In this special episode of The Appetite, Lexi Giblin, PhD, and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, share the story behind Sideways: A Variety Show About OCD, Eating Disorders and Being Human—a one-night-only event hosted by Opal on August 29 at Fremont Abbey Arts Center in Seattle.
Sideways benefits The Busyhead Project, the nonprofit mental health organization founded by Noah Kahan that works to reduce the stigma around mental health and expand access to mental health resources.
Lexi and Kara share how the variety show began in Opal’s partial hospitalization program and is an opportunity to bring the healing power of creativity to the broader community. Sideways features live performances from artists with lived experience of eating disorders and/or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
At its heart, Sideways is a celebration of community, a balm for shame, and an exploration of creativity as a powerful tool for healing. Tune in to hear Lexi and Kara share the story behind the show, the inspiration that brought it to life, and what Sideways has in store for the audience.
Get your tickets on Eventbrite today and get ready to show the love to these brave humans!
Shout out to our sponsors: Greenwrld, Mansion Creek Cellars, House of Smith Wines, Kobayashi Winery and Pecado Bueno
Connect with Opal:
Thank you to our team…
Editing by David Bazzi
Music by Aaron Davidson: https://soundcloud.com/diet75/
Sound engineering by Ayesha Ubayatilaka at Jack Straw Studios
Transcription provided by Rev.com
Kara Bazzi (00:07):
Hello and welcome to The Appetite, a podcast brought to you by Opal Food and Body Wisdom and Eating Disorder Clinic in Seattle, Washington. On this podcast, we talk about all things food, body, movement, and mental health. I’m Kara Bazzi, co-founder, clinical director for Opal, and your host for today. On today’s episode, I’ll be talking with Lexi Giblin, also co-founder of Opal and executive director. And she is going to be sharing and about an event that Opal is doing on the end of this month on August 29th that our whole community is very excited about. So Lexi, why don’t we just start by you sharing what event are we hosting in the end of August?
Lexi Giblin (00:47):
Yes. So we are hosting an event that is called Sideways, a variety show about OCD, eating disorders and being human at the Fremont Abbey at 7:30 with doors opening at 6:30. This is a fundraising event for the Busy Head Project, which is Noah Khan’s nonprofit, and we’re hosting.
Kara Bazzi (01:10):
Amazing. And might I add, I think Noah Khan is performing on August 30th and August 31st in Seattle, Washington.
Lexi Giblin (01:22):
I know. And
Kara Bazzi (01:23):
Guess what?
Lexi Giblin (01:23):
It’s
Kara Bazzi (01:24):
The
Lexi Giblin (01:24):
End of August.
Kara Bazzi (01:26):
What does that mean, Lexi?
Lexi Giblin (01:28):
He has a song, one of my favorites that’s called End of August, and he is here in Seattle performing at the end of August.
Kara Bazzi (01:35):
Okay. Brilliant. Brilliant idea. Okay, you’re going to have to tell us now about the origin of this event. Tell us more besides the fact that we’re hosting this event during the time he’s here for concerts. Tell us more. How did we get to this event?
Lexi Giblin (01:51):
Yeah. So Opal has been around since 2012, and we had a Facing Fears group that I led for years. And one of the group sessions we would have was an open mic. Sometimes we would call it a variety show, other times open mic, where clients would be invited to share something creative as it relates to their eating disorder recovery. So we would have folks share music, dance, poetry, what have you over the years. And so this has always been kind of a special part of our programming at Opal. And I went to an event that was a storytelling event about OCD, which was hosted by a couple OCD specialists in Seattle, Dr. Shireen Morse and Dr. Stacy Welch in March of 2026. And it was sort of a moth style storytelling, OCD, storytelling about OCD event. And I thought, “Man, we need to do something like this.”
Kara Bazzi (03:00):
Wait, Lexi, for the listeners that don’t know, what is a moth inspired event?
