Joanne McNally has revealed how comedy “saved” her life.
The brunette was working in PR before she sought treatment for her eating disorders, which eventually led to her pursuing a career as a stand-up comic.
“It was self-preservation really. I was unhappy with everything in my life.
“Work was part of that. I don’t know if I would have recovered as well if I hadn’t had comedy to keep me feeling good. So it saved me in a way,” she told the Sunday Independent.
Therapeutic: Joanne says comedy saved her life | VIPIRELAND.COM
In fact, it was Joanne’s issues growing up and her struggle with anorexia and bulimia that provided her with so much material for stand-up.
The comedienne grew up in Dalkey, and as child found out that she and her brother had been adopted.
“You have this idea from television or whatever, that it’s going to be so dramatic. Me and my biological mother didn’t fall out but we just reached the point where we couldn’t be in touch any more.
“My biological father and me are fine, I’ll hopefully go out to Australia to meet him after I’ve done Edinburgh. He seems really sound. I got lucky. I didn’t have contact with their kids. I think I expected there’d be this immediate overwhelming connection and that’s not what happens,” she explained.
Joanne also opened up about suffering with both anorexia and bulimia, and admitted that she was “possessed” by it.
“I had to have both because I’m competitive,” she joked. “An eating disorder is a bastard of an illness. I was in and out of psychiatrist’s and psychologist’s offices.
Past: Joanne has struggled with anorexia and bulimia in the past | VIPIRELAND.COM
“For a long time they wanted to talk about my adoption or my dad dying (her adoptive father died a number of years ago). If I’d been limping along semi-functionally, I might have just kept going.
“In a way I’m lucky that mine was so bad I needed treatment. I was possessed by it,” she revealed.
“You get to the point where you think that the only thing you have to offer is how you look. I think a lot of people think like that. It was bigger than being attractive — it had to do with work as well. I thought nothing would go right unless I was skinny.
“With bulimia you’re stuffing stuff into yourself and it may be to do with not expressing yourself. In treatment you get sick of talking about yourself; I’d veer between thinking maybe yeah it was because I burned my mouth with a pop tart when I was a child, and then I’d think maybe it’s just a diet that got out of control.”
Joanne hid her disorder from her friends and family, but eventually it led to even more destructive behaviour.
“It got progressively worse to the point I was bulimic anorexia. I felt like having any food at all in me was like having maggots in me but then I would eat a lot quickly because the fuller you are, the bigger the purge, and the high comes from the purge.
Destructive: Joanne says she was “possessed” by her disorder | VIPIRELAND.COM
“I was addicted to the emptiness. I’d get sick in the back of a bar. I was shoplifting for a while,” she said.
Joanne revealed that writing and comedy was therapeutic in her recovery, but it was her friend and fellow comedian PJ Gallagher who convinced her to branch into stand-up comedy.
She is now one of the most successful stand-up comics in Ireland, and will go to the Edinburgh Festival later this year, but she warns that it’s not as easy as it looks.
“If I’m chatting to a man I’ll say I’m a stand-up and he’ll say ‘oh I’ve been meaning to do that myself’. I don’t think they understand, it’s not a whim, it’s a fairly hard life.
“You wait all month, then you get two minutes, then you die in your hole. Then you wait another month to do it all again,” she added.
