Joyful Recollections of Trauma: A Hilariously Cathartic Memoir-in-Essays of Childhood Turmoil, Self Healing, and Finding Happiness

by Paul Scheer

So it became ingrained in me to not ask for help. Because asking for help in my mind was creating a problem.

I love that one of the ways we brought our child into the world was built around community, safety, and care—that’s my religion.

I wanted my children to know that while we might not always agree, they were always cared for and loved,

In case my kids write a tell-all book about me in 2059, I want to instill in them that I’m always going to be there for them, and I’m going to mess up, and when I do, I will be empathetic, I will apologize, and I’ll do better. Most importantly, I’ll keep talking with them until they feel better.

I wanted to fix myself, but taking a pill felt like I was admitting defeat. It was an ambivalent feeling: wanting help but not taking it because it made me feel like I needed help—a feeling that I still wrestled with from my youth. Plus, what if I didn’t like the me I was on the medication. I had gotten this far in my life without it, and I didn’t want to mess that up.

I wish I hadn’t spent so much time pretending to be someone I wasn’t just to make others happy or equating vulnerability with weakness.