Mental Illness Awareness Week kicks off (+video)

When John Shuchart decided to commit suicide, he didn’t realize he’d also started his career as a comedic writer.

Shuchart, who kicked off Mental Illness Awareness Week in Wichita on Sunday evening with a talk at Newman University, told a crowd of around 100 that he’d found humor to be his best weapon against depression.

But first his best friend, Eric, had to help him step back and see how funny it all was.

A few years ago, Shuchart learned that the reportedly most painless way to die was by carbon monoxide poisoning, but he didn’t want to do it at home. So he went looking for a storage facility he could park his car in, and found a great deal.

But he had to pick up his prescription first and then forgot where the storage facility was located. He started researching storage lockers on the Internet and found some offered great deals: “The first month free with a lease of two years.”

He called his friend Eric and told him he needed help deciding which storage facility to lease in which to commit suicide.

Eric dropped the phone and came right over.

Eric told Shuchart that shopping for a storage facility to commit suicide in was ridiculous; Shuchart could use Eric’s garage. “Now that’s a true friend,” Shuchart said.

Eric also asked Shuchart what he was going to eat for his last meal. Shuchart didn’t know but thought maybe a medium blizzard with pecans at Dairy Queen.

“Why a medium?” Eric asked him. “Why not a large?”

Shuchart was stumped and started laughing. He felt better.

The endorphins kicked in, he said, which helped counteract the physical causes of his depression. Shuchart told Eric some more stories, including the time his 12-year-old ran over him with a lawnmower, which eventually led Shuchart to put the stories in a book.

Now, when Shuchart finds himself getting depressed, he’ll try to find something funny about what’s depressing him. Such as when he was ready to drive off the road because the Royals had lost two games in a row. Sometimes he calls Eric, who makes him laugh.

Humor might not work for everyone, Shuchart said; the key is to get people who suffer to find a way that works for them to reframe their situation so it doesn’t seem so dire.

Shuchart followed two women who kicked off the event with comedy routines that they’d developed through a program called Stand Up for Mental Health.

One of the women, Lynn Kohr, told a joke about buying a gun back when there were no background checks. The form asked whether she’d ever been committed, and she checked “no.”

“I’d always gone voluntarily,” Kohr said, and the audience laughed.

After all the jokes were over, the 100 visitors took a candle and joined a prayer circle. Everyone said the name of a person they’d come to support.

More than one person said, “Myself.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2015 at 9:50 PM with the headline "Mental Illness Awareness Week kicks off (+video)."