Lexi Giblin (03:05):
Yes. So there is a radio show that has become a series of live events across the nation that is a storytelling show where people from the public come in and tell stories. And the storytelling event about OCD was sort of inspired by the moth style storytelling event. And I went to that and I thought, “We should do something like this.” And I’ve always kind of thought the open mic was something maybe we could take beyond the walls of the partial hospitalization program. And this event kind of inspired me to start thinking, “Maybe we could do something like that.” And right around that time, Noah Khan’s documentary Out of Body came out in April. I watched that documentary and heard his personal struggles with eating and body image and thought, wow, that’s really cool that we have a cis male of his level of fame and beloved figure in many circles talking so openly about his struggles with food and body.
(04:21):
And then he has also disclosed his struggles with OCD and his OCD diagnosis. So I thought we should do something with him.
Kara Bazzi (04:30):
Okay. And I thought another brilliant idea by Lexi, she strikes again. And creative.
Lexi Giblin (04:40):
So on a whim, I reached out to the Busy Head Project and said, “Hey, would you want to do something with us?” And they said, “Sure, we’d love to receive any donations you might have for us.” So we thought, “Well, let’s maybe put all of this together. The variety show at Opal, the Busy Head Project, something more public.” And so we’ve created this event kind of tying all of these pieces together. So it’s an event, it’s a variety show about OCD and eating disorder. So all of the folks who are performing have lived experience related to OCD and eating disorders. And of course being human too.
Kara Bazzi (05:27):
Amazing. Okay. So you started by saying about Opal’s open mic that we’ve done for years, which is so incredible and moving the times I’ve gotten to be a witness to that group. And we know there’s a lot of therapeutic relevance to doing that. That’s why we do it at Opal. So why don’t you share with the listeners what is the therapeutic relevance of doing something like a variety show in a treatment space like Opal and how we’re bringing it into the community?
Lexi Giblin (05:58):
Yeah. Well, I think at its heart, eating disorders and mental health struggles, OCD, there’s a lot of shame involved in the experience of a mental health struggle. People feel there’s a lot of stigma. There’s a lot of shame. And we know, of course, that the way to treat our shame is to go opposite to the urge of shame, which is to hide. Shame always has us hiding. And the work of treating our shame means breaking the silence, like letting others know what our experience is. And so we’ve always though of our variety shows and open mic as a anti-shame event as well, as a creative event. And we hope that the audience has empathy for the stories that are told, that there’s appreciation for what is being shared, and the audience provides a felt sense of empathy towards the person’s story, their experience. And that is part of the healing journey of performing or sharing what was once shameful out loud.
Kara Bazzi (07:15):
Yeah. Sounds about right.
Lexi Giblin (07:18):
Right? And I would assume people listening to folks who are creatively sharing their stories and their music related to their struggles will also feel a sense of shame reduction, right? Because we all have our struggles. And when we see others owning their struggles and maybe even creating something beautiful from their struggle, we will feel less alone in our struggles. So I kind of see it as this, hopefully the performers feel a sense of freedom from and a sense of support and freedom and empathy. And the audience leaves feeling a little less alone, a little less ashamed of their struggles and more connected to community.
Kara Bazzi (08:16):
Yeah. I also think about performance as a place that is vulnerable. And I, of course, coming from the sport world, think about performance anxiety and sort of what this requires for people to go up on stage with their struggle. And it is, yeah, I don’t know, the process of creating art and sharing art. Could you speak more to those parts?
Lexi Giblin (08:45):
Yeah. I mean, it’s super brave, right? It’s exposure therapy in a major way in front of hundreds of people. So it’s definitely brave humans will be on the stage on August 29th, right? And yeah, I think also at Opal, we’ve always had an art therapy group. We’ve always had an art therapy or creative expression group of some sort. And so we see the value, of course, in healing journeys that don’t necessarily involve sitting down one-to-one therapy or in a structured group therapy. We respect the healing that comes through art, through creative expression, through connecting with innovation and creation. So we see this, the work that’s going to be shared on stage, there’s a creative aspect that is also part of the healing journey.
