by Jenny Lawson
Did you just break into an essay in the middle of our interview?
I did. Sorry. But you’re the interviewer so technically it’s your fault for not reining me in.
Sure. Blame the victim. I don’t have depression but I’ve seen you struggle with it. What advice do you have for people who are currently looking for help?
Every mental illness is different because every person is different. There aren’t any easy cures but there are so many tools available now that people are finally starting to talk about it. You have to figure out how to survive depression, which is really not easy because when you’re depressed you’re more exhausted than you’ve ever been in your life and your brain is lying to you and you feel unworthy of the time and energy (which you often don’t even have) needed to get help. That’s why you have to rely on friends and family and strangers to help you when you can’t help yourself.
Lots of people think that they’re a failure if their first or second or eighth cure for depression or anxiety doesn’t work the way they wanted. But an illness is an illness. It’s not your fault if the medication or therapy you’re given to treat your mental illness doesn’t work perfectly, or it worked for a while but then stopped working. You aren’t a math problem. You’re a person. What works for you won’t always work for me (and vice versa) but I do believe that there’s a treatment out there for everyone if you give yourself the time and patience to find it.
Additionally, psychiatrists are always changing shit, so even they don’t know exactly what’s going on. A mental disorder might be reclassified into a phobia. A phobia might be reclassified as a disorder. In fact, I asked my shrink to read this book and fix everything that’s now outdated but it’ll just be outdated again next week when The Big Book of Crazy is updated again. She agreed that it’s hard to keep up with it all but pointed out that it’s called The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In my defense, I’m bored with that name and I think they’d sell more copies if they used my title. Or maybe Game of Thrones, Part 14.
Here’s what I find helpful: Sunlight, antidepressants, and antianxiety drugs, vitamin B shots, walking, letting myself be depressed when I need to be, drinking water, watching Doctor Who, reading, telling my husband when I need someone to watch me, making a mix tape of songs that make me feel better and not allowing myself to listen to the stuff I want to listen to but that I know will make me worse. I talk to people on Twitter when I’m afraid to be out in the world. When I can’t be an active mom, I snuggle with my daughter and watch TV with her or ask her to read to me. I replace the moments when I feel I should be at a PTA meeting with a memory I hope she’ll treasure of us hiding under a blanket fort with the cats. I remind myself that depression lies and that I can’t trust my own critical judgment when I’m sick. And if things get really bad I call the suicide hotline. I’m not suicidal, but I’ve called several times before to be talked down from hurting myself. They help. They listen. They’ve been there. They give advice. They tell you that you aren’t crazy. Or, sometimes, they tell you that you are crazy, but in a good way. A way that makes you special.
Okay. What doesn’t help when you’re depressed?
Everyone is different so the best thing you can do is to ask the person you’re dealing with what they need.
Like, some people prescribe God for depression or self-harm, and I think that can be really helpful for people who aren’t me. Some claim that depression can be “prayed away” or is caused when you don’t have enough God in your life. I tried God once but it didn’t work well so I cut the dose by a third and just had “Go.” Go where? I asked. No one answered. Probably because I didn’t have enough God in my life. Someone else told me that capitulating to my depression made me seem ungrateful because Jesus died so that I wouldn’t have to suffer, but frankly Jesus seemed to have more than his fair share of bullshit in his life too. That guy got nailed to death. I bet people walking past Jesus were like, “Wow. That guy should have had more God in his life.” Or maybe they just sent him those e-mails that say, “Let Go and Let God,” or “God listens to knee-mail.” Probably not though because e-mail wasn’t popular yet, but I think that’s for the best because there is nothing more annoying than having someone tell you that everything would be fine if you were just a better pray-er. Or if you just smiled more, or stopped drinking Diet Coke.
I can tell you that “Just cheer up” is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It’s pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to “just walk it off.” Some people don’t understand that for a lot of us, mental illness is a severe chemical imbalance rather just having “a case of the Mondays.” Those same well-meaning people will tell me that I’m keeping myself from recovering because I really “just need to cheer up and smile.” That’s when I consider chopping off their arms and then blaming them for not picking up their severed arms so they can take them to the hospital to get reattached.
“Just pick them up and take them to get fixed. IT’S NOT THAT HARD, SARAH. I pick up stuff all the time. We all do. No, I’m not going to help you because you have to learn to do this for yourself. I won’t always be around to help you, you know. I’m sure you could do it if you just tried. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even want to have arms.”
Granted, it’s not a perfect analogy because you don’t usually lose your arms due to involuntary chemical imbalances. Except that if I cut off your arms because of my mental illness then technically a chemical imbalance did lead to your arms falling off, so it’s dangerous for everyone. I guess my point here is that we all suffer when mental illness is not taken seriously.
How do you deal with people who don’t understand depression?
