An unknown speaker (referred to in the transcript as ”Zach”) delivers a darkly comedic stand-up set weaving together deeply personal mental health disclosures: childhood depression, the later revelation that his father”s death was a suicide, his own Ambien overdose in college, a history of talking friends down from suicide, and a strong advocacy for therapy. The set balances raw vulnerability with humor to normalize help-seeking behavior.’
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Transcript
[00:09:37] thank you i’ve dealt with depression since i was very young probably been like eight or nine
[00:09:45] and i had a big life trauma at 11. so it’s great to know like ha i would have been up regardless
[00:09:54] you didn’t do this to the universe this did this
[00:10:01] my dad died in a car accident when i was 11.
[00:10:04] and so that just made the depression kind of worse the only thing that was really good about
[00:10:09] that was because i built that ship i was very young by the time my friends in high school
[00:10:13] started dealing depression i was ready i’d been through the tour i knew what to say i knew what
[00:10:20] to do
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[00:10:23] 10th grade, the one night, I’m talking to my friend over AOL’s messenger, yeah, I take
[00:10:29] the story pretty well, and I find out that he is actually suicidal, and so we’re talking,
[00:10:37] I’m trying to convince him to like, you know, keep talking to me, I’m so thankful we didn’t
[00:10:41] have dial-up at the time, so I could also make phone calls while I typed, so I contact
[00:10:48] another friend, and he gets his dad to drive us to my buddy’s house at 2 in the morning,
[00:10:53] to talk him down for possibly killing himself, and my buddy’s dad, who came along, is a minister,
[00:10:59] so he’s used to talking to people in crisis, I led the talk, I said everything, and apparently
[00:11:08] my friend’s dad said about him the next day, it was so amazing seeing Zach talk, it was
[00:11:12] like the Lord was talking through me, did I get suicide prevention stolen valor?
[00:11:23] Like, I’m an agnostic, this was me, give me some fucking credit.
[00:11:33] In fact, I came to Pittsburgh, I grew up in Lancaster County, which is a place where you
[00:11:37] do not talk about emotions, so I’m very glad this kind of thing exists, and my mental health
[00:11:42] was at its absolute worst when I was in college, to the extent where I very thankfully survived
[00:11:48] my own suicide attack in college.
[00:11:50] Thank you, I’m glad to be here.
[00:11:53] I’ve always had trouble with insomnia, so when I was in college, my doctor gave me a
[00:11:56] prescription for Ambien.
[00:11:57] Woo!
[00:11:59] No!
[00:12:01] That is not a woo!
[00:12:04] Ambien’s a thing that almost killed me!
[00:12:07] Don’t woo the thing that almost killed me!
[00:12:12] And I built, the problem with it was that I built up a tolerance to it, so I can get
[00:12:17] real fucked up and not fall asleep.
[00:12:19] And I didn’t drink or do drugs in college.
[00:12:22] In fact, I actually…
[00:12:23] Because I got into punk rock when I was in college, I referred to myself as straight
[00:12:26] edge.
[00:12:27] Woo!
[00:12:28] And it takes a really special kind of denial to get fucked up on pills while calling yourself
[00:12:32] straight edge.
[00:12:33] And I was so fucked up, and I couldn’t fall asleep, and I was depressed, and I realized
[00:12:41] I just want to stop.
[00:12:44] I don’t care if I live, I don’t care if I die, I don’t care if I fall asleep, I just
[00:12:47] want to stop.
[00:12:48] And I’ve been abusing them for like a year and a half, two years.
[00:12:51] So I took a few, and went to bed, and I woke up what felt like half an hour or so later,
[00:13:01] threw up, and then went back to bed.
[00:13:04] Because I was so fucked up, I didn’t think, oh, there’s a problem here.
[00:13:08] In fact, I remembered that how I threw up looked like black coffee grounds coming out
[00:13:14] of me.
[00:13:16] And then I thought, wait, that’s right!
[00:13:18] Ambien makes you hallucinate!
[00:13:20] There’s no way I threw up black coffee grounds!
[00:13:23] And I remembered getting it all in the toilet.
[00:13:26] I didn’t get it all in the toilet.
[00:13:29] It looked like someone had taken a can of black spray paint to my bathroom.
[00:13:35] Do it!
[00:13:36] And I was so stuck in my own life and my own struggles, it was this thing that I’ve
[00:13:41] talked five people out of killing themselves in my life.
[00:13:45] Woo!
[00:13:46] And not counting myself, to be clear.
[00:13:49] I’ve done that plenty of times.
[00:13:53] And the inability to talk about things has so shaped my life.
[00:13:57] In fact, the car accident my dad died in when I was 11 was actually a suicide.
[00:14:03] Aww.
[00:14:06] That he had left a note, and only my mom and my uncle knew about it for 25 years.
[00:14:13] And folks, I am so goddamn thankful I learned that when I was unemployed.
[00:14:17] Yeah.
[00:14:18] Because imagine making that call off.
[00:14:21] Yeah, hey, it’s Zach.
[00:14:22] I need a day off or two.
[00:14:24] I just found out my dad killed himself.
[00:14:26] When?
[00:14:27] 25 years ago?
[00:14:35] Uh, no, no, no, no, I knew he was dead.
[00:14:38] No, it’s not that part.
[00:14:39] No.
[00:14:45] And the HR person doesn’t know what to do.
[00:14:48] So they put you on hold.
[00:14:50] Then the hold music starts playing, and it’s Cats in the Cradle.
[00:15:02] And then they get back to you, and they’re like,
[00:15:06] Yeah, sorry, old family secrets aren’t in the Lowe’s handbook.
[00:15:13] You have to come mix paint tomorrow.
[00:15:15] Yeah.
[00:15:16] Yeah.
