Everyone's a little weird ... even me!
It's hard enough being a teenager even if you're considered "normal".
Wracked with self-doubt, body issues and an unyielding need to "fit in" it is no wonder most youngsters spend their sullen teen years in turmoil.
For Francesca Martinez it was worse.
Born with cerebral palsy, that feeling of being "different" was magnified twice over.
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Not even landing a role on Grange Hill – the classic kids TV drama – and the moderate fame that brought with it helped.
And then, when she was 19, she had an epiphany – it was not just her who felt like an outsider, it was everyone. She was just different "wobbly" kind of outsider.
"That realisation completely change my life," says the half- Spanish, quarter-English and quarter-Swedish comedian, whose acclaimed new show What The **** Is Normal? arrives at Hull Truck on Friday.
The comic who prefers to describe herself as "wobbly", arguing that cerebral palsy can sound too daunting, says her gag-filled show strikes a chord with anyone who has harboured teenage doubt which, in effect, is everyone over the age of 13.
She said: "I realised it wasn't just me beating myself up as a teenager, it was everyone.
"It's a universal struggle to be accepted and accept yourself for who you are.
"When I went looking for anyone who was 'normal' I realised they don't exist. Everyone's a little weird.
"That's when I started thinking I could have a little fun with it."
Talked into trying stand-up by her writer dad after he penned a movie script for her the 34-year-old says she was terrified the first time she stepped out on stage at a comedy club.
She said: "I was actually doing research for the part my dad had written but it took me months to pluck up the courage to get up on stage myself.
"But when I did it was the most incredible rush, the best feeling ever. That was when I knew what I wanted to do with my life."
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