Sometimes people say, “How can you feel bad for yourself when people are starving in Greenland?” and I’m like, “I dunno. Talent?” And you can’t win because you’re given the same guilt when you feel good. “How can you laugh when people are starving in Greenland?” Again, I don’t know. I don’t ask starving people in Greenland how they can laugh when people in Sweden are cancerous and missing hands. (I don’t know if that’s right about Sweden or Greenland. I don’t keep up with geography.) The point is, sometimes shitty things happen, and sometimes they don’t. My rule is “Enjoy the non-shitty things now because shitty things are coming.” And vice versa. This is just basic life 101. Your family member is sick. Your dog needs to go out. You find a lump. People tell you to stop eating gluten. That stuff never stops, so go with the flow and don’t apologize for starving people. Unless you’re the one starving people. Then you should totally apologize.
Right. Apologize if you’re starving someone. This is all good stuff.
Right? Oh, I need you to ask me the question on this card because I’m sure it’ll be pertinent.
Okay. This seems fairly unethical, but whatever. “A lot of people have been critical about this book, because of [fill in the blank with whatever people are currently mad at me about]. What’s your response?”
That is an excellent question.
Well, you wrote it.
Fair enough. But back to the question … First of all, I apologize for that thing I did. It was incredibly stupid and I was young and probably drugged. This seems a bit inauthentic since I don’t know precisely what you’re referring to but I can assure you that there is at least one thing in this book I will think is ridiculously awful within a few years. This is a real issue that I struggle with.
It’s tempting to start each sentence with an apology or disclaimer. To preface everything with “In my life I’ve found” so that people can’t yell at me for being wrong (I often am) or misinformed (sure) or overly emotional (HOW DARE YOU). But this is a book about my life so I have to simply hope that unsaid disclaimer is just implied. This is my life, and my observations of it, and they change as I change. That’s one of the frightening things about writing a book that no one ever tells you. You have to pin down your thoughts and opinions
and then they exist on a page, ungrowing, forever. You may convince yourself that you were never stupid or coarse or ignorant but one day you reread your seventh-grade diary and rediscover the person who one day becomes you, and you vacillate between wanting to hug this unfinished, confused stranger and wanting to shake some damn sense into her. In fact, if you read this book and hated something I wrote, chances are I probably hate it too. Like my grandmother always said, “Your opinions are valid and important. Unless it’s some stupid bullshit you’re being shitty about, in which case you can just go fuck yourself.”
I’m pretty sure neither of your grandmothers ever said that.
Well, I’m paraphrasing, but still …
Someone once said that if you make something no one hates, no one will ever love it either, and that’s true. The same goes for art, writing, and people. Especially people. In fact, most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked up but you’d never guess it because we’ve either become adept at hiding it or we’ve learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. There’s a quote from The Breakfast Club that goes “We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.” I have it on a poster but I took a Sharpie to it and scratched out the word “hiding” because it reminds me that there’s a certain pride and freedom that comes from wearing your unique bizarreness like a badge of honor.
None of us are immune to feelings of failure. Brené Brown has been my friend for more years than I can count and she’s violently successful. She’s a Ph.D. who hangs out with Oprah and writes bestselling books about authenticity and vulnerability and being daring. She is the very definition of “having your shit together.” But I know that I can call her up at midnight and say, “I’m super scared that I’m fucking everything up.” And she’ll say, “Same here. There’s a lot of that going around. What’s wrong with us?” Then we’ll talk it out and in the end we’ll feel better that we both feel shitty because we each respect the other and if we both feel like failures then all bets are off and probably everyone feels like this. Then I tell Brené that her fear of failure is a good thing because no one can write helpful books about honest emotions if they’re already perfect, so technically feeling fucked up is just the first step to her next bestseller. Then she reminds me that my entire livelihood is based on my mortifying myself so if I suddenly got sane I’d become unemployed. She’s right. But I’m still afraid that I’ve written something awful in this book so I’ve decided that I will intentionally make a mistake in here on purpose; just be prepared. And now I can relax because if I fuck something up I can just explain that that was my intentional mistake and ten points to you for finding it. Brené says this is a fine idea so technically I think that means I can intentionally fuck shit up as prescribed by a doctor.
That’s weird. You sound paranoid.
You only think it’s weird because you’ve never accidentally written something offensive. I write intentionally offensive stuff all the time and I’m prepared to take the heat on that, but I’m always afraid of writing or saying something that I have no clue is awful. (Like, one time I wrote that a friend had welched on a bet and spell-check was like, “That’s not a word. Did you mean to say ‘Welsh’?” and I was all, “Jesus, spell-check. That’s a bit racist, isn’t it? I write about someone not paying their debt and you’re all, ‘I bet it was the Welsh.’ Sort yourself out, spell-check.” So then I looked it up online and read that the suspected origin of the phrase “welch on a bet” is an offensive disparagement “on account of the alleged dishonesty of the Welsh.” I didn’t even know that was a thing. It’s like when little kids would say, “My sister got a bigger piece of pie so now I feel gypped.” When I got older I found out “gyp” is a derogatory term for “Gypsy” so I nipped that in the bud. But the best replacement the dictionary offered was “flimflam” and it just sounds ridiculous to say, “Your dessert is bigger. I feel flimflammed.” No one is taking that complaint seriously. Instead I just end up feeling bitter about pie and saying nothing. And also now I’m worried that the word “flimflam” is somehow offensive to the Flemish.
You’ve overthought this.
Well, I have an anxiety disorder. This is what it’s like in my head all the time.