Kara Bazzi (09:50):
You’ve brought up the groups at Opal of Open Mic, Creative Expression. A former group that we had was called Shame and Play. And so say more, maybe a little bit about the therapeutic relevance when it comes to the play aspect.
Lexi Giblin (10:04):
Yeah. So we’re always holding the opposing ideas of gravity and levity. So we always like to think of play being play and lightness, running alongside kind of the seriousness of what we are working with in eating disorder treatment and OCD treatment as well. We all understand that what we’re encountering, what we’re trying to help people with is very serious. There’s a lot of compassion there, a lot of tears there. And at the same time, there has to be levity. I mean, how do you get through difficult things in life without some humor and without some moments of seeing beyond the struggle and seeing that there’s light even in the struggle? So we always at Opal, I think, are kind of moving between those two or kind of feeling both the gravity and the levity at the same time.
Kara Bazzi (11:11):
And speaking of levity, I know that we have a couple standup comedy acts coming, which will be real fun to watch. Let’s talk a little bit more about maybe some things about the show itself that you are open to revealing at this point, because we sure want to keep some things. We want to wait for the day itself. But tell us a little bit about what this show will be like.
Lexi Giblin (11:39):
Yes. I’m thrilled with the applications. We had so many great applications and we’ve put together a show that’s going to have a lot of variety. As the variety show suggests, we’ve actually made that happen. So yes, as Kara says, we’ll have two comedy skits. We have music, we have dance, we have a film short, we have spoken words, story performances. So the show will be a series of short performances, five minute-ish performances, about 10 of them. And it’ll be hosted by Riley Jameson, who’s one of our movement therapists at Opal, who has been a great host of our open mics and variety shows at Opal. We’ll have community walls from Busy Head. We’ll be raffling off two Noah Khan tickets to a show.
Kara Bazzi (12:38):
What? Two Noah Khan tickets.
Lexi Giblin (12:41):
You got it, Kara. It’s happening.
Kara Bazzi (12:43):
That’s amazing.
Lexi Giblin (12:45):
And we have a one-of-one upcycled handmade Noah Khan hoodie, which has been donated by Greenworld that we’ll be raffling off as well.
Kara Bazzi (12:58):
Amazing.
Lexi Giblin (13:00):
And the community support has been just amazing for this event. So we’ve had donations for wine. So wine will be for sale, which has been donated by Mansion Creek, House of Smith, Kobayashi Winery and Patterson Cellars. Piccato Bueno has donated some yummy food. So we’re set. We’re ready.
Kara Bazzi (13:24):
It sounds absolutely incredible. I can’t imagine a listener not wanting to come now that we’ve shared this. And I just want to say I love the fact that now we’re getting to hear some of the context behind this variety show. And if as a listener you end up signing up to join, now you know this. And I just think that’s really special to kind of see some of that, those therapeutically relevant aspects of this variety show and appreciate it more by hearing this context.
Lexi Giblin (13:56):
Yep. We would absolutely love to see you there. It’s open to the public, obviously. We want to show love to these brave humans that are going to be getting up on the stage and sharing some aspect of their struggle and healing. So go to the link in our show notes or to Opal’s website under events, www.opalfoodandbody.com to get tickets.
Kara Bazzi (14:25):
You won’t want to miss this thing, right, Lexi?
Lexi Giblin (14:28):
Don’t miss it. Don’t do it.
Kara Bazzi (14:29):
Don’t miss it.
Lexi Giblin (14:30):
Be there.
Kara Bazzi (14:31):
Be there. You will not regret it. Okay. Any other things, Lexi, you want to share with our listeners?
Lexi Giblin (14:39):
I don’t think so.
Kara Bazzi (14:40):
Okay. All right. Well, we hope we’ve really convinced you that this is going to be a great event. So if you are in town on August 29th in the evening in Seattle, buy a ticket, come join us. It will be well worth your time.
