Coping with mental illness: Comedian offers personal perspective
Gab Bonesso speaks during Dan Miller’s Disability Summit.
Harry Funk /The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
State Rep. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, introduces Gab Bonessso during his sixth annual Disability Summit at Beth El Congregation in Scott Township.
King Solomon in Proverbs 17:22 may have been the first to suggest laughter as the best medicine, in which case he’d be proud of Gab Bonesso.
She travels the country – “I’ve even been to Mexico” – to conduct anti-bullying and mental health advocacy programs for children, with their effectiveness tied to her ability as a professional comedian to interject humor into otherwise weighty matters.
Gab Bonesso travels the United States with programs featuring original music, interactive comedy and educational discussion to explore themes of tolerance, positive expression, bullying awareness and the use of creativity as an alternative to negative expression.
Standup comedian, columnist, actress and children’s performer: They’re all in Gab Bonesso’s résumé.
Bonesso has won the title of “Best Comedian in Pittsburgh” three times, as voted by readers of two city publications. She has opened for headliners such as Richard Lewis, Brain Posehn, Tommy Chong, John Hodgman, Kurt Branholer, Dustin Diamond, Adam Sank and Lizz Winstead, and will precede Jen Kirkland on April 24 at the Rex Theater in the South Side.
In 2011, Bonesso teamed up with Pittsburgh-based musician Josh Verbanets to co-create “The Josh and Gab Show,” an anti-bullying rock ‘n’ roll comedy stage program for children.
She also tours with the Gab Squad, a combination of classroom-style discussion, interactive talk show, pop concert, dance party and standup comedy special. The program explores themes of tolerance, positive expression, bullying awareness, and above all, the use of creativity as an alternative to negative expression.
In 2017, Bonesso was the first comedian signed to Misra Records and released her first album, “Everyone’s Dead.”
For more information, visit gabbonesso.com and gabsquad.com.
“In my standup, I also advocate for mental health, because it’s who I am,” she said, “and standup comedy is a very autobiographical form of art.”
And so members of her audiences hear about what she’s encountered throughout her life and how those experiences have led to continuing battle with conditions that she’s not shy about discussing.
“If you are someone who has a mental health disorder, I beg you to be honest and open about it,” she advised. “The more we talk about it, the more we get rid of the stigma.”
Bonesso made a departure from her usual club appearances and opening for nationally known comics to serve as keynote speaker during a recent Disability Summit in Scott Township hosted by state Rep. Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon.
She presented plenty of revelations about herself, from suffering trauma and the effects of bullying as a child and teenager to coping while still young with the deaths of both her parents, John and Starla Bonesso.
Gab said that her mother recognized early that her daughter had issues, and although she declined to pursue therapy, Starla encouraged an active lifestyle: “every sport there is – go, go, go – and I would just be out exercising for hours at a time.”
“She also introduced me to art,” Gab recalled. “My mother felt that if I could express myself, maybe the rage would go away. Those were things that really helped, and they are still things I use as therapies to this day.”
Her father died of cancer when she was in college, at which point she started taking medication for depression that “numbed me out, bothered my stomach.”
“I lost 30 pounds. I was a shell of myself,” she said. “I was physically getting sick, and I knew it wasn’t helping me. It was taking the spark that is Gab away.
“At that point, I had to make a decision: Do I get off these meds and try something else, or do I just stay numb the rest of my life? So I decided to go off the medicine.”
She made it clear that the type of decision she made may not be for everyone.
“I’m not saying you don’t need medicine,” she asserted. “But if your stomach can’t handle it, if you’re having really bad side effects, you might need to talk about some other things to help yourself.”
Bonesso works out up to three hours each day. She plays music. She plays video games. She eats properly, avoids alcohol – “It helps for a second and then makes everything a thousand times worse” – and takes deep breaths to help calm her.
“There’s a lot of trial and error, and there’s a lot of putting the effort in,” she admitted. “It’s not easy for me to say. Every day of my life is a challenge, and I don’t think people get that.”
Her friends and her audiences get to see the up side, the fun side, of Gab. As for the down side, she thinks about what her late mother told her.
“Baby, you’re bipolar. You need to ride the wave. Ride the wave. Sometimes the wave is going to crash you, and you’re down. But then there are these moments where you’re on top of the wave, and you feel life like nobody. And it’s going to happen again.”
And, even more importantly, a little confidence.
“I know you don’t have faith in yourself. I know that you don’t see you the way I see you. But I have such faith in you. So when you are without faith, have faith in my faith, and that will keep you going.”
Miller keeps going with his annual Disability Summit, with 2019 marking its sixth year at Beth El Congregation in Scott Township. This year’s three-day event featured workshops, presentations and legislative discussions, plus the region’s most extensive resource fair, with more than 120 exhibiting organizations.
For 2020, he said the location is likely to change to make the event more regionally oriented, and the focus will be on celebrating the 30th anniversary of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Dan Miller helps Gab Bonesso take questions from audience members following her talk.