I’m also worried that writing about struggling with my weight is going to piss people off because society is already overly focused on appearance and I’m not helping by talking about how I feel fat sometimes. And I also worry that I might get skinny accidentally and then people who see me on tour will be pissed because they won’t realize that my weight fluctuates by sixty pounds depending on how sick, tired, or depressed I am. And I’ll have to carry around unflattering pictures of me as evidence and bring affidavits from my doctor who continually tells me I need to lose weight until I get incredibly sick or too depressed to eat for a week and then he’s like, “You look great! But why are you in the ER again?”
I’m sensitive about my weight, but overall I love who I am and I prefer my curves because when I’m fatter my wrinkles disappear. No one ever tells you that but when you’re older and you suddenly get skinny you also suddenly age five years because your fat isn’t filling out all of your wrinkles anymore. I sometimes get hassled for using the term “fat” but I also use the term “crazy” to describe myself and I’m fine with that because I’m taking those words back. I’m also taking “sexy” back because, frankly, Justin Timberlake has had it too long and he doesn’t even need it. And I’m taking “flustrated” because that’s not a real word. Stop using it.
Long story short, I am often crazy and sometimes overweight. It’s not always ideal but it makes me who I am. Literally. Plus, I won’t have to feel bad for eating too many egg rolls because if I suddenly get skinny that’s going to be hard to explain. That’s why I had cheesecake last night. Because it’s part of my craft.
Is there ever a line you don’t cross in your writing?
I’m relatively filterless but I do have boundaries. When my last book came out everyone I wrote about got to read it before it went to press and they were all given full permission to take out anything they wanted. To their great credit they were cool with everything and in fact were the first people to say, “Hey, I have pictures of your dad’s Armadillo Racing Championship ring, and of the pet raccoons wearing shorts that lived in our house. Do you want those?”
I do have boundaries. I don’t tell stories that I think a mean fourteen-year-old girl could use against Hailey one day. I don’t write about anything I’m currently fighting with someone about or anything where I’m not the biggest butt of the joke. There are a lot of stories that I don’t write because they aren’t mine to tell, but I think telling my stories helps to encourage putting other stories out there. When I first started writing, my father was very quiet about his own struggles, but after seeing the response of people who’ve read my stories, he’s much more open. And that’s a wonderful thing. When we share our struggles we let others know it’s okay to share theirs. And suddenly we realize that the things we were ashamed of are the same things everyone deals with at one time or another. We are so much less alone than we think.
Do you ever worry that you’ll pass on your mental illness to Hailey?
I used to worry, but she’s ten now and I can see that she doesn’t have the same anxiety issues I had at her age. It’s possible she’ll struggle with mental illness and if so I’ll try to understand, and probably fail, and try again until I get it right. It would almost be easier if she had the same issues I have because I could help her and teach her the tools I’ve learned, but she’s who she was born to be.
My sister and I were raised exactly the same way and we could not be more different. One of her daughters is more like me and my daughter is more like her. It’s baffling for all of us. But it’s not our fault. We’re born the way we are. One of the best things you can do as a parent is to realize that your child is nothing like you, and everything like you.
You get asked to do lots of speaking and TV. Do you
feel famous?
I just cleaned up cat vomit. I feel queasy.
Let me rephrase. Does it ever feel like everyone wants a piece of you?
Like they’re pissed and want to fight me?
What?
You mean like, “Hey, asshole, you want a piece of me?”
No. Not like that at all.
Or did you mean they literally want a piece of me? Like they need my kidneys? Or they just want to dismember me? Because that still seems like people are mad at me. You don’t usually want to dismember people you like. I think you’ve confused “famous” with “despised.”
I meant, like, a metaphoric piece of you.
Oh. Right. Sorry. These questions are making me paranoid and then I get defensive.
Yeah. I can see that.
WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?
And now I see why you don’t do interviews.
Honestly, I’m doing it for the good of humanity. Someone should get me a medal.
I can’t think of any more questions.
I can’t think of any more answers.
We make a good team.
Amen, mister.
I’m Turning into a Zombie One Organ at a Time
Last year my friend Laura woke up when her husband was tapping on her head at two a.m., but when she tried to wave him off she realized that he was fast asleep and on the other side of the bed. That’s when she put her hand up to her head and felt something warm and moving. She thought it was her son’s guinea pig so she turned on a light and found a live possum on her pillow that was chewing off part of her hair to make a nest. She screamed and the possum hissed angrily and ran into the living room and she made her husband go after it even though he was certain she’d just dreamed it. She was all, “REALLY? AM I DREAMING ALL THIS SLOBBERY HAIR ON MY PILLOW?” Then the possum charged and they had a full-out possum battle in the living room, which did not end well for the possum. But don’t feel too bad for it, because of the entire wild kingdom, Texas possums are the dickiest animals ever. My dad made me raise an orphaned possum when I was ten and every time I fed it, it hissed and glared at me like it wanted me to die in a fire. It was a very imaginative, bitey possum and also a total douche-canoe. Eventually it was old enough to be set free but a few months later it came back to our house and died on the porch. Probably out of spite. It’s hard to tell with possums.