Tara Flynn: How I lost all my marbles - and how I found them again

Actress, comedian and writer Tara Flynn gets up off the floor and with theatre company Thisispopbaby presents her new one-woman show, Haunted, that tells us how she found her marbles again

Tara Flynn premieres her one woman play HAUNTED (staged as a double bill with Panti’s new play IF THESE WIGS TALK) at the Abbey Theatre on the Peacock stage, Nov 11- Dec 3. Picture: Patricio Cassinoni

I lost all my marbles in 2018, at the end of the campaign to Repeal the 8th amendment. Remember that? It seems a million years ago. I’ve certainly aged about that much. 

A great result for those of us who campaigned for a Yes. But it’s important to remember both how hard we had to fight for it, and that someone will always, always be coming for our reproductive rights. Look at the overturning of Roe v Wade; many felt that could never happen. But it did. Here, we haven’t yet achieved full access for everyone who needs it and we must never become complacent.

I digress. My marbles… In 2015 I went public with my own story of travelling abroad for an abortion, years earlier. From that moment, everything changed. I became the subject of chatter and commentary I’d never been part of before. Before all that, I’d been fame-adjacent: you might know me, but from where? I hadn’t had the most glittering of careers, but enough people knew me that when I spoke out about my private life, there was some interest. That interest grew into an obsession for some and for three full years, my life was no longer my own. I was judged by people who opposed abortion. I was generally admonished for not doing enough on other issues, as if I were an elected representative. I was judged by some on the pro-choice side, who decided I was solely chasing clout. I wanted to tell them that that’s not how showbiz works, not with controversial issues, not for eejits like me who aren’t already household names; the work phone stops ringing fairly quickly. I never set out to be “the face of” anything (though a perfume contract would be nice, not gonna lie).

When people are angry or hurting, it can be useful to find a focus for those feelings. For many, I became that focus. My message was: “This happened to me. I’d like it not to happen to anyone else. Let’s not force people to do what they can’t. Let’s keep them safe.” It’s amazing that something that moderate could create such a whirlwind.

Then, there was the grief. You know how they say you shouldn’t make any big life decisions in the year following a bereavement? Just months before I went public, my dad died. But I had the skills and the story and the opportunity — offered to be part of an Amnesty International’s She Is Not A Criminal event. I had to. The ensuing referendum campaign certainly took my mind off the loss, but the distraction was purely temporary: it was not good.

Campaigning took up all available headspace and time in the following years, though I wasn’t engaged in an official capacity: I didn’t have an office, wasn’t involved in decisions about posters. But if someone asked me to write or speak about what happened to me, I did so. I tried to find ways to show that Women Who Tell Their Stories are people we know. But I wasn’t an expert. This wasn’t my job.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when, in 2017, THISISPOPBABY theatre company helped me stage a show about my story. Not A Funny Word played at the Abbey Theatre on the Peacock Stage, as part of a series of rapid-response social pieces at the national theatre. This was my job. It felt so good to share my experience in a theatrical way. My way.

I use humour whenever I can. No one who needs abortion care is any one thing: we’re funny. We’re busy. We’re kind. When you’re part of the discussion on this issue, you can find yourself reduced to your uterus. I promise you, we’re so much more.

When I was “an issue”, my work faded into the distance. Most people forgot what it was I actually did. I almost did, myself. I was already lost. Then, once the campaign ended, the postponed grief surrounding my dad came crashing in. I physically shook. Couldn’t eat or sleep. My eyes glazed and staring. It was a lewk, I’m telling you. And my marbles vanished into thin air.

When enough time had passed, I decided to write about all the positive things I did to try bring myself back to good mental health. Fun movies, reality TV, people and jokes.

I wanted to make people laugh. Honestly, I wanted to feel like laughing again myself. For that reason, there’s an early draft of Haunted, my new show with THISISPOPBABY, that rings a bit hollow. It’s about running away from pain. Our director Phillip McMahon urged me, throughout the process, to explore the pain and what it’s taught me. He was right. It wasn’t easy to go back when all I wanted to do was forget, but Haunted’s here now, full of light and shade.

It took both the light and the shade to bring me to wherever I am today. I was torn to shreds, in public. At least, a version of me was. But I made it back. And that’s the story.

Haunted is a show about grief, losing your marbles, and the quest to find them again. It’s realising how lucky you are to come out the other side of a whirlwind. It’s about hope. It feels so good to be doing the work I actually do. It feels good to be me again.

• Tara Flynn premieres her play HAUNTED with THISISPOPBABY (staged as a double bill with Panti’s new play IF THESE WIGS TALK) at the Abbey Theatre on the Peacock stage, until Dec 3 
• www.abbeytheatre.ie