Furiously Happy (37 page)

 

It Might Be Easier. But It Wouldn't Be Better.

I'm at the final part of a severe rheumatoid arthritis flare-up. I only get a few a year, but when they hit it's simply a matter of surviving from day to day. That sounds ridiculous and overblown, since I at least know that eventually the pain will fade and I'll be able to get out of bed and not bite back screams. The first few days seem like they should be the worst since they're the most painful and always end with a trip to the emergency room. The next few days it hurts less, but you're so brittle from a lack of sleep and unending pain that you still feel just as miserable. Your family members and friends understand and care, but after half a week of seeing you hobbling around the house and crying in the bathroom, even they can get worn-out by it all. Then comes two days of fatigue so intense that you feel drugged. You want to get up and work and clean and smile, but you find yourself falling asleep at your daughter's first play, and you have to leave to get back to bed while everyone else celebrates.

Life passes. Then comes the depression. That feeling that you'll never be right again. The fear that these outbreaks will become more familiar, or worse, never go away. You're so tired from fighting that you start to listen to all the little lies your brain tells you. The ones that say that you're a drain on your family. The ones that say that it's all in your head. The ones that say that if you were stronger or better this wouldn't be happening to you. The ones that say that there's a reason why your body is trying to kill you, and that you should just stop all the injections and steroids and drugs and therapies.

Last month, as Victor drove me home so I could rest, I told him that sometimes I felt like his life would be easier without me. He paused a moment in thought and then said, “It might be easier. But it wouldn't be
better
.”

I remind myself of that sentence on days when the darkness seems like it'll never end. But I know it will pass. I know that tomorrow things will seem a little brighter. I know that next week I'll look back on this sentence and think, “I should stop listening to my brain when it's trying to kill me.
Why did I even write this?
” And that's precisely
why
I'm writing this now. Because it's so easy to forget that I've been here before and come out the other side, and perhaps if I have this to read I'll remember it again next time and it will help me to keep on breathing until the medications take hold and I'm out of the hole again.

I used to feel a lot of guilt about having depression but then I realized that's a lot like feeling guilty for having brown hair. Still, even though it's unrealistic, it's normal. I felt the same when Smokey the Bear was all, “ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES,” and I was like, “Shit.
Only me?
Because that really seems like it should be more of a team effort.” And also I don't think I should take orders about forests from bears, because some bears use forests to hide in so that they can eat you. So basically I have some demanding bear shaming me into creating a less fiery dining room for him to devour me. And also, that doesn't even make any sense because aren't some forest fires caused by lightning? Because I can't stop lightning, bears. I'm not God. I can't stop lightning, or swamp gas, or spontaneous combustion, or depression. These are all things that just happen and shouldn't be blamed on me.

Stop blaming the victim, bears.

In the years since I first came out about struggling with mental illness I've been asked if I regret it … if the stigma is too much to handle.

It's not.

There are terrible sides to illness (mental and physical) but it's strangely freeing that my personal struggle is obvious and has to be acknowledged. In a way I'm lucky. My depressions and periods of anxiety and paranoia were so extreme that I couldn't keep them much of a secret. I felt like not writing about them was creating a false history, and honestly, when I first wrote about them I expected I'd lose readers. I expected that I'd scare people. I expected that some people would feel betrayed that someone they turned to for light and funny fluff was pulling them into serious and difficult dreck. I expected silence.

I did not expect what I was given.

What I got back in return for being honest about my struggle was an enormous wave of voices saying, “You aren't alone,” and “We suspected you were crazy anyway. We're still here.” “I'm proud of you.” And louder than all of that were the whispers that became stronger every day from thousands and thousands of people creeping to the edge and quietly admitting, “
Me too. I thought it was just me.
” And the whispers became a roar. And the roar became an anthem that carried me through some of my darkest moments. I did not ride that wave alone.

I have a folder that's labeled “The Folder of 24.” Inside it are letters from twenty-four people who were actively in the process of planning their suicide, but who stopped and got help—not because of what I wrote on my blog, but because of the amazing response from the community of people who read it and said, “Me too.” They were saved by the people who wrote about losing their mother or father or child to suicide and how they'd do anything to go back and convince them not to believe the lies mental illness tells you. They were saved by the people who offered up encouragement and songs and lyrics and poems and talismans and mantras that worked for them and that might work for a stranger in need. There are twenty-four people alive today who are still here because people were brave enough to talk about their struggles, or compassionate enough to convince others of their worth, or who simply said, “I don't understand your illness, but I know that the world is better with you in it.”

In the days when I was doing my book tour for
Let's Pretend This Never Happened
I was often asked whether I regretted going public with my struggles and my answer is still the same … those twenty-four letters are the best payment I ever got for writing, and I never would have gotten any of them without the amazing community that helped save those lives. I'm incredibly lucky and grateful to be a part of a movement that made such a difference.

