Once, while playing a family game, Chase read this question to my then husband: “If you were going to be stranded on an island, who is the one person you’d bring with you?”
Craig said, “Your mom.”
Chase said, “Okay. What is the one item you would bring?”
Craig said, “Your mom’s meds.”
I do not believe that when we die, one of us will be presented with the She Who Suffered Most trophy. If this trophy does exist, I don’t want it. If there are people in your life—parents, siblings, friends, writers, spiritual “gurus”—who judge you for taking prescribed medicine, please ask to see their medical license. If they can show it to you and they happen to be your doctor, consider listening. If not, tell them sweetly to fuck all the way off. They are two-legged people who are calling prosthetics a crutch. They cannot go with you into the dark. Go about your business, which is to suffer less so you can live more.
2. KEEP TAKING YOUR DAMN MEDS
After you take your meds for a while, you will likely begin to feel better. You will wake up one morning, look at your pills, and think: What was I thinking? I am a perfectly normal human, after all! I don’t need those things anymore!
Going off meds because you feel better is like standing in a torrential rainstorm holding a trusty umbrella that is keeping you toasty and dry and thinking: Wow. I’m so dry. It’s probably time to get rid of this silly umbrella.
Stay dry and alive.
3. TAKE NOTES
This is what happens to us: We are in our homes, and we start sinking down, down, down or floating up, up, and away. We are fading and freaking out. We are in the bad part. So we make an appointment with our doctor for help. Our appointment is in a few days. We wait.
We start to feel a little bit better, day by day. The morning of our appointment, as we shower and get into the car, we can’t even remember who we were or what we felt like three days ago. So we look at the doctor and think: My down self is impossible to explain. I barely remember her. Was that even real? We end up saying something like “I don’t know. I get sad. I guess everyone does. I’m fine now, I guess.” Then we leave, without help.
A few days later we are in our homes. And we start sinking and floating again. And so forth.
When you start sinking into the gray, get out your phone or a notebook and write a few notes from your Down Self to your Up Self. Write about how you feel right now. This does not need to be a novel, just a note. Here is one of my notes from my Down Self:
It’s all gray.
I can’t feel.
I am all alone.
No one knows me.
I’m too tired to write any more.
Put your note away in a safe place, and then call for that appointment. When you go to your appointment, bring your note from your Down Self. When you sit down with the doctor, you don’t need to remember or translate. You just need to say, “Hello. This is me, all showered and ‘fine’ looking. I don’t need help for this Up version of me; I need help for this version of me.” Take out your note and hand it over. This is how you take care of your Down Self. This is one way to become her friend and advocate.
When you’ve been returned to yourself, write yourself another note.
Months ago, I threw away my umbrella because I was dry. Two weeks later, I’d just finished snapping at the kids for the millionth time and my people were looking at me sideways with scared eyes. I was going through the motions, making lunches, writing words. I just couldn’t remember the point of these motions anymore. I realized I was gone again. But I also felt confused. Maybe this is just who I am, actually. I can’t remember.
So I went to my jewelry box and pulled out the note my Up Self had written to me.
G,
You love your life (mostly).
The smell of Tish’s hair makes you melt.
Sunsets blow your mind. Every time.
You laugh twenty times a day.
You see more magic than the average bear.
You feel loved. You are loved. You have a beautiful life that you have fought hard for.
—G
I called my doctor, got back on my meds, and returned myself to me.
Take good care of all of your selves. Fight like hell to keep yourself, and when you lose her, do whatever it takes to return to her.
4. KNOW YOUR BUTTONS
My commitment to sobriety is about staying with myself. I don’t want to abandon myself ever again. Not for long, at least.
Remember those Staples commercials from a few years ago? A group of people in an office would get stressed about something, and a red “easy” button would appear out of nowhere. Someone would press that button, and the whole office would be transported out of their stress and into a pain-free place.
“Easy” buttons are the things that appear in front of us that we want to reach for because they temporarily take us out of our pain and stress. They do not work in the long run, because what they actually do is help us abandon ourselves. “Easy” buttons take us to fake heaven. Fake heaven always turns out to be hell. You know you’ve hit an “easy” button when, afterward, you feel more lost in the woods than you did before you hit it. It has taken me forty years to decide that when I feel bad, I want to do something that makes me feel better instead of worse.
I keep a handwritten poster in my office titled “Easy Buttons and Reset Buttons.”
On the left are all the things I do to abandon myself.
On the right are my reset buttons, the things I can do to make staying with myself a little more possible.
EASY BUTTONS RESET BUTTONS
Boozing
Drink a glass of water.
Bingeing
Take a walk.
Shopping
Take a bath.
Snarking
Practice yoga.
Comparing
Meditate.
Reading mean reviews
Go to the beach and watch the waves.
Inhaling loads of sugar and passing out
Play with my dog.
Hug my wife and kids.
Hide the phone.
My reset buttons are just little things. Big thinking is the kryptonite of high and low folks like me. When everything is terrible and I hate my life and I feel certain that I need a new career, a new religion, a new house, a new life, I look at my list and remember that what I really need is probably a glass of water.
5. REMEMBER THAT WE ARE THE BEST PEOPLE
I’m an artist and an activist, so pretty much all my friends struggle with what our culture has defined as mental illness. These people are the most alive, passionate, kind, fascinating, and intelligent humans on Earth. They live different kinds of lives than the type we’re trained to aspire to. Many of them live lives that include spending days in the dark without leaving their homes and holding on to words and policy and paintbrushes for hope and dear life. This kind of life is not easy, but it’s often deep, true, meaningful, and beautiful. I have begun to notice that I don’t even enjoy folks who aren’t at least a tad mentally ill. I don’t wish folks without a little anxiety or depression any harm, I just don’t find myself particularly curious about them. I have come to believe that we “crazies” are the best people.
This is why so many of us are resistant to taking our medication. Because deep underneath, we believe that we are actually the sane ones. We mentally ill are the only “sick” people who believe our magic is inside our disease. I did. I still do. When people said “Get better,” I heard: Get the same as everyone else. I knew I was supposed to hang my head and declare that my way of being was dangerous and wrong and everyone else’s way was better and right. I was supposed to get fixed, join the troops, and fall into line. Sometimes I desperately wanted that, because living my way was so hard. Sometimes I could make myself accept that my inability to live lightly and pleasantly in the world I’d been born into was chemical and that I needed help integrating like everybody else does. I needed to say “Uncle” and admit: It’s not you, world—it’s me. I’ll get help. I need to get better. I need your science.