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Like so many people right now, my future looks like a massive gaudy question mark.

We've now passed a year since Mostly Comedy's last show and, while there's scope for potentially reopening in the Autumn (if Boris' plans are to be believed), it's hard to know when to commit to booking a line-up. This also depends on the venue upping their provisional capacity for the gig to go ahead.

On top of this, I'm trying to sell my flat before the lease extension deadline hits in May and I have to find a lot of money to pay for it myself. So much of the past two years has been taken up with resolving the problems behind buying my mum out of my dad's house that I've had little mental space for the creativity my job depends on, plus my longstanding financial fears have been gone through the roof: I used to worry about finding a few thousand to clear my debt or fund Edinburgh...but now, I'm trying to find tens-to-hundreds of thousands while my work's at a standstill, without impacting my family plans. It's exposure therapy to the nth degree and I don't know how to deal with it. 

It may be a personal response to the pressures of the pandemic compounded by the above, but it feels like the light for my standup has gone out. I don't have the fire in me. And when my depression hits now, it's worse than ever. I've learnt devastating things about the psychological abuse behind my parental family dynamic that cripple me and drown the tiny part that kept persevering. It's frightening. I hope I get past it.

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