Why Paul Scheer decided to finally face his childhood trauma in his new memoir

30:49Paul Scheer: Joyful Recollections of Trauma, the cycle of abuse, and how improv saved his life

On his popular podcast How Did This Get Made?, Paul Scheer once shared a story about his grandmother telling him not to open the door to strangers because there was a rogue butcher in the neighbourhood who chopped up children.

The comedian has casually dropped so many stories like this on his podcast that his fans have compiled them into Reddit threads and YouTube videos of "Paul's most harrowing childhood stories." They also encouraged him to write them all down in a book.

But Scheer wasn't sure he could write a book because he didn't want to share his most harrowing childhood story: his stepfather's violence and abuse toward him.

"Me and my wife knew it, but my best friend didn't know this story because I just don't talk about it," Scheer tells Q's Tom Power on today's episode.

Even in the process of writing his new memoir, Joyful Recollections of Trauma, Scheer held back the details, but his agent kept pushing him to go deeper with the material.

"I had a hard time in my first interviews about this book even saying the word 'abuse,'" he says. "Am I worthy of that word? Is it abuse? I know people have had it worse."

Who I am, this trauma that I lived through, that's the fire in which I was forged — for better or for worse.- Paul Scheer

Thanks to many therapy sessions, Scheer now understands that his hesitation to say the word is a part of the cycle of abuse.

"It also is a word that I think, when you have been abused, makes you feel weak," he says. "It makes you feel like a victim.… But then I realized that who I am, this trauma that I lived through, that's the fire in which I was forged — for better or for worse."

For years, Scheer carried the impact of his stepfather's abuse. He bullied kids at school and fought them in the same ways that he experienced at home. When he finally realized that fighting wasn't a "badge of honour," he stopped the violence. But the trauma came up in a new way: passivity.

"I'm not going to get into a fight because I don't want to be the problem," Scheer remembers thinking at that time.

In romantic relationships, he recalls agreeing with everything his partner wanted because he didn't want to "rock the boat." Though his anger seemed under control, a therapist clued him into the fact that it wasn't gone — he was just hiding it.

"Oh my God, this is the effect of this man," Scheer says. "I thought I had my anger under control, but the truth was I was like a building with scaffolding around it."

Improv became a salve for Scheer. He performed with the renowned comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade, where he enjoyed the tight-knit community, the playfulness of the art form and, most of all, the support from his improv partners.

"I'm up on stage. I don't have anything written down on paper. I don't have any lines, and the person next to me doesn't either," he says. "Our only job is to make each other look good, to protect each other, support each other." 

Scheer believes that he loves improv because it gives him the support that he never got as a kid.

"I was always looking for that in my life, growing up in this household where I couldn't expect anything," he says.

The full interview with Paul Scheer is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Paul Scheer produced by Matthew Amha.