Amid the fears and laughter
CELIA PACQUOLA HAS TALKED ABOUT HER OWN STRUGGLES WITH ANXIETY. NOW, OTHERS OPEN UP TO HER
SHE has toured the country and the world performing stand-up; created, written, starred in a hit TV show; is a regular panellist on Have You Been Paying Attention – Celia Pacquola’s list of achievements is lengthy.
She’s also among one in six Australians currently experiencing depression or anxiety or both.
Pacquola has always been open about her mental health struggles in her comedy shows and now in a doco for SBS as part of the network’s eight-part documentary series Australia Uncovered.
She laughs – in her usual selfdeprecating fashion – as she exclaims that she very much did not approach them with the idea for the doco. “Absolutely not – but, look, I will agree to do anything if it is far enough in the future,” Pacquola says. “I do it all the time, so if someone goes ‘Oh Celia, can I have one of your kidneys?’, I will go, ‘I don’t know. When do you need it?’ ‘Six months’ and I’ll be like, ‘totally’. Because (in my head) six months will never get here.
“Everything I agree to, I honestly think when it turns up – be it a gig or whatever – that I will be prepared and I’ll be excited to do it and I’ll be a different person.
“It is never the case. But I try and tell myself that there’ll be a time when I look back and go, ‘I did it’. “But being scared is not a reason for me to say no.” Pacquola confesses there were many times she wished, however, she had said no.
“I thought I’d be OK (with the doco) because I’m used to being open about it,” Pacquola says. “My anxiety is not a secret. I talk about it all the time. But what I found confronting was trying to be available and honour the people I was meeting because I am not a professional psychologist.
“These are real people with real trauma and it’s very full-on to go from meeting someone and then within 10 minutes have them talking to me about really personal things, the darkest times of their life and me trying to think of the right things to say.”
Pacquola needn’t have worried – she’s perfect as she chats with people such as former Sydney Swans premiership player Mitch Morton, who details his battles with anxiety and how before every single match he would vomit; fourtime Logie winning actor Hugh Sheridan, who talks about when he was hospitalised after an anxiety attack last year; and actor singer Clare Bowditch who wrote about her own struggles in Your Own Kind of Girl.
Fortunately, it wasn’t all stress. Pacquola, 38, loved chatting with experts, and she really enjoyed meeting others and sharing their lived experiences.
“Even though people were talking to me about a time when they were going through dark stuff, they were so excited to try to help other people so they didn’t have to go through that or have it last as long. Every one has real hope and solutions and ideas.”
Pacquola hopes the doco will help people – those who know they have anxiety and are looking for ideas how to treat it, those who love someone who has anxiety and they don’t quite understand it, and those who have feelings of every day anxiety and don’t know they do.
“That was me for the longest time,” she shares, and adds that while she has been working on managing her own anxiety for some years, she still struggles with the idea that treatment might inherently change who she is.
“(As a comedian) you have to overthink and that’s where I get a lot of stress from,” Pacquola says. “I have to look inward and I want my mind to be running fast. It makes me want to achieve and not let anyone down. That’s the scary thing which stopped me from getting treatment for a long time because I thought – ‘this is what makes me interesting. This is part of who I am. I don’t want to be happy and boring’ – which is not really a thing.”
Pacquola is back in the thick of Melbourne’s lockdown when we chat, and like many others in these uncertain times, has noted a surge in her anxiety. “I know the things I’ve got to do,” she says. “But I’m OK. I’ve got a therapist here and I’m glad work has calmed down.
“I hate that it feels like we are just surviving, not thriving. I can’t wait for this to be over. But I am in a very lucky position. I’m still able to work. Watching Rosehaven (her series with best friend Luke McGregor) is getting me through.”
Pacquola laughs again when I ask if she would put her hand up for the doco knowing what she knows now. “No, well, I mean I would, knowing the result,” she says. “Once again I’m happy that I did it. And I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of it as a piece of work.
“But I’m in no rush to do it again. I’d like to hide in the scripted world for a while. It hasn’t ignited in me a passion for doing documentaries. It has ignited in me a passion for helping and trying to explore subjects I’m interested in.
“Maybe in a year I’ll be ready.”