Hello and welcome to Series 2 episode 7 of Out with Susie Ruffle. I hope you're having a good week.

Mine's been pretty good. I've been doing some work which has been really exciting.

I've done a couple of socially

distance gigs. It's felt really nice to be back on stage making people laugh. I

didn't realize how much I enjoyed it or how much I was defined by stand-up. I always sort of thought, oh, I'm not defined by being a comedian.

Turns out I absolutely am, but I've been loving it. I've been loving getting back to doing what I love and writing new material.

And also also of course

reading all the emails I've been getting from everyone that's emailed in to say

that they're enjoying the podcast or to share their stories with me do remember that you can do that too the email is hello the please that this podcast is meaning so much to so many people it's really

blow me away and I feel very humbled by it. As ever I will share a couple of

emails at the top before our interview today which which is with the brilliant Laura Checkley, who I absolutely love. I think you're going to really enjoy this episode. I loved chatting to her. But first of all, let's start with a couple of emails.

Dear Susie, I apologize in advance

for the random rambling nature of this email.

Firstly, I would like to say thank you for doing the podcast.

I found it a couple of weeks ago and have binge listened to it.

I can honestly say it's changed my life. I heard you read

out stories from listeners who have come to terms with their sexuality and

found peace and I thought maybe you'd like to hear from someone who's still in the

middle of working things out. At 35, I find myself maybe finally dealing with the issues I've had for the last 20 years and never fully addressed.

I've had depression since I was 14 or 15 and had various cycles of bad times and a combination of medication and talking therapies.

My main issues related to not liking myself, thinking that I'm a horrible person

and feeling like a failure for not doing what I was supposed to be doing

...