by Hannah Hart
This was our way of leaving our child selves behind, and buffering into adulthood. Choosing between the pixels we’d like to fully load, and which broken images are better left behind.
EPILOGUE
I spoke to my mother today. I won my case as conservator1 and was able to relocate her to a facility that is helping to rehabilitate the mind she has left. They say she’s incredibly high functioning and that while it’s too soon to know what shape recovery will take, it still might be possible. She’s also been on medication for the longest she’s ever been on meds. She’s speaking to a therapist and psychiatrist on a weekly basis. Her paranoia is contained, but her delusions are as strong as ever. Still, with the medication, she feels less urgency to act on them. When I talked to her, she sounded like a different person. She asked me questions like “How are you?” and remembered the things I’d mentioned to her in a previous conversation. She asked me how this book was coming along. She told me she loved me. That she was proud of me. She thanked me for saving her from being a bag lady.
After we hung up, I sat on the floor of my kitchen staring into my hands. I couldn’t tell what I was feeling? It felt like shock, but I didn’t feel empty—I felt full.
I was full of joy.
I know that these may seem like tiny, insignificant things, but to me they mean the world. Having a mother with even the vaguest sense of a shared reality is a gift I never thought would be returned. Living my life without wondering if she’s covered in cockroaches or threatening the safety of another human is a relief that I cannot express in words. The conservatorship will only last a year, but a year is a long time compared to all the days we’ve lost.
It does make my heart feel heavy though, to think of the woman she might have been, had she gotten the proper treatment for her illness early on. I want to show you a drawing she once did—she’d call it a freehand pencil “doodle”—that reminds me of that lost potential.
Over the past ten years, I’ve processed a lot. I’m still processing. And there is more to be done. But I’m very proud of the person I am today. I’m proud to be gay. I’m proud to be a reckless optimist. I’m proud to keep learning and sharing what I’ve learned. I’m proud to be a work in process.
As we end this time together, I’d like to show you the reason for my decision in December 2015. What gave me a final nudge in the direction of the impossible hope. What made me call my sister and tell her that I was determined to fight the odds and accept that I might fail but at the very least try to beat the system to help our mother. To be fair, there were many reasons: the love and support of my online community, the love and support of my friends and found family, the love and support I had learned to show myself. But this discovery tipped the scales from daydreams and hope into planning and action.
It was something I never saw coming: a small package that arrived at my house on Christmas Day, nearly thirty years after the Christmas of 1987, when my mother was first taken away.
CHRISTMAS 2015—A GIFT AND CARD FROM NAOMI:
To Our Dear Annette,
For her birthday, June 19, 1981
Love, Grandma and Grandpa Hart
This is a book that my great-grandfather Hart gave to my mother. It was written in 1936 by his brother, my granduncle Henry Hart, who was one of the first scholars to translate ancient Chinese poetry into English.
And here is the Christmas card that accompanied it in the mail, from my sister:
Dearest Hannah,
In addition to very many warm things, I’ve included a package sent to you through time and space: a birthday gift to our mother when she was 22, before having children, before the Witnesses, from our Great-Grandparents. I’m sure they’d want you to have it: a treasured keepsake from our collective past. An Heirloom.
Wishing you a warm and joyful year,
Naomi 12/21/15
1 The county official who filed for me stopped me outside and said “This never happens.”
I replied “This needs to happen more.”
READ THIS TOO
(Please read this! Please please please!)
I want you to know that I didn’t win LPS conservatorship because winning is common or possible and all you have to do is try. I won because of the following advantages:
1. I’m white. This is an advantage. We can’t deny it.
2. I’m educated. Both Naomi and I have high-level degrees, which means that the intensive research it takes to understand a complicated legal and medical system is more accessible to us than it is to many people.
3. I’m healing. I’ve gone to years of therapy, and I take medication. Both Naomi and I have PTSD from a childhood of trauma. It’s hard and triggering to even talk to our mom, let alone display our trauma in front of impassive third parties who have the authority to simply say “No. Your pain isn’t good enough. Let her shoot someone first.”
4. I’m wealthy. What paid for my years of therapy and medications to help me excel? Money, dudes. Fucking money. I have it. I’ve saved it. I’m using it to fight this case. And you know what else money buys you? Money buys you time. I spent three weeks in the Bay Area fighting the system. Naomi’s schedule isn’t as flexible as mine—she was able to take only a week off from work—but otherwise she telecommuted.
And the icing on the cake:
5. I’m famous. People are endeared to me, as I am to them. I have a community that is rooting for me to win.
Still, with all of these resources, I almost lost my mother and could still potentially lose her. So let me ask you this question:
If a white, wealthy, educated, famous person can’t save her parent from the streets—who can? Who does this system work for?
The system works for itself.
So there you have it. The system is broken. It’s been broken since the LPS Act of 1969,1 which basically outlines the protection of “patients’ rights” but leaves no room for people to help those who suffer from debilitating paranoia and delusions that prevent them from acknowledging their own illness. The act is out of date and based on nonscientific ideas and assumptions. It needs to be updated to reflect our current understanding of debilitating mental illnesses. It doesn’t take into consideration that many people with severe mental illness can be treated and achieve some sense of normalcy for their lives. Though diseases like schizophrenia are not curable, they are treatable. And that’s a huge difference.
