Ellie Brelis presents Driver’s Seat: Obsessive Compulsive Disaster
theSpaceUK @ Surgeons’ Hall, Theatre 3, 2 – 24 Aug 2024 (not 7, 11, 12,14 & 21), 15:10 (15:55)
What is Driver’s Seat: Obsessive Compulsive Disaster about?
Well… it’s about a LOT. It’s a very specific show, but I think that is what makes it universal and accessible to so many people. Who hasn’t been impacted by a bad break up? A bad haircut? Who hasn’t lost a loved one and not only grieved that loss, but grieved the opportunity to say goodbye? While not everyone has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and there is so much misinformation out there about OCD, I think a lot of people can still relate to feeling stuck in their head, or stuck in an identity, or stuck in some part of their life that is keeping them from “more”.
There’s a lot of laughs and a lot of tears during the show, as there have been over the last four years when it was originally created. So I hope people walk away realizing this show is about so much more than one thing, like OCD. As I, a person who lives with OCD, am so much more than that diagnosis.
Which part of the creation process was your favourite?
Learning to let go to this part of myself, my story, and my past – and celebrate it. This show is not a sad “woe is me” story. It’s a celebration of how much I have already lived, and the fact that I now get the chance to live even more after doing some really hard, painful, but beautiful work to learn how to get out of my own way… And just to be clear, I’m still learning how to get out of my own way every day.
But overall, the fact that I created this show in 2020 while I was in the hospital and have kept it going, is what has kept me going. I often hear other writers and storytellers say, “If you go through a significant experience, you need to wait to create art about it so you are more removed and ‘on the other side of it.’”
I don’t think there will ever be “another side” of “it” for me. “It” – my entire life living with OCD, hospitalisations, intense isolation, significant grief and loss, coming out, facing my fears, facing myself, handling heartbreak, meeting and making amazing friends in treatment – all of that gets boiled down to being “sick” being “in treatment” and everyone wants to see me on “the other side of it.”
There is no other side. It was an experience I lived through. Not “something” I got past. I am not defined by any of the things that have happened over the past four years, but they have transformed me. And I’m okay letting these things be a part of my past. I do not feel the need to try and hide them, and at the same time, I am working on letting them exist in the past. Where they belong. So I can actually be in the present, and continue to move forward.
I think if I hadn’t started writing so soon, and sharing this story so soon, it never would have been shared and would have sat on a shelf in my head for the rest of my life. I’m so glad I decided to risk seeming “crazy” by speaking on all of these topics; sexuality, depression, OCD, suicide, driving, heartbreak. It’s helped me continue to find the humour in it all and then ultimately, some sense of freedom from it.
When making a show about your own experiences, how do you decide what stays in and what doesn’t? Are there things you would have liked to include but couldn’t?
Oh my gosh, it is not easy. Every time I perform this show, it is a different version from the last time, and a very different version from the original. Sometimes cutting moments of the show come down to logistics: “We don’t have enough time in the venue for X”, or “we don’t have the technical capabilities at this venue to do Y”.
It’s hard, but also kind of amazing. I know there is more life left in this show and that it will be told and performed many more times. There will be new bits added, and old bits that have been cut will be tweaked and added back in. My team and I already have so many ideas of how to reshape DRIVER’S SEAT: Obsessive Compulsive Disaster for our next run which will be at The Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse late spring/early summer 2025.
What is it like to perform a show about your own experiences?
Truth be told, I’m always a little embarrassed when I say I have a one-person show about my mental health and lived experience. It feels kind of cringey and self-indulgent. Like “why do I think I am so special or important that I should share my story?” But when I was hospitalised I was desperate to find any true, honest, depiction of OCD, Suicidal Ideation, Hospitalisation, and intensive treatment.
I felt so alone, and wanted to know that other people had experienced something like this too. So I started writing about my experience. Just little moments here and there, throughout my treatment in 2020, and it evolved into Driver’s Seat. I’m honoured to tell my story, but it’s not a unique story, I just have a unique opportunity to share it. I met so many amazing people in treatment who could relate to what I lived through; they showed me I am SO not alone. Which made me I realise: I think a lot of the main-stream stories being told about intense mental illness, OCD, suicide, hospitalization, and treatment, are being created and shared by people who do not necessarily have a lived experience with those things. So, I want to share my story, because I know that I’m also sharing all of my peers’ stories at the same time. I carry them all with me in everything that I do. And this, my show, bringing it to Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is without a doubt for them.
I did go through a grieving and mourning period when I performed it publicly for the first time. I was like “wow… that’s out there. I kind of just lost the opportunity to ever self-disclose the fact that I have OCD, or the fact that I’ve been hospitalized for psychiatric care….” And part of me was like “I hope it will all be worth it.” But it already has been, because I know that this show has helped people feel less alone, and it’s helped me feel less alone. It’s helped me remember what my true values are and prioritize them. And, it has helped cut a lot of people from my life and helped me not waste time when I meet new people. A quick google of “Ellie Brelis” and you’ll see pieces written about Driver’s Seat at one point in time. So I can’t decide when people get to learn that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or that I have been hospitalized. And that’s a little bit of a bummer, and it’s really freeing. I don’t have the space in my life for people who cannot hold space for my past.
I will say, I do find it challenging socially sometimes. Mostly because certain people in my life feel like they can disclose pretty much anything about my mental health to anyone because I wrote a show about it. I do mind. I am very specific in what I share and don’t share on stage. Whether that is for the structure of the script, the literal amount of time I have on stage, or what I feel safe sharing publicly knowing I can’t ever take it back. Every time I have done this show, things get cut and tweaked, but I always take a step towards being more transparent about OCD. But that’s my step to take. So I try to have mindful and meaningful conversations with my collaborators, friends, and family, that if I share something with you. That means it’s just you. I get to decide who else hears it and how. Whether it’s with another friend over coffee, or with an audience in a theatre.
What is one thing you would tell past-Ellie?
“You did not lose your mind, you were simply lost in it. I won’t tell you it ‘gets better’ because it doesn’t. Better is binary, and it is so much more than that. More good days, more bad days, more adventures, more life, and you get to live it more than you ever did before. So, that does mean more tears, more fears, more fights with your family that could have been avoided, and it also means more moments with the people you love that you actually get to be present for instead of hiding in your room or being stuck in your head.
Also, your hair grows back!”
How would you describe the experience of watching this show in three words?
“Green light, GO!”