Documentary filmmaker Michelle Esrick pinpoints the moment that convinced her that telling the story of severe childhood trauma and the path toward healing of her long-time friend and Saturday Night Live luminary Darrell Hammond could likely make a difference in the lives of many.
“Cracked Up: The Darrell Hammond Story” details Hammond’s years-long attempt to deal with his traumatic childhood, during which he had suffered severe physical and emotional abuse.
“Behind the scenes, Darrell suffered from debilitating flashbacks, self-injury, addiction and misdiagnosis, until the right doctor isolated the key to unlocking the memories his brain kept locked away for over 50 years,” according to an extract from a synopsis of the film on the “Cracked Up” website.
Hammond’s description of his encounter with a trauma therapist that changed his life is what struck a deep chord for Esrick. “Dr. K. had told him: ‘I don't want you to call what you have a mental illness. I would like you to call it a mental injury,’” Esrick recounts. “I had the most visceral reaction to this. I felt like I had been diagnosed for the first time,” says Esrick referring to her own struggles with addiction and recovery.
Esrick spoke with Hammond; renowned trauma therapist and author of The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk; and ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens on May 4 during a video chat about Esrick’s documentary. The conversation eventually looped back to today's pandemic and how people are responding to that trauma.
Hammond says he didn’t need convincing to do the film. He thought it would likely have even broader reach than the memoir he wrote about his life entitled: “God if you’re not up there I’m f*cked: Tales of Saturday Night Live; Stand up and other Mind-altering Mayhem”that had had a potent effect on some readers. “A woman in Sarasota told me that my book had saved her daughter’s life,” Hammond said.
Stevens asked van der Kolk to weigh in on Hammond’s therapist’s comment about mental injury versus mental illness. Van der Kolk took it in a slightly different direction.
“I come from a standpoint of how people survive,” he said. He talked about how people may cope with trauma by harming themselves or others, and also by channeling adversity creatively. “Traumatized people by nature have to be creative in order to create new realities for themselves. And so, very early on I got intrigued with the dual nature of traumatized people, and how in one moment they could be extraordinarily competent and creative and in the next moment fall apart and blow up.” That duality led to his research about the body’s regulatory system — its stress response to trauma.
Stevens read a quote from van der Kolk’s book to ask each of the participants to describe how they are coping with the isolation from sheltering-in-place during the pandemic: “When your realities are not seen or known, that is the trauma.”
“I think it’s dehumanizing,” said Hammond. “We’re mammals, and we congregate with one another and comfort each other that way. I believe in love, mutuality and a lot of shared experiences.” More to the point, he said, “I am aware I need connection with a live human!”
To satisfy that need and his love of canines, Hammond said, “I sit in front of my house and talk to dog walkers.” He also said he meets up with friends who are masked and socially distant.
Those ways of connecting help, he said, but he mourns the loss of the large gatherings he played to at The Comedy Store and the fellowship and camaraderie he felt attending 12-step programs. “That thing, that could help me on a miraculous level for a few hours at a time – gone,” he said. “So, I’m talking to dog walkers.”
For filmmaker Esrick, isolation and coping with it came while she was battling for her life. Esrick is recovering from a severe bout of COVID-19 that landed her in the hospital and away from contact with everyone she loved. Well aware of the strain on the nursing staff who were shuffling in and out of her room in hazmat suits, she asked if they could please, “have eye contact with me and ask me how I’m doing.”
To soothe herself, she said, “I had to really go inside and try to connect with my memories of friendships and family and make it feel like a present moment.”
Sign up for a second installment Cracked Up: The evolving conversation with Darrell Hammond, Michelle Esrick, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, moderated by Jane Stevens on Wednesday, May 13, at 2 pm Pacific Time/ 5 pm Eastern time.
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