Victim of bullying throughout primary school, Philippe-Audrey Larrue-St-Jacques still carries with him the painful memory of his only childhood friend who attempted suicide at 11 years old. The comedian opened up to Marie-Claude Barrette in the most recent episode of the podcast Open your game.
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He is a comedian, humorist, actor and delivers radio columns; one might believe that Philippe-Audrey Larrue-St-Jacques is an artist and a confident person, but this is not the case.
Anxiety and bullying
The one who describes himself as “deeply anxious” spoke at length to Marie-Claude Barrette in an interview covering several important subjects. Among these, the bullying and the great loss that the 36-year-old comedian experienced during his childhood.
“In 5e year, my only friend – who had an absent father, who was English and who spoke with an accent that others made fun of – went off into the woods one afternoon. He attempted suicide at age 11. It created an emptiness and a fear that never left me,” he says.
Already a shy child, he stopped trusting adults who, at the time, minimized bullying between young people. He also says he greatly fears people in positions of authority.
“It is done simply and violently. You are singled out, the way you speak is ridiculed, there is never anyone to help you, you are never chosen and there is a lot of loneliness. I forbade myself from going to parks and ice rinks for fear of meeting young people from school there,” says the former budding genius who owes his thirst for learning to his parents who were CEGEP teachers.
PHOTO AGENCY QMI, TOMA ICZKOVITS
Fear of others
This “daily deconstruction of your confidence” made him a being living constantly in fear of meeting others.
“In the long run, you end up convincing yourself that you are what people say about you. It remains a scar. Today with social networks, when I publish something, it’s the same feeling I had in the schoolyard,” confides the man who has been consulting every week for 4 years.
“My psychologist has a lifetime contract with me,” he adds with his trademark humor. His “relatively acute” obsessive-compulsive disorders, his anxiety, his obsessions and his diagnosis of giftedness are all subjects that he discussed with the host who says she fell in love when seeing him perform.
“Your fear and discomfort are stronger. You create scenarios for yourself that are always negative and you set yourself up,” he says, talking about his anxiety disorders and his difference.
The actor looked back on his years at the Conservatory, which he describes as a “great darkness”, during which performance anxiety mixed with a toxic romantic relationship, and on his year 2018 where several stress factors led him to isolate himself. completely.
As for the preconceived ideas that many people have about giftedness – a subject he addresses in his show – he insists: “you are not Einstein! » Philippe-Audrey Larrue-St-Jacques says he is touched that many people, often parents of gifted young people, take the time to come and talk to him after his performances to share what they are experiencing. “For me, humor was a shield,” he admits.