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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'I hated my gayness for a long time, that's why I needed to share my story'
Suzi Ruffell is a comedian, podcast host and writer who has released her first book 'Am I Having Fun Now? Anxiety, Applause and Life's Big Questions, Answered' She joins Yahoo's Queer Voices series to discuss her book, coming out and living with anxiety. The comedian is on a nationwide tour with The Juggle from Friday 6 June to 23 November. I think it's really important to share the journey of coming out in the book because it makes that part of who I am now. But also because I think that sometimes there are people that might suggest we've reached equality, that there's no further to go, that if LGBT people want more why do we still need Pride? And when people will say things like that, I think it's important to let those people in a little bit and talk about the fact that it can be really hard to come out. It was really hard for me to come out. It took me a long time to really accept that about myself. I really hated my gayness for a long time and felt enormous shame around it, and to be honest it wasn't until I was probably 30, maybe a little bit older, that I was really comfortable in my own skin. And I wanted to talk about it firstly because I wanted people to know the journey that happens for queer people, even if they have a loving family. I thought my family would find it an adjustment, which they did, but I always knew they would love me. But it was still hard, it was still hard for me and I think it can still be hard for people now coming out. I also wanted to share the difficulty in accepting myself because I wanted to show the reader the journey that I've had. As I say in the book, when I was first coming out I felt really unlovable. When I was working out my sexuality, when I was first attracted to women, I was firstly ashamed, secondly sort of disgusted with myself, which is really sad that I felt like that about something that is entirely natural to me. And so I wanted to talk about the fact that I don't feel like that anymore, the fact that I did fall in love and that I do now feel worthy of love. It was really important for me to be brutally honest about my experiences in the book, whether that be my experiences as a queer person or my experiences as a mum, or my experiences as someone that lives with anxiety. I really like stuff that's brutally honest. I like stuff that gets rid of the small talk and you get straight into it. It's also the kind of comedy that I've done for a long time, my comedy is really open. It's really honest and real — I don't really love that word as I think it means too many things, but you get what I mean — So I wanted to talk about anxiety and the mental health stuff. Now we're getting to publication, it feels a bit scarier but I do think that it's important to put it out there, and to be honest about how bad it has been in the past because I think people might often assume [things] if you do a job like this. There's that cliche of the comedian that's depressed, and I don't fall into that category at all — I actually don't know many comedians that do — but I think anxiety is more prevalent than you might realise. I wanted to talk about it, so I think people might be a little surprised that someone that stands on stage in front of thousands of people won't worry about that, but they'll worry about an awkward moment they had with someone six years ago, and we'll ruminate on it for a week. I wanted to talk about it because when I've been in really low places, whether that be because of specific anxiety issues or whether that be because of heartbreak or grief, what I've really sought is books. I love books and I've really looked for books that are honest, but also that make me laugh and that are hopeful. And that's really what I tried to create in writing this book, and I think I did. It was really cathartic writing this, I didn't realise how much I was going to enjoy writing it. I loved writing it. I didn't go to university, I never wrote dissertations or anything like that, so it was a real change in the rhythm of my day and the rhythm of how I write, because I wrote a lot of stand up on the stage. I'll have an idea there and then I'll talk about it and you know, some bits work and some bits won't, but that's partly in the stand up, and that's alright. So it was a really different thing to do. The length of the book means that you can talk for as long as you want to about the subject, there doesn't need to be a punchline. And so it ended up being enormously cathartic and really enjoyable to go back and revisit those moments, and to see them with adult eyes. I think I've processed quite a lot of stuff but I didn't realise I really needed to. I'm really excited to go out on tour. I feel very lucky that I get to do comedy. Comedy is great, I really love it and I'm really thrilled that I've got this audience that come and see me. They're so great and so lovely, and they're just a bunch of absolute legends that are bang up for it from the moment I walk on stage. I'm trying to be very positive in the lead up to the tour, I really like the show — that really helps. I'm really proud of it and I'm trying to be present with the anxiety around it and also witnessing the anxiety but not hanging too much on it — which is, I think, a good way to look at it. I'm really excited about getting on stage and performing because it's just full of new stories that I can't wait to share with people. The comedy that I do is storytelling and it all comes from truth, it's just really fun. It's a really great thing to do with your life, I love it. If you think of how comedy looks now to how the comedy landscape looked then, it was so male. It was very white, it was really hard to get even booked on line ups, I'm not talking about on TV shows. They would never be more than two women on a bill, and we were also sort of told not to talk about it. Well I don't know who we were told by, but it was a given that wouldn't talk about the injustice of it. And if you've got a job, you just sort of would feel lucky. The landscape was totally different. It was really usual to get misogynistic heckles, it was pretty usual to get homophobic heckles. I mean, I'm sure those people still exist but comedy has moved in such a way that now if you are a fan of comedy you will be able to find someone that is like you that does stand up. I think comedy really is for everyone, I think it's a great way to connect with people, to bring down barriers, to let people into the kind of person you are, to see people's humanity — I love comedy for that. And I think that for a long time, comedy felt like it was only talking to a certain type of person, and now I think you can see that comedy really is for everyone. I'm not saying that it's perfect, I still think it's a shame that we don't have any women that are hosting big TV shows. And I think that it's a shame that lots of the shows have men being the team captains, or whatever the show. But hopefully in ten years time, we won't be saying that. So it's definitely improved, massively