• Interview with Ángel Martín: "I have nothing against psychologists, there are also bad comedians"
  • The punk psychologist against the Mr. Wonderful syndrome: "Life is not made for us to be happy"

A successful podcast, a publishing phenomenon with half a million copies sold, a monologue that fills theatres all over Spain with thousands of people and several awards, such as the General Council of Official Medical Colleges or the Nursing in Development award. The comedian and writer Ángel Martín (Barcelona, 5 October 1977) has made his own the motto "there is no evil that does not come for good".

She continues her work of dissemination and awareness in mental health after her admission to a psychiatric hospital in Detrás del ruido (Ed. Planeta). And once again it opens up so that no one lets their guard down. "That others care about your coconut is not as important as that you care about yourself."

Do you have to do group therapy in a packed WiZink Center on December 27? I don't think I'm aware of that image because I've never been in front of a capacity of 12,500 people. I've done monologues for 2,500 on location, but I haven't had an intermediate step. It's been a very nice experience. I never thought I'd get final messages of, "I laughed and it served me." Mission accomplished and tour option for 2024. When he learned to be behind the noise, he remembered that he wanted to be a comedian and quit his job as a presenter. Shouldn't we talk about TV? The possibilities it offers are fascinating, but you can't make the comedy you're interested in. It's filtered and there are a thousand interests that aren't yours. From the joke you'd like to make to the one that's made, it transforms so much that it doesn't make sense. In I Know What You Did, we live in a time that few will be able to live, of course. In his last interview on ZEN he said that the controversies are on Twitter, now X, and are amplified in the media. What do you think of Alfonso Guerra and Pablo Motos' response in El Hormiguero about comedians not being able to joke and the subsequent response? I haven't heard anything, but it all fits me. Lately I've only been uploading my news to social media and, as I'm in very demanding projects, writing and preparing performances, I hardly go in. All my time is focused on building. It's true that TV and Twitter are like a micro-world that feeds off each other. You go on Instagram and those controversies don't even exist. What do you think of the turn that so many criticize since Elon Musk came in? Or so it's more Instagrammable now? I notice changes in the social network: less movement, what I like doesn't appear... And when something stops interesting me, I stop using it. It doesn't do me any good to think that a man has bought it and changed things because now it's his. He's going to do whatever he wants and if it doesn't fit my vibe, then I'm leaving. Just. That Twitter is an incendiary place? Flees. Stay away from anything you don't think is productive or smart for you. Our heads are full of noise, of internal thoughts that crush us with decisions from the past, people we don't know if we want to be with... If you add to that what comes from the outside, it's a constant bombardment in the head. I try to find the sound that's in tune with me, because everything else is fuss. Map out a more conscious place you want to go. Telling his psychotic break has served him well, he says in the book, despite the labels he gets or the people who have moved away. Have you ever regretted it? In the end, there are things you can try to use to your advantage. If you have the feeling that telling something can help you but you think that the person who is going to listen to it is going to disappear, the question is why keep that person close to you. If you are not safe or feel safe in the face of a weakness, you can take advantage of it to create an infinitely healthier environment. If I say that my head is being screwed up and that can sink me because I'm not going to know how to manage it psychologically, I prefer people next to me who tell me "here's my back for you to lean on". I prefer it even when I'm well, because finding a thousand friends at a party doesn't cost anything. Those who enjoy the party but stay to clean up are better. Did you finally find a psychologist? No kidding. As soon as the experience was bad, I didn't look any further because I went through a lot of pain and embarrassment. When You need help You are in a moment of great fragility, so the feeling of being down there to stir everything again to see if someone else understands you, and with the addition of if the same thing was going to happen to me, did not give me certainties. I know there are some very good ones, and I joke with them in my performances, but also jerks, as in all guilds. Life is trial and error, not everything is going to be perfect. To what extent can being aware of what others say when we make a mistake can lead us to get sick? Why do you care about their opinion? I understand that you care about someone you love because they help you grow. But I have the feeling that we give the same value to what a stranger