And it doesn't stop.

When I first started talking about my “Folder of 24” I was shocked at how many people would whisper in my ear at book signings that they were number twenty-five. One girl was fifteen and her parents were with her. One woman had two small children. One man who decided to get therapy instead of commit suicide brought his whole family with him. Each time I wondered at how
any
of them could ever consider that life would be better without them, and then I remembered that it's the same thing I struggle with when my brain tries to kill me. And so they've saved me too. That's why I continue to talk about mental illness, even at the cost of scaring people off or having people judge me. I try to be honest about the shame I feel because with honesty comes empowerment. And also, understanding. I know that if I go out on a stage and have a panic attack, I can duck behind the podium and hide for a minute and no one is going to judge me. They already know I'm crazy. And they still love me in spite of it. In fact, some love me because of it. Because there is something wonderful in accepting someone else's flaws, especially when it gives you the chance to accept your own and see that those flaws are the things that make us human.

I do worry that one day other kids will taunt my daughter when they're old enough to read and know my story. Sometimes I wonder if the best thing to do is just to be quiet and stop waving the banner of “fucked up and proud of it,” but I don't think I'll put down this banner until someone takes it away from me.

Because quitting might be easier, but it wouldn't be
better
.

 

Epilogue: Deep in the Trenches

To all who walk the dark path, and to those who walk in the sunshine but hold out a hand in the darkness to travel beside us:

Brighter days are coming.

Clearer sight will arrive.

And you will arrive too.

No, it might not be forever. The bright moments might be for a few days at a time, but hold on for those days. Those days are worth the dark.

In the dark you find yourself, all bones and exhaustion and helplessness. In the dark you find your basest self. In the dark you find the bottom of watery trenches the rest of the world only sees the surface of. You will see things that no normal person will ever see. Terrible things. Mysterious things. Things that try to burrow into your mind like a bad seed. Things that whisper dark and horrid secrets that you want to forget. Things that scream lies. Things that want you dead. Things that will stop at nothing to pull you down further and kill you in the most terrible way of all … by your own trembling hand. These things are fearsome monsters … the kind you always knew would sink in their needle-sharp teeth and pull you under the bed if you left a dangling limb out. You know they aren't real, but when you're in that black, watery hole with them they are the realest thing there is. And they want us dead.

And sometimes they succeed.

But not always. And not with you. You are alive. You have fought and battled them. You are scarred and worn and sometimes exhausted and were perhaps even close to giving up, but you did not.

You have won many battles. There are no medals given out for these fights, but you wear your armor and your scars like an invisible skin, and each time you learn a little more. You learn how to fight. You learn which weapons work. You learn who your allies are. You learn that those monsters are exquisite liars who will stop at nothing to get you to surrender. Sometimes you fight valiantly with fists and words and fury. Sometimes you fight by pulling yourself into a tiny ball, blotting out the monsters along with the rest of the world. Sometimes you fight by giving up and turning it over to someone else who can fight for you.

Sometimes you just fall deeper.

And in the deepest, night-blind fathoms you're certain that you're alone. You aren't. I'm there with you. And I'm not alone. Some of the best people are here too … feeling blindly. Waiting. Crying. Surviving. Painfully stretching their souls so that they can learn to breathe underwater … so that they can do what the monsters say is impossible. So that they can live. And so that they can find their way back to the surface with the knowledge of things that go bump in the night. So that they can dry themselves in the warm light that shines so brightly and easily for those above the surface. So that they can walk with others in the sunlight but with different eyes … eyes that still see the people underwater, allowing them to reach out into the darkness to pull up fellow fighters, or to simply hold their cold hands and sit beside the water to wait patiently for them to come up for air.

Ground zero is where the normal people live their lives, but not us. We live in the negatives so often that we begin to understand that life when the sun shines should be lived full throttle, soaring. The invisible tether that binds the normal people on their steady course doesn't hold us in the same way. Sometimes we walk in sunlight with everyone else. Sometimes we live underwater and fight and grow.

And sometimes …

 … sometimes we fly.

 

Notes

I Have a Sleep Disorder and It's Probably Going to Kill Me or Someone Else

How Many Carbs Are in a Foot?

But frankly I do sort of wonder how people taste. Cannibals say that we taste like pork, and bacon is my spirit animal, so we're probably delicious. I feel sorry for tribes that used to be cannibals but then stopped when the Christians came and inevitably ruined everything, because it would suck to be nostalgic for the comfort food of your childhood but then never have it again because now it's suddenly
not
cool to eat your dead uncle. That's a shitty craving to have. Not that I would know. I've never eaten a person before. Hell,
I've never even eaten kale
.

I'm Not Psychotic. I Just Need to Get in Front of You in Line.