improved, but I think there's still a bit of a way to go. In the book I talk at length, not so much length that it's a problem, but I talk about the fact that Kate Winslet was sort of… I'm not saying Kate Winslet made me gay, I'm just saying she opened my eyes to who I could be in the world or who I was in the world. And so Kate Winslet in Titanic will always hold a very special place in my heart. Also, looking back, Friends isn't perfect but Carol and Susan getting married, having a life, being parents to Ben with Ross, and Ross, in time, coming around to the idea that his wife left him for another woman was comforting. It's hard to say queer role models I had growing up because I wasn't sure that I had them, I bloody love Claire Balding. I'm lucky enough to have met her a few times now and I just think she's great, and she's always been unapologetically herself which I love, but I think I found my bigger role models later on, maybe when I was more confident in my own skin. I would say Wanda Sykes, who's an American stand up that is just phenomenal, is my favourite and I find her enormously inspiring, both as the person that she is in the world but then also the fact that she is really, really, really funny. She's just brilliant, she's an enormous role model and enormously inspiring, both as a queer person but as a stand up as well. I wish films like Pride existed when I was younger. I love that movie, it's such a good film, I love it, I've seen it lots of times. I love Hacks, there's a character that's bisexual — actually there's a number of characters that are queer in one way or another — but one of the leads is bisexual, and it's not a big deal, and I think that's really important as well. It's just part of her life, it's actually not an enormous part of the storytelling. Her relationships are, but her queerness isn't and I love that she just happens to be gay. I think that's what we need, just seeing more queer people existing and knowing that it's okay and it's not weird and it's not different. When I was a young person if I saw queer media of any kind it would be something about people being kicked out of home or their parents not loving them anymore, or it would be about the AIDS crisis and there would be very few things that would be about being a happy gay person. And so anything that exists where someone is living a normal life and has friends and has a network of people that they love and that are around them would have been a really great thing for me to see. I'm not a queer activist, but I do talk openly about being gay. I'm not someone that understands how you challenge policy other than signing letters and listening to people. I think the best way to tackle people's prejudices is to live, the best thing that you can do is to live happily. I know that might seem impossible, but living your authentic self means that you've won. People can shout, but a lot of the time people are just shouting into a bin because I do think the majority of people feel like that about anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community. I think most people think that people should be allowed to live their authentic lives and I like to think that most people are good, and the majority of people are kind. I think we're certainly living in a time now where it does feel like we're sort of swinging right and certainly with the sort of leap in support of people like Reform, I think, is really scary. But I'm sort of reticent to say people should always be speaking and always being visible, cause I think sometimes that's not safe, and if that's not safe no one should feel like they have to do that. I think engaging with people is the thing that can really help. I think lots of the people that were more homophobic say in the 90s were people that hadn't spent any time with gay people, they didn't know anyone that was gay. Now everyone knows gay people, I don't think people are scared of gay people. I think that certainly it's become less homophobic and I think that certainly in the media there's more TV and more music and more art and more theatre created with queer people in mind, with queer stories, that's a really powerful tool. It's a really powerful tool to get people to see us. I think Russell T Davis did such a great job with It's a Sin. I'm sure people who watched it didn't have the best response to the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s, but watching that show they probably felt a lot more empathy and a lot more understanding. And so I think that telling stories is a really great way to change hearts and minds. It's also really important that it's storytelling for every kind of person. I think it's really important that lots of people from lots of demographics are heard — that it's not just white queer stories that get told. It's how we see each other's humanity, it's how we know that we're all not that different, regardless of what we look like, or who we go to bed with, if there's a God that we pray to. I think all of us feel the same things, all of us know what those different feelings feel like, whether that be devastation or joy, or hope, or despair. I think that being able to see those stories told through whatever media is a way of connecting with people that they don't really know or they don't really understand. My advice for queer youth would be don't come until you're ready. Don't feel like you need to leap out of the closet, there'll be loads of time to have all the fun and do all the things. I know sometimes it feels like it needs to get out, but make sure you do it when you know you have some people around you that can hold you up if that needs to happen. I would always say you don't need to be a particular type of queer person. For a while I thought: 'I don't fit with these people, I don't fit with those people'. I'm trying to be this kind of person and it was really hard to not feel like I've fitted in, but in time I really found my people. I found my best friends, I found the people that I adore that are like me, that understand my life. But it just took me a little while and if it takes you a while that's cool too. I would also say, and Dustin Lance Black said this to me when I interviewed him and I think he's just brilliant, he said that people's first reaction isn't always their best reaction and I thought that was so great because I think sometimes people don't react in the way that you want them to. That can be really disappointing, and in time they might realise that that's not the way that they really wanted to react either. But people are people, and sometimes people make mistakes, and giving people another chance, or allowing people to apologise, I think is really important. Certainly if someone doesn't quite understand, doesn't know about what a life like ours might look like, in time it's okay to forgive and give them another opportunity. I've always felt that's that's the people that we are in lots of ways because sometimes people don't react in ways you want them to, but if you let them in a little bit, if you let them know that there's not actually that much that's different, you allow them to change their mind. That's good too.