thinks as we do to the person we care about most. "Look at what he told me, I don't know who." And you ask who that is, I don't know who, and they say, well, I don't know, but look what he told me. Let them give him then! On the other hand, we generate enormous expectations that at first glance something we have never done is going to be impeccable. It's ridiculous, because whatever it is, the first one doesn't come out like the 100,000th. You have to lower the pressure and understand that progress is slow and changes don't happen overnight. Does it still make your heart skip a beat to remember your episode in the hospital? If it catches me a little lazy, there are days when I think of all those who disappeared and it makes me angry, because I thought we were united, but the puncture is getting smaller and smaller. Melancholy breaks you, but over time you control the anguish. It has happened to me with my dog who died and who until very recently I could not mention. As you work on it, that intensity goes down. The problem when you leave the hospital is that you think you're done. That you've been able to come back because you have clues like you're already working at the same pace. And yet, that's just the beginning. The key is not to get out of the pit, but to not fall back into it. Not because you're afraid of the outbreak breaking out, but because you don't want your life to be torn in half again. That's why you pay more attention and stop acting out of inertia. You build the person you want to be. Have you figured out who you really are? Yes, and it's nice to have the feeling that there are new pieces in that puzzle. Now I know that comedy and words have to always be in my life, whatever the project and the person I relate to. Another essential in my life is to really listen. I have a feeling of knowing what kind of guy I am." Not only can you learn from your past, you can also learn from the past of others," he writes. Is that your mission as an author? Yes, because it helps me a lot to read others. Before writing In Case the Voices Come Back, I looked for a lot of books. I came across Brain and Silence: The Keys to Creativity and Serenity Leaving the Hospital. I was blown away by a phrase that said "no one should know what they're going to say until they're done listening." It made me realize that I was the kind of person who thought about his retort regardless of what they told me. But that's what conversations have: they open and rewire your mind because they give you points of view that you may not have fallen into. I realized that the experience of others is very useful if you can make it your own. In my head, it doesn't make sense not to share something that can help someone else to speed up their growth. We're in a spiral where you don't think about the whys and whereforeThis is the first time that we have been able to find a way If you're able to spot what's holding you back from being happy, you should remove that burden. And it's hard, because whenever you get rid of a burden, you lose other things. But it will end up being more painful if you don't let go. It's a problem not to think about what makes you happy. Is self-esteem a marketing construct to end up selling you things? A lot of people think that success is that photo they're seeing in an ad. If I have to build a whole circus to make you believe that's what makes you happy, I'm lying to you. I'm happiest with my dogs. But there are a lot of kids who believe that happiness is a photo with the Lamborghini or the yacht. They don't think you have to pay for insurance, you have to take it in for repairs... If you think happiness is a photo, you're really screwed. He clarifies that he is not going to give any list of what you need to do to be well. Don't send anyone for a walk or exercise or get up early. But what helps you to live with serenity? Knowing very, very well why I make the decisions I do. I don't embark on anything that doesn't make sense to me, and I don't care if it's a project or a friendship. As soon as I notice melancholy, discomfort or sadness I stop in my tracks, I don't go on as if nothing had happened. And the priority is to know what's going on. Why is sadness in the face of a loss so well understood, but sadness continues to create stigma for no apparent reason, as if depression were a construct? No matter how smart you are, you know that you too can be sad many times and understand it. It's just that you're not able to see other people's inner emotions. But if you watch a movie and you're able to cry with nostalgia even though nothing happens to you at the time, and you stop to think, you find where it's coming from. The problem is that it's disconcerting because you're not inside his head. Does he say "I love you very much" so much to compensate for the lack of social affection? No [laughs], that's not why. It's because I've been thankful for many years of delay. I haven't given thanks in my life. The easiest way to say thank you is to say I love you, but I'm not trying to fix the world.

Detrás del ruido, by Ángel Martín, is published by Planeta. You can buy it here

  • HBPR
  • Mental health
  • Psychology