About David Stand Up For Mental Health Comedian™
David Granirer, RPC, MPCC, M.S.M, is a counselor, mental health comedian, stand-up comic, and mental health keynote speaker. David, who himself has bipolar has taught stand-up comedy to recovering addicts and cancer patients, and founded Stand Up For Mental Health™, his award-winning program teaching comedy to people with mental health issues in 2004. His work is featured by media worldwide and in the VOICE Award winning Passionate Eye documentary Cracking Up and the award-winning Australian documentary Crack Up.
To book David email david@standupformentalhealth.com
He has trained Stand Up For Mental Health™ groups in partnership with various mental health organizations in over 50 cities in Canada, the U.S., and Australia.
He is the recipient of an Award of Excellence from National Council for Behavioral Health for his work using comedy to de-stigmatize mental illness.
He also received a Champion of Mental Health Award. These national awards recognize individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of the mental health agenda in Canada.
He is also the recipient of a Life Unlimited Award presented by the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance. This is a national award given to individuals who live a life unlimited by their mood disorders and inspire others to do the same.
His program also won a Rotary Shine On Award in Australia for special achievement in mental health.
He was also awarded a Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General of Canada for his work with Stand Up For Mental Health.
And he was recognized as one of the 150 Canadian Difference Makers in mental health.
Since 2004 David and his comics have performed over 500 shows for mental health organizations, government departments, corporations, universities, correctional facilities, and the military.
He also teaches Stand-Up Comedy Clinic at Langara College in Vancouver, where he takes people from all walks of life who have had a secret desire to do stand-up comedy and after eight weeks has them on stage performing at a comedy club.
David got the idea for Stand Up For Mental Health™ from watching students in his Langara Stand-Up Comedy Clinic course. “I’ve had students overcome long standing depressions and phobias, not to mention increasing their confidence and self-esteem. There’s something incredibly healing about telling a roomful of people exactly who you are and having them laugh and cheer.”
David depression began when he was 16. After an increasing downward spiral of drinking and relying on prescription drugs he attempted suicide by overdosing on pills and was taken to the psych ward. He remained there for 6-weeks before being released. He states, “Upon my release, I felt this crippling shame, this horrible sense of being flawed and bad. Unfortunately there was no education at the time and no one explained to me what I was going through. Back then no one talked about mental illness, you just knew it was something terrible and unacceptable.”
“I remember going around thinking, ‘I am nothing, I am no one.’ My whole personality changed from being an extrovert to a hermit who isolated and avoided people. I’d be walking down the street and see someone I knew and run around the block to hide from them.”
Since then he has received years of therapy and taken medication while still enduring periodic bouts of depression.
“Seeing people talking about their mental health issues through comedy would have made such a difference to me at that point in my life. To have mental illness brought out of the closet in that way, to have role models who were funny and courageous would have been huge in helping me to overcome my shame. It would have given me hope that recovery is possible.”
Stand Up For Mental Health™ has been featured in hundreds of media stories throughout the English speaking world. All the coverage has been overwhelmingly positive, thus helping to create acceptance and fight the stigma around mental illness.
David is also author of The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst Can Lead to Happiness and Success. The book’s premise is that people can be happy, productive, and well-adjusted while remaining as neurotic as ever. Says David, “I got tired of all those self-help books that say you have to be completely confident and spiritually centered in order to succeed. I think those books set people up to fail. I’m basically a neurotic guy, and my fear and anxiety are a fabulous source of motivation. And I think there are lots of people out there like that. We need to be able to celebrate our neurotic ways of getting things done rather than feel ashamed of them.”
In addition, David also gives laughter in the workplace presentations to hundreds of organizations across North America, helping them use humor to decrease stress, increase wellness and cope with change.