my lap, and I didn't pull the trigger. I I can't say exactly why, but I didn't, fortunately.
Dave Mowry:But, yeah, the suicide joke. Okay. So when I was having a a really, really particularly bad, hard time, I went up into the bathroom, and I took a bunch of pills. Afterwards, I called down to my wife for help. She said there are more pills under the sink.
Cathy:Well, that's a helpful one.
Dave Mowry:Takes a minute, doesn't it?
Merry:Oh, shit.
Cathy:That's a helpful one. Yeah.
Merry:Not enough. Oh my goodness.
Dave Mowry:She's very supportive. Very supportive. She loves that. She loves that joke. People say, hey.
Dave Mowry:What does your wife think about that? And I she loves it.
Cathy:Does she
Cathy:not say?
Dave Mowry:Got, couple yeah. She does. And and there's a couple that I tell that aren't mental health related. When when when I was 20, I worried about what people were thinking about me. At 40, I stopped worrying about what people were thinking about me.
Dave Mowry:And at 60, I realized they weren't thinking about me at
Merry:all. Right. Yeah. That's so true. They're thinking about themselves.
Dave Mowry:That's right. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, I had my last years, but I still I mean, I I've got I I feel feel I've got so many things that I wanna do, writing the new book and doing different things and and helping other people. But, and people say, you know, you you're getting older.
Dave Mowry:Is that, you know, is that realistic? And I say, well, 70 is the new 60. And I had my 14 lost years, so, actually, I'm only 46.
Cathy:That's great. Good math. Oh, jeez. Comedian math.
Dave Mowry:Yeah. Yeah. Good math.
Merry:I I think we should yeah. Actually, we we should all turn the numbers around until we can't. That's exactly right. Over again.
Dave Mowry:Exactly right. And then, I do have a joke about, you know, when when in mania, you have hypersexuality. You you obsess about sex, And that was true with me. And fortunately, I didn't act on it. I didn't have an affair or anything.
Dave Mowry:I was too inept for that, I think. But, today, I I can tell, when whether I'm manic or depressed. And usually, I can't, but I can tell when I'm manic or depressed because when I'm depressed, I it's everything I can do. I do everything I can to get out of bed. And when I'm manic, I do everything I can to get my wife into bed.
Cathy:Okay.
Merry:I love that. Dave, what about learning and teaching and performing stand up comedy changed your life?
Dave Mowry:The the change in the thought process from being sad, I was
Merry:sad the chemical process in your brain too?
Dave Mowry:No. It was it was the pathways. And that's kinda like, cognitive behavioral therapy. When we have, like in PTSD, you something triggers you, you have a particular thought, you go back to that trauma. CBT, tries to get you to think about a different thing or create another pathway.
Dave Mowry:And that's what comedy did for me is create a new pathways. Mhmm. So, plasticity is another way to say it, you know, that that's happening. So so that's what what comedy did for me is it it, you know, it gave me a new way to think about things. It it created new pathways in my brain.
Dave Mowry:So I wasn't when I did get triggered, I didn't go back to that traumatic experience and relive the hardship and the trauma. I thought, where can I find the humor in that? I start writing jokes, and I've written hundreds of jokes. And and a lot of jokes, obviously, for people that take the class. I write I help them write the jokes.
Dave Mowry:I write a lot of the jokes. And then I tell you, I just sometimes, I just start thinking and the jokes just come. I've got simple jokes. Oftentimes, they're just simple, silly jokes.
Cathy:Well, what's the other one?
Dave Mowry:Do you know the difference between a French bulldog and an American bulldog? No. The accent.
Cathy:So I know.
Merry:But the cold is the sure.
Dave Mowry:Yeah. And some of it's serious. You know, the mental health stuff is serious and, can be, and it changes people's lives. But, you know, the other stuff is just fun and silly, and, it's really nice to be at a place where my mind can go there. And I'm not depressed.
Dave Mowry:I'm not overwhelmed, and I'm not you know, my mind can go there, and I can be creative again.
Merry:Yeah. Good.
Cathy:Yeah. And what Dave, what would you like our listeners to have as a takeaway today? And in the course of that, tell everyone where they can reach you.
Dave Mowry:Okay. I I think the takeaway is that, you know, as we get older, there are new, opportunities. There are new things that are gonna be happening, and some of them are gonna work, some of them aren't, but be open to those opportunities. Mhmm. Don't again, a big one.
Dave Mowry:Don't get stuck. If if you've had your job and that was your purpose, then now you're not working and you're thinking, okay. Is this as good as it gets? Am I gonna be stuck here? You know, don't get stuck.
Dave Mowry:Just look for opportunities. Look to volunteer. Look to do different things. Don't get stuck. And and the other one is, look to do something nice for somebody.
Dave Mowry:It is, if you can do that in a marriage, you'll be happily married. And by doing something nice for somebody, it makes us feel good too, and we end up being happy. So those are the things, I think, to take away. And, you know, there's humor everywhere, and, it's okay to look for the humor in life, even the hard things.
Cathy:Mhmm.
Dave Mowry:And as far as getting a hold of me, the best way to reach me is on Facebook and leave a a message on Facebook. I respond to all of them. If you're interested in just talking more, if, you know, something I've said or we've talked about has touched you, you've got personal challenges with mental health. You have a family member with, mental health challenges. You know, I I I'm happy to talk to you about that.
Dave Mowry:If, you're interested in the comedy, the humor, I'm happy to help you with that. So, yeah, reach out to me. This is kind of you know, I got a lot going on. I I manage a mental health nonprofit here in town. Mhmm.
Dave Mowry:I teach the stand up comedy. I'm working on the new book about recovery. And, you know, I I got stuff going on, but but, you know, that's working with people, doing something nice for somebody. It's this that simple. It's worked for me doing something nice for somebody.
Dave Mowry:That means responding to the messages. And if somebody wants some help with something or just wants to talk about something, that's my opportunity to do something nice for somebody. And, it works for both of us. You are
Merry:a wonderful example for everybody out there and inspiration. Thank you so much, Dave. Our guest today on Late Boomers has been Dave Mowery, comic and teacher of comedy and author of oh my OMG, that's me, and OMG, that's me 3. And, again, you can reach Dave at Facebook and order his books on Amazon. Thank you, Dave.
Dave Mowry:Hey. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Cathy. Really appreciate having having you having me on.
Cathy:You're so welcome. We wanna thank our listeners for subscribing to our podcast and checking us out on YouTube and recommending us to your friends. We appreciate you. We'd love to have you give us a 5 star review, and we wanna hear about your experiences with late boomers and what gets you inspired. We're on Instagram at I am Cathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins and at late boomers.
Cathy:Thanks. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks again, Dave.
Dave Mowry:Thank you. Bye bye.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers, The podcast that is your guide to creating a 3rd act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful 3rd act with your own style, power, and impact.