So the system is broken. And broken systems create broken families and broken lives.
There is also a deep stigma surrounding mental health that is directly responsible for many of the violent crimes and senseless deaths that we hear about in the news. Every time there is a shooting and we blame the person for his mental illness or his family for not “doing something about it,” I’d like you to remember the stories I have just told you and the facts I’ve presented to you.
We do not have to have the number of homeless people on the street that we have. We should not teach our children that so many people are homeless because they have failed in society.
The truth is that society has failed them.
Our society is stuck between problem and solution when it comes to treating mental illness. We cannot find a solution until we agree on the problem. And it is my humble opinion that the problem is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the misunderstood. Instead, let us seek to pursue knowledge over fear. Let’s find a way to save lives that can be saved.
A wise woman once told me, “Another word for fear is intelligence.”
So let’s get brave, and let’s get smart.
Thank you for listening, and if you’d like to know more, here is my personal list of readings and references that may be helpful if your family or someone you love is encountering struggles similar to mine:
HANNAH’S LIST OF READINGS AND REFERENCES
I’m Not Sick I Don’t Need Help: How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment by Xavier Amador, PhD.
Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping w
ith Attention Deficit Disorder by Edward M. Hallowell, MD, and John J. Ratey, MD.
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh.
No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life by Thich Nhat Hanh.
The poetry of Rumi.
The poetry of Mary Oliver.
Good Poems for Hard Times, selected and introduced by Garrison Keillor.
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
—Hannah Hart, October 2016
1 For more information on the LPS Act of 1969 and all of the problems it has caused for the mental health care system, check out the Treatment Advocacy Center’s website: http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/component/content/article/194.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
—Mary Oliver
First I’d like to thank everyone for putting up with my pretentious ass inserting a poem at the top of my acknowledgments.
Next I would like to thank my publisher, HarperCollins, and the two editors who worked with me to make this book possible. You showed me a great deal of patience and understanding during the creation of this book. Thank you for letting me miss so many deadlines and helping craft this book into the creation it is today. I am very proud of it, and very proud of us.
Thank you to my manager, partner, and friend, Linnea Toney, for taking on bearing of the brunt of my anxieties with such strength and compassion. You made this book possible. Thank you for creating the space I’d need to finish it, and showing such belief in me during my times of exhaustion and doubt.
I’d like to thank my literary agent Jodi Reamer and my team at UTA. Together we do great work. I’m excited for future projects to come. I’d like to thank Helen and all the “Have a Hart Day” City Captains who volunteer each month and bring joy to the lives of those around them. I am honored to be in such good company as yours.
I’d like to thank my friends, family, and lovers who I have had the privilege to walk beside.
Thank you to Naomi, my monk, sister, and friend.
Thank you to Maggie, my sun, sister, and friend.
And lastly, I’d like to thank my mother, Annette, for being the bravest person I know. You inspire me each and every day. You taught me right and wrong and the flexibility in between. You taught me forgiveness and compassion for all God’s creatures. And above all, you taught me to never give up. I can’t thank you enough for that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HANNAH HART is an author, digital influencer, philanthropist, actress, and producer. She is the New York Times bestselling author of My Drunk Kitchen, and the creator and star of the popular and award-winning YouTube series My Drunk Kitchen. Named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Hannah has led a discussion about millennial engagement with President Obama at the White House, and she is founder of the Have a Hart Day initiative, which encourages young leaders to volunteer in their communities. She has coproduced and starred in three films: the independent comedy Camp Takota with fellow YouTubers Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart, the reboot of 70’s cult classic Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, and the comedy film Dirty30. Hannah lives in Los Angeles and is starting to like it there.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com
ALSO BY HANNAH HART
My Drunk Kitchen:
A Guide to Eating, Drinking, and Going with Your Gut
CREDITS
Illustration of diary in “My Drunk Kitchen” © Auntie M Photog
Illustration at the end of “That Summer Feeling” © Cory Godbey
Jacket image in the epilogue originally published in The Charcoal Burner and Other Poems, Translated from the Chinese, by Henry H. Hart. Copyright © 1974 University of Oklahoma Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Poem in the acknowledgments, “The Uses of Sorrow,” from Thirst by Mary Oliver, published by Beacon Press, Boston, Copyright © 2004 by Mary Oliver, used herewith by permission of the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency, Inc.
Watercolor images throughout the book © Art by Hannah Gelb
Cover design by Meat and Potatoes, Inc.
Cover photograph © Vishnu Hoff Photography
Cover painting by Hannah Gelb
COPYRIGHT
BUFFERING: UNSHARED TALES OF A LIFE FULLY LOADED. Copyright © 2016 by Harto, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-245751-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-266819-6 (Barnes & Noble signed edition)
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2016 ISBN 9780062457530
16 17 18 19 20 RS/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com