Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

by Jenny Lawson

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.