Why Are We Making Life So Damn Hard? Chris Ryan on the power of just backing off a bit.
After speaking with comedian Chris Ryan, I had to look at myself in the mirror and ask, "How sick of me am I?" And the answer was...very.
Chris Ryan is a comedian who’s not afraid to ‘tell it like it is’. To be clear, she is not the kind of comedian to stand on stage and try to pass bigotry as comedy by using the tag “What? I'm just telling it like it is." Far from it. Chris is unafraid to describe with incredible insight and eye-watering humour the true experience of being a Mum, being a woman in an industry skewed towards men and just kind of being sick of yourself.
"Why have we made it so hard for ourselves? Why are we trying to be geniuses, have podcasts, be uber fit, eat the right things, drink the right amount of coffee?" Chris Ryan asks, her voice carrying the weight of someone who's been there. "Do you know, genuinely, I think the best I can do now is find things that put me in a flow state so I can forget I exist. I'm sick of me."
It's a confession that hits me like a punch to the gut because, let's be honest, we've all been there. That moment when the pressure to be everything to everyone – including ourselves – becomes so overwhelming that we just want to disappear into something, anything, that makes us forget the constant noise in our heads
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Sitting across from Chris Ryan, I'm struck by how she manages to articulate the exact feeling so many of us carry but can't quite name. There's something about the way she describes these universal struggles – weaving together her journalistic instincts and comedic timing – that made me exhale with relief. Finally, someone gets it.
The Invisible Struggle
Perhaps the most striking revelation from chatting with Chris is how postnatal depression can hide in plain sight. "I had it for three years without being diagnosed," Chris shares. "I was just white knuckling it, just getting through. And I loved them so much. But I was terrified of someone finding out that I was not well."
What kept her silent was the fear of being seen as inadequate, and of having her children taken away. It's a fear I'm sure many mothers know intimately but rarely voice. "I found it so hard to do basic things that it appeared other mothers did without even thinking about it. They just seemed so light."
What floors me about Chris's self-awareness is how she can look back at this period with such clarity, offering insights that could literally save someone else years of suffering. When she describes how her partner's mother simply asked "Are you okay?" without judgment, then followed with practical questions about Chris making time to see her GP, I see the journalistic side of her break down exactly what made that interaction work. It wasn't advice. It wasn't fixing. It was creating space for acknowledgment.
The Comparison Trap
Looking at her parents' generation, Chris observes something that many of us have noticed: "They never put themselves through this shit. They just lived their lives and did their best." It's tempting to romanticise the past, to believe that life was simpler, easier, more straightforward.
But Chris, with characteristic insight, cuts through the nostalgia: "I refute this idea that they had it all good." She points out that generation had their own challenges – women denied careers, undiagnosed mental health conditions, lack of emotional vocabulary. The difference isn't that life was easier; it's that the expectations were different.
Today's parents face a unique challenge: raising environmentally conscious children while trying to maintain their own sanity. "My kids are very smart," Chris notes. "They're just so green. If I go to the shops, I feel like an oligarch."
I laugh at this because it's so perfectly observed – that specific modern guilt of being caught with a plastic bag by your own children. But it's also profound. The consciousness we've worked so hard to instil in our children can become another source of pressure, another way we feel we're falling short.
Finding Your Flow State
So what's the answer to this relentless pressure? For Chris, it's surprisingly simple: "I've started gardening and if there's anything that puts me in a flow state, it's ripping bamboo out by the root, tearing ivy off the mulberry tree."
When she talks about gardening, her whole energy shifts. You can hear the relief in her voice: "I go out there, no one tells me what to do. I pull the weeds out and I think good on me." It's such a small thing, yet I can relate to it intimately, having learned the love of gardening from my wife Audrey. Not to sound cliché, but I feel very seen at this moment. The way Chris describes it makes me realise how rarely any of us give ourselves credit for simple accomplishments.
The beauty of flow states is that they're different for everyone. The key is finding something that demands just enough attention to quiet the mind without adding to the pressure of perfection. What Chris has figured out – and what I find so impressive – is that these moments aren't luxuries. They're necessities.
The Power of Honest Storytelling
Throughout her career, Chris has discovered that the most powerful comedy comes from truth. "I'm more scared of never talking about hard things than I am of silence," she says. She describes a bit from her show about people who "prefer to focus on things outside their control... they'll make their entire social media personality the war in the Middle East rather than deal with their dead bedroom marriage."
"That would just floor the audience," she tells me, and I can picture it – that moment when laughter stops because someone has said the thing everyone thinks but no one voices. This is Chris's gift: using comedy to create moments of recognition that can actually change how we see ourselves.
The Rental Reality
Even something as mundane as renting becomes, in Chris's hands, a perfect metaphor for modern powerlessness. When she describes being criticised by her real estate agent for having a rolling chair on wooden floors, her indignation is palpable: "I was wounded because I care so much for this fucking place... I thought we were mates. I wished you happy Christmas."
It's funny, but it's also heartbreaking. Here's this accomplished woman, a successful comedian and writer, reduced to feeling like a scolded child over a chair mat. The way she tells it, you realise this isn't just about renting – it's about all the ways we're made to feel small in systems that don't care about us as humans.
Redefining Success
Perhaps the most liberating insight Chris offers is about work and purpose. Despite loving her life and career, she admits, "It never really feels like I worked that out... I never really feel like I'm truly doing enough work."
I want to interrupt her here, to point out all she's accomplished, but I realise that would miss the point. This feeling of inadequacy persists even as she tours successfully, writes brilliantly, and connects with audiences across the country. Her honesty about this – her refusal to pretend she has it all figured out – is precisely what makes her so credible.
"I could work harder and I'm not sure where to point that energy," she says, even as she describes a schedule that would exhaust most people. But then she adds something crucial: "I fucking love my life. It's the fucking best. I can't believe this is a job."
The Journey Continues
As Chris discovered through her ADHD diagnosis years after her postnatal depression, sometimes understanding ourselves better doesn't mean fixing everything – it just means having more compassion for our own struggles. "I'm trying my best and I'm getting better every year," she says, "but I certainly am not there yet."
What strikes me most about Chris Ryan is how she manages to be both deeply honest about her struggles and genuinely grateful for her life. She's created a career out of saying the things many of us are thinking but are often too scared to voice. In doing so, she's given countless people permission to acknowledge their own struggles.
So why have we made it so hard for ourselves? Perhaps because we've forgotten that being human is hard enough without adding the pressure of perfection. Chris's answer isn't to stop striving or caring – it's to remember that sometimes, the best thing we can do is find something that makes us forget ourselves for a while. Whether that's pulling weeds, telling jokes, or simply acknowledging that we're all doing the best we can with what we have.
Listening to Chris, I'm reminded that the most powerful thing we can do is tell our truth. Not because it fixes everything, but because it reminds others they're not alone. And in a world that keeps asking us to be more, do more, achieve more, sometimes the most radical act is to say: "I'm sick of me too. And that's okay."
And that, honestly, is enough.