- Joined
- Sep 17, 2015
So I never knew that Spoony was on Doug's abandoned talk show, Shut Up and Talk. The audio here is god awful but watching Spoony talk about mental illness here is fascinating, especially in hindsight. This would have been recorded roughly around the time Noah gave up completely and the Patreon began its decline, and you can see him choking up. He's a different person from the Twitter maniac he would become.
In response to Doug asking what he feels is the best way to help those with depression:
"It's a matter of understanding. So when they tell you what's going on, you know, well - that's the thing, they may not necessarily tell you what's going on. Understand that, especially in the case of comedians and stuff like that - because you've noticed a lot of comedians who are having problems lately - that a lot of times they'll put up a front, 'cause that's the only way they know how to deal with something. A lot of times their way of coping with something is they'll try to like, push you away or reject you. Understand that when someone is trying to kinda... call out for help. And you can tell. You can tell, do you know what I mean? And just make yourself available. You don't need to force yourself on them. Like, you don't need to have an intervention or something like that. You don't need to kick down the door and be like 'I'm trying to help you!', you know? You don't need to have them committed or something like that. But just knowing that somebody cares, that somebody is willing to pick up the problem. That's big, you know? And I think that's a lot of problem is... they don't feel like they have anybody to call."
Sound like anyone you know?
"All you have to do is just ask, like 'You okay?'. That's it. That's all it takes. And from there, it's up to that person to say yes or no. Because you have to want help, you have to accept it, but you know, you can't force it. That's the two-step process. And so I couldn't blame you, and you couldn't lay blame on me for not accepting the help. But I had to realise what was going on and I had to go ask for help."
But I mean, there you have it. By his own admission he had people trying to help him and he said no, something he would continue doing until he ended up where is now.