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So, This Psychologist Walks Into A Comedy Club...

headshot of comedienne

At Bloomington's Limestone Comedy Festival, established comics share billing with lesser-known and regional names. Stephanie Lochbihler, who has Friday and Saturday night slots during the 2014 festival, has opened for everyone from Bob and Tom favorite Heywood Banks to Comedy Central's Al Jackson, and has performed at clubs and colleges around the country.  But Indiana comedy club-goers might recognize her as one of the regular emcees at Snickerz Comedy Bar in Fort Wayne, and Comedy Attic in Bloomington.

And that's just her nightlife.  Lochbihler seems to have taken that line about not quitting your day job to heart.  By day, she's a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington.  Oh, and a single mom.

The first time I did it, I fell in love.  I threw up twice.

"I'm a ball of stress," she confesses.  But stress seems to fuel her process.  Ever since Stephanie did her first routineon a darefor a high school talent show, she's had a love-hate relationship with stand-up

"The first time I did it, I fell in love," she recalls, while simultaneously admitting, "I threw up twice before performing.  I was so insanely nervous.  It's beyond insane.  Like, I hate it beforehand. I'm going, 'this is awful, I feel like I'm dying'. It's kind of like a roller coaster where you're in line, going, ‘why do I do this to myself?' This isn't fun, having anxiety like this.  But it's a huge ego boost."

A second-year doctoral student in Social Psychology, Lochbihler comes naturally by her references to ego and anxiety.   The crossover between classroom and comedy club is fairly extensive, she admits, "It's the same nerves beforehand...and you're hoping that no one heckles you while you're up there."

Managing multiple identities is just part of being Stephanie Lochbihler.  While her comic persona revels in promiscuity, the real Lochbihler is in a long-term committed relationship.

And though she sends up lackluster parenting for laughsincluding such gags as inventing a drinking game timed to Dora The Explorer for her toddlerLochbihler doesn't "consider [her]self a bad mom by any means.  But you get frustrated...so those thoughts that go through your head, I just say out loud."

No matter how well she can juggle the multiple personas, Lochbihler admits that it seems a little harder for others to sort them out:  "I tend to not have a lot of mom friends."

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