Furiously Happy

by Jenny Lawson

September 22, 2015 · Flatiron Books

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I’ve been a fan of Jenny Lawson’s blog The Bloggess for a long time–she’s a truly funny writer who posts stories about her crazy childhood, her crazy adulthood, and balances them all with reflections on mental illness. Furiously Happy is the same way–it’s two parts humor and one part discussion of something that most people find hard to talk to about. It’s one of those rare books that makes you snort-laugh in public and also get a little weepy. Anyone who has struggled with depression, anxiety or any other mental illness will find themselves nodding their head as they read this book, as Lawson articulates what we often struggle to understand about our own brains.

I try to ration my book money, because otherwise I’m like an addict in the heroin store, but I loved this book so much and identified with it in so many ways, that I bought a copy for my mom, sister and best friend.

Most of Furiously Happy is stories from Lawson’s life, which is way more interesting than my life and involves taxidermy animals a lot (Lawson collects taxidermy, but only animals that died of natural causes). Many of her exploits and shenanigans involve her cats, Hunter S Thomcat and Ferris Mewler:

You still have to call the vet though when your cat has eaten a toy consisting of a tinkle bell and a feather and a poof ball all tied together with twine. That actually happened once and it was really the worst because the vet told me I’d have to ply the cat with laxatives to make the toy pass easily through and that I’d need to inspect the poop to make sure the toy passed because otherwise they’d have to do open-cat surgery. And then it finally did start to pass, but just the first part with the tinkle bell, and the cat was freaked out because he was running away from the tinkle bell hanging out of his butthole and when I called the vet he said to definitely NOT pull on the twine because it could pull out his intestines, which would be the grossest piñata ever, and so I just ran after the cat with some scissors to cut off the tinkle bell (which, impressively, was still tinkling after seeing things no tinkle bell should ever see). Probably the cat the was running away because of the tinkle bell and because I was chasing it with scissors screaming, “LET ME HELP YOU.”

I was at the coffee shop when I read this part, and I had earl grey up my nose from laughing.

The thing that makes Lawson a remarkable writer is her ability to blend passages like the one above with a heavier discussion. Lawson suffers from several mental illnesses: depression and anxiety, trichotillomania, dermatillomania (impulse control disorders that make her want to pull out her hair and scratch at her skin, specifically her scalp), and avoidant personality disorder. Lawson describes feeling broken inside, resorting to self harm in order to feel something when her depression is in full swing.

Her candid discussions about her mental illness, her episodes of depression and anxiety attacks, her fear of dealing with other people or traveling or just going outside, are so profound because these are things that so many people experience and don’t feel okay talking about. There’s still a huge amount of stigma around mental illness, and Lawson calls bullshit on it:

Like, some people prescribe God for depression and 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 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-mails wasn’t popular yet, but I think that’s for the best because there is nothing more annoying than having someone tell you 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 than just having “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 go 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 now. I’m sure you could if you just tried. Honestly, it’s like you don’t even want to have arms.”

WORD. I am holding up a lighter right now. You can’t see me, but I am.

I also struggle with depression and anxiety, but mostly as a side effect of having a chronic pain disorder (fibromyalgia). When I’m in so much pain I can barely function, I get depressed and I fixate on things like, “Will I lose my job for this? Am I a burden to my family? What if I feel this way forever?” and then I get anxiety attacks.

It’s really hard to have an illness no one can see. I wish that I had some sort of icon over my head like in The SIMS to let everyone know I felt I was being stung by a million bees. Or that the nerve pain in my hands so was so bad that I was just going to learn to write with my toes.

The number of times I’ve heard that my disease isn’t real or that it’s a reflection of my poor coping abilities or that I’m somehow selfish for being ill is astounding. For some reason, people feel completely comfortable criticizing others for chronic pain and mental illness. “Oh, my sister in-law says she has that but it’s just because she doesn’t want to work” or “I saw a thing on Dr. Oz that says you just need to take more vitamins and exercise.” I somehow doubt these same people would say those things to someone who had a disorder they could see. Please, go tell that person with cerebral palsy that they’re just lazy.

The other thing that pisses me off is that often people who suffer from one disorder also suffer from several. I have fibro, anxiety, depression, apparently a shitty immune system (although my fibro impacts my sensory abilities so I might just not know I feel really sick till I am really, really sick) and migraines. People act like I’m either a hypochondriac or I’m just selfishly hoarding all the shitty illnesses for myself.

That’s the beauty of Furiously Happy. Lawson describes her illness and her coping strategies, but specifies that everyone is different. She tells the reader what works for her (vitamin B, sunlight, snuggles with cats and family, having a husband who clearly loves and supports her), but doesn’t say, “Here’s how to fix this.” That’s an important message because it validates everyone who has one of these “invisible” illnesses.

Furiously Happy is about Lawson living with her illness and making a life in spite of it. She makes a point of doing things that would otherwise scare her–travel is huge among those. Anxiety disorders and travel don’t go well together, but Lawson is determined to see the world. She writes a chapter about being people assholes in the airport. PREACH SISTER. She goes to Japan with her husband where she gets so confused by the complicated toilet that she wants to request a bucket from the concierge. She goes to Australia and learns that koalas are full of Chlamydia. She debates getting an Emotional Support Animal for her travels:

My shrink suggested that if I was going to continue traveling so much that I would look into getting a service animal expressly trained to provide emotional support to people with anxiety disorders. I considered getting Hunter S Thomcat trained, but then I remembered that he gets spontaneous nervous diarrhea every time he’s in a moving car, and I’d imagine that holding a cat who seems to have explosive plane dysentery wouldn’t necessarily help my anxiety so much as it would just give me something new (and horribly unsanitary) to be anxious about.

I called around to different service animal specialists and spoke to a woman who told me it’s better to get an animal who has already been trained and has the right temperament. She also told me that cats aren’t preferred emotional-support animals for anxiety disorders, but my cats hate dogs so I figured I was fucked, but then she told me the Americans with Disabilities Act was recently interpreted as allowing “people with anxiety disorders to travel with an emotional support pony on airlines.” So basically I could bring a goddamned pony on board with me. I’m pretty sure a pony wouldn’t fit under my seat or on my lap, but I rather liked the idea of a small medicinal horse standing in the aisle beside me  while I braided his mane. Plus, Pony Danza would make  great pack animal and instead of bringing suitcases I could just put my extra clothes on him and that way I wouldn’t have to pay to check a bag. Plus, the pony wouldn’t get cold because it would be wearing my pajamas.

Lawson doesn’t get a pony–at least not yet— but I’m holding out hope.

Furiously Happy is a rare book, a combination of ridiculous humor and poignant reflection. I think anyone who has suffered from a stigmatized illness will identify with Lawson’s honest, sometimes heartbreaking, description of her own pain. It’s still an uplifting book though, and that’s important. Lawson believes in celebrating small victories and quiet bravery. I get that. Sometimes you’re proud because hey, you got out of bed and showered today but you can’t post that on Facebook because other people don’t get it (and you’ll get shitty comments “Wow, I trained for my half marathon and worked 12 hours.” NOBODY CARES, GARY).

Furiously Happy took courage to write and I applaud Lawson for it. I also thank her for articulating so well what I often struggle to put into words. And for the story of how her taxidermy raccoon got broken on a rollercoaster. That really made my day.