[00:15:17] And then, you know, we don’t really talk about traumatic stuff in our lives.
[00:15:20] So word would get around work, and some well-meaning person would get me a sympathy card.
[00:15:24] You know, it’d be Garfield.
[00:15:26] And the outside of the card says,
[00:15:28] So, you have to recontextualize 25 years of childhood trauma.
[00:15:31] You open it up, the inside of the card says,
[00:15:34] But at least it’s not a Monday.
[00:15:40] And the crazy thing, again, folks, because we aren’t, we don’t, let me talk about this.
[00:15:44] My dad didn’t get the help he needed, because he felt like he couldn’t talk about this.
[00:15:48] In his letter, he said, don’t tell anyone I did this.
[00:15:51] My mom held on to this.
[00:15:55] And my mom’s plan was actually to take this to the grave.
[00:15:58] She was never going to tell anybody, as he requested.
[00:16:01] But during the torture,
[00:16:03] There’s some, I’ve heard some crazy shit in here.
[00:16:05] I heard someone once say, you know, if I haven’t learned it about myself in 49 years, I don’t need to know it.
[00:16:12] And I just want to be like, I will do it.
[00:16:13] I just want to be like, I will donate my year’s salary for you to go to therapy right now.
[00:16:17] Four months straight.
[00:16:19] Holy shit.
[00:16:20] There is some crazy shit that happens here.
[00:16:22] And everybody, I mean, I think, I’m a big proponent of therapy.
[00:16:26] Does everybody, anybody here go in therapy?
[00:16:32] Do we like our therapists?
[00:16:34] Are we fans?
[00:16:35] Yeah?
[00:16:36] That’s good.
[00:16:37] I’m recently with a new therapist.
[00:16:38] I like them so far.
[00:16:40] You don’t need to know who they are.
[00:16:42] Yeah.
[00:16:43] It’s a secret.
[00:16:44] I treat a therapist like a punk band.
[00:16:46] Someone’s like, who’s your therapist?
[00:16:47] I’m like, you fucking haven’t heard of them.
[00:16:49] Get out of here.
[00:16:52] You know what I mean?
[00:16:54] Because I had a therapist the first time that I was like, well, maybe I can’t figure this all out as a white man.
[00:17:00] You know?
[00:17:01] Maybe I should talk to someone.
[00:17:02] I went to a therapist who was about to retire.
[00:17:06] So good.
[00:17:07] Yeah.
[00:17:08] They’re in it.
[00:17:09] But I went, oh, this is going to be a good therapist.
[00:17:12] He’s a rabbi, right?
[00:17:13] I mean, he’s going to, you know, he’s a therapist and a rabbi.
[00:17:16] I’m going to get spiritual.
[00:17:17] I’m going to get clinical.
[00:17:18] I’m going to get a guy that would agree to see me on his lunch break.
[00:17:22] That’s how he fit me into his schedule.
[00:17:24] And he ate lunch every session.
[00:17:26] And I remember being in there and talking about something.
[00:17:29] And I go, you know, my brother and I shared a room for 18 years.
[00:17:32] I was saying something along the lines of this.
[00:17:34] Like, my brother and I shared a room for 18 years.
[00:17:36] But we never really had a conversation, which is like a breakthrough for me.
[00:17:41] And I looked over and he was reading the cap of his Snapple.
[00:17:45] And I was like, fuck, what do I need to bring up for him to be like, well, I’ll read this thing about how platypuses run fast later.
[00:17:54] Like, fuck that.
[00:17:56] Two levels of drinking.
[00:17:58] And that was first drink of the night and blackout drunk buying switchblades on Amazon.
[00:18:04] Does everybody here know that you can buy a switchblade on Amazon?
[00:18:08] Everyone?
[00:18:09] Yes.
[00:18:10] One person.
[00:18:11] Just one person.
[00:18:12] Well, here’s a little bit of information for you.
[00:18:15] Even if you don’t have Prime, they give you free shipping when you buy 24 of them.
[00:18:22] Yeah.
[00:18:23] You’re like, hey, make it worth my while, you know.
[00:18:26] Because here’s how much I used to drink.
[00:18:29] I was at a barbecue when I drank.
[00:18:31] And they were talking about opening an Amazon fulfillment center near where I live.
[00:18:35] And people were going, it’s going to fuck up the neighborhood.
[00:18:37] It’s going to be bad for the road.
[00:18:39] Here’s how much I drank.
[00:18:40] I defended Amazon, everybody.
[00:18:42] I heard them saying that and I was like, Jeff needs me.
[00:18:45] Come on.
[00:18:46] Amazon is the greatest thing to ever happen to the world.
[00:18:51] You can buy anything there.
[00:18:52] Duh.
[00:18:53] I bet you could buy switchblades.
[00:18:55] And then I pulled out my phone and then it was tomorrow.
[00:18:58] And then the day after that, there was a box on my porch.
[00:19:06] And this happened a lot when I drank.
[00:19:08] So I was like, ooh, I got myself a present.
[00:19:09] All right.
[00:19:10] What’s in here?
[00:19:11] 24 switchblades.
[00:19:12] Fucking weird, but okay.
[00:19:13] And I didn’t do the smart thing with them, you know.
[00:19:14] I didn’t take them to Whole Foods and one by one put them into the box and send them
[00:19:15] back, you know.
[00:19:16] I was about to go out and do some shows on the road.
[00:19:17] And I went, I know what I’ll do.
[00:19:18] I’ll write my Instagram handle on them and sell them as merch.
[00:19:19] That’ll be hilarious.
[00:19:20] People will love that.
[00:19:21] And I was doing shows where I was openly drinking.
[00:19:22] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:23] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:24] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:25] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:26] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:27] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:39] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:19:52] And I’d go, I got switchblades.
[00:20:02] And I’d go, I got switchblades.