Newsweek
01-05-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
Woman Goes on Walk, Unprepared for What She Finds by Lake: 'Horror Movie'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A post about a woman who came across a strange plant with a "meat-like texture" has gone viral on Reddit. Images of the peculiar plant were shared in a post on Reddit shared by Grace (u/applementionpies). The post has amassed 19,000 upvotes since it was shared on April 21. The pictures show a thick, skin-toned plant stalk dotted by giant dark circular spots laying on a patch of grass. The post was titled: "Seriously WHAT is this." The caption notes: "Found this thing (?)...been wondering since wtf [what the f***] it is since. Had a very strange smell and was almost meat-like in texture." Grace, who did not share her last name, told Newsweek that she came across the plant on the shore of Lake Lida in Minnesota while visiting her friend's cabin there among a group of people aged from 22 to 25. "It was actually May 2022, so the warm weather was just starting to come in. Since it was the beginning of the season, there was debris on the shore that washed up from the frozen months. This was one of them," she said. Grace said the strange sighting "haunted me for 2.5 years" in a later comment. An image of a water lily root found on the shore of a lake in Minnesota, shared in a viral post on Reddit. An image of a water lily root found on the shore of a lake in Minnesota, shared in a viral post on Reddit. u/applementionpies on Reddit The mysterious plant is a water lily root, food scientist Bryan Quoc Le told Newsweek, noting that "it appears that the water lily root has gone through some decay and browning." The food scientist, who is the author 150 Food Science Questions Answered: Cook Smarter, Cook Better and founder of Mendocino Food Consulting, said the water lily root can be consumed. He explained: "These roots are edible and often used in soups or eaten baked, but need to be boiled first to ensure the starches have gelatinized. They're actually quite high in starch, much like a potato or a yam. Most of the water lily is in fact edible." Michael Clarke is a landscape architect and horticulturalist who is the founder of Yardwork, an online plant and tree nursery and landscaping platform. He told Newsweek: "Water lilies are aquatic plants found in freshwater environments such as ponds, lakes, and slow-moving streams. Their roots grow from rhizomes, which are thick, horizontal underground stems." Clarke explained that rhizomes are buried in muddy soils at the bottom of the water and have fibrous roots that extend into the soil to absorb nutrients and water. The roots stabilize the plant as well as the soil, helping to reduce erosion. "Rhizomes also serve as storage organs for starch and other nutrients, helping the plant survive through dormant periods or unfavorable conditions," Clarke noted. Water lilies have a long history in traditional medicine where all of their parts are used, explains the book Dietary Interventions in Liver Disease, published in 2019. Crushed and mixed with wine, the root of water lilies was used by monks and nuns for hundreds of years as an anaphrodisiac. In addition to its use as "a painkiller, anti-inflammatory, astringent, cardiotonic, demulcent, with sedative and calming effects upon the nervous system," the water lily root can also be used to "insomnia, anxiety, and similar disorders," according to the book. The dried roots and rhizomes of white water lilies have also been used as oral treatments for gastrointestinal, genital and bronchial conditions. The leaves and roots have been used externally to various dermatological conditions, the book explains. 'Something Out of a Horror Movie' Grace told Newsweek that the water lily root "smelled rotted and moldy." She said: "The stench wasn't too pronounced until we poked it with a stick, then it almost started wafting. The outside—with the dots—was hard like a shell, where the inside was softer, almost like the fatty part of steak or pork." Grace knew about water lilies but not so much about their roots. She said: "The group I was with and I have wondered about it for the past two years and randomly would bring it up as a joke. I've shown lots of people and everyone was just disgusted, no one had any context as to what it is until I brought it to Reddit." Redditors were spooked and grossed out by the unusual plant sighting in the viral post. U/Previous-Wasabi-4907 said: "This looks like something out of a horror movie! I can't be the only one who sees the 'head' and 'face'?!" U/UarNotMe wrote: "I was already grossed out by me feel nauseous looking at it." U/BabyOnTheStairs simply said it is a "water lily root" and u/truthhurts2222222 said: "I'm inclined to agree [it's a] water lily root." U/moldylindsey was amazed, noting: "That's wild, because I've been around water lilies my whole life, and I guess I've never seen the root." Do you have a travel-related video or story to share? Let us know via life@ and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
