Broken (in the best possible way)

by Jenny Lawson

What we really want is to know we’re not alone in our terribleness. We want to appreciate the failure that makes us perfectly us and wonderfully relatable to every other person out there who is also pretending that they have their shit together and didn’t just eat that onion ring that fell on the floor. Human foibles are what make us us, and the art of mortification is what brings us all together.

But we don’t get to pick who we are. I am still as broken as I was before, but with better stories and a little more insight into just how fucked up I am.

Fuck the people who make you feel bad for glorifying the odd behavior and questionable decisions that make you who you are. Those things are perfectly acceptable. Be good. Be kind. Love each other. Fuck everything else. The only thing that matters is how you feel and how you’ve made others feel.

I have struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. When I was young I thought it would pass as I got older, and when I was older I thought it would pass when I was successful, and when I was successful I thought that it was hopeless because even when everything was going right I was still wrong.

I know it was the right decision but it didn’t stop the feelings of failure and shame over something most people could easily do.

I considered it a sign that perhaps there is a path I’m supposed to be on. It’s not the same path that everyone else takes, and that can be hard and lonely, but I was reminded that there are amazing things I would never see with normal eyes and other paths.

Trust me, I am bad at people to the point where I sometimes fantasize about how great house arrest might be.

If I had a nickel for every time I hypocritically felt better about myself for not being one of those other hypocritical people who self-righteously brag about being better than other people who aren’t as enlightened as they are, I’d probably have enough money to actually fix some of the things that none of us are really doing anything meaningful about.

LIVE AS IF IT’S THE LAST DAY OF YOUR LIFE … Except don’t, because that sounds awful. I’d spend all day in tears if someone said I was going to die at midnight. That’s like having to have fun at gunpoint. Maybe start slower. Like live as if it’s Saturday even when it’s Wednesday afternoon.

It’s easy to say that suicide caused by mental illness is selfish. And it is. But not in the way that you think. It’s not the person being selfish by taking the easy way out. It’s the disease itself that is selfish. It steals away the very essence of you and leaves terrible lies in its place. It takes the logic that is true and twists it so that you can’t see things that are rational and real. That depression lies to you. You recognize these lies when you are sane or stable or balanced, but when you are in the depths of a depression they seem real.

It’s hard to live with a brain that wants to kill you. It’s not my fault. It’s not my family’s fault. It’s not even real to the outside world. Except that it is. Invisible things can be real. And they’re the most insidious because they often convince you that they aren’t. So I fight against an invisible monster that lives inside of me.

“You don’t let your pain go to waste.”

think many of us struggle with the thought that it’s okay to take care of ourselves, and it’s strange that it’s a struggle to treat ourselves as kindly as we treat the dog. The dog needs walks and healthy choices and water and play and sleep and naps and bacon and more naps. And love. I need that too. And so do you. It’s not just a gift we give to ourselves … it’s a duty.

didn’t fail in responding to past treatments … those treatments failed to work for me. And that is a big difference. One we all need to keep in mind.

Realize that sometimes these slow days are necessary and healthy and utterly responsible.

Go adopt a rescue, or if you can’t, go to the shelter and just snuggle a kitten. Then realize that that same little kitten that you’re cradling isn’t going to accomplish shit but is still wonderful and lovely and so important. You are that kitten.

I can say those were good times, but probably only because retrospect allows you to not be there anymore.

I think what I’ve learned from all of this is that even some of the worst experiences can be good so long as they didn’t actually kill you. Even if you’re in the worst situation ever, as long as it eventually ends, you win. The secret, I think,

Whenever something truly mortifying happens, you have a choice. You can let it haunt you for the rest of your life or you can celebrate it, as today’s awkward moment is tomorrow’s fantastic story.

So the next time you do something incredibly embarrassing, please remind yourself that you are being the most human you possibly can be and you’re giving witnesses permission to forgive themselves for all the future embarrassment that lies in store for them.

“VICTOR IS A GODDAMN SAINT.” He totally is. He’s also a real asshole. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive, y’all. Honestly, it would suck if they were. If you were married to a saint you’d feel guilty all the time for fucking up like a regular human and eventually you’d assume that your spouse was possessed by a demon because no one is perfect all the time.

I wish I had better advice here but I think what I’ve learned is that either way you probably fuck your kids up, but if you’re just honest about it it’s a great gift to give them because then they realize that you aren’t perfect either and don’t have all the answers and that it’s okay to be messy sometimes. That’s a hell of a gift for both of you, really.

Sometimes I become paralyzed. Out of fear mostly. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of making the wrong choices. Fear of confrontation. Fear of not being kind or right or helpful. I think most “normal” people deal with this in small ways, but my fear is different. It can incapacitate me. At best figuratively, and at worst literally.

I don’t know what it’s like not to have anxiety but I assume it’s like that. It’s probably not exhausting. It probably doesn’t end with eighty-seven rewritten and unsent emails and a to-do list that never ends and chapters written and deleted so many times that you forget what it is you’ve said and you just want to set fire to your brain to clear away all the brush and start over.

It’s a strange thing … to be tangled up in things no one else really cares about. To be so busy with worry that your constant back-and-forth looks like utter inaction. To be so afraid of doing something wrong that you end up doing something worse. To be exhausted by a marathon that looks like complete paralysis on the outside but feels like being on both sides of a violent tug-of-war on the inside.

Sometimes I can do nothing else but speak my mind and do the things that must be done, because the pain of not doing them is greater than the pain of doing them.

That fear can make you think irrational thoughts. That you are only ever truly trapped when you give up and allow yourself to be. Don’t give up.

And I will always use two spaces after a period even though it’s a clear sign that I’m over forty because that’s how people who learned to type on weighty, horrible honest-to-Jesus typewriters were taught and if I stop it’s like pissing on the grave of my seventh-grade typing teacher.

If I look closer at these stories that make up my life, a strange theme emerges. It’s the idea that something is only real if it’s damaged. I suppose it makes sense in a terrible sort of way. After all, we are changed by life … it puts its teeth in us, it leaves its handprints and marks and scars on us. And as much as we try to ignore those things, in the end they make us who we are. For good or for bad, we are changed and touched and broken and mended and scarred. And those marks (inside and out) tell a story. They tell our story. Sometimes we hide them away, those injuries done by others (or, worse, by ourselves). We conceal them up our sleeves or jammed deep into pockets. We try to pretend that they never hurt at all. But it’s a strange and meaningless action. Anyone who has lived would almost certainly understand and maybe even reveal their own hidden defects they’ve been hiding from the world as well. The world feels safer somehow if we share our pain. It becomes more manageable. And by sharing our pain, we inspire others to share theirs. We are so much less alone if we learn to wear our imperfections proudly, like tarnished jewelry that still shines just as brightly.

It won’t always be like this. I say this to myself over and over. It runs through my head and if I say it enough I can almost drown out the other voices … the ones telling me I’m worthless. The ones telling me that the paralysis I’ve had in my mind will never end. The ones that lie and wheedle and sometimes tell the truth just enough to make you listen and wonder if they’re right. The ones that hurt and bite and sound exactly like me but more confident. It won’t always be like this.

Sometimes the pieces you lost when you were young come back to you, in a remembered hum of a lullaby or a piece of wisdom that you couldn’t accept at the time because it didn’t fit … but it fits now, because it fits the you that you’ve become.

Because pain is bad, but numb is a thing too terrible for words.

Anxiety. It creates a fear—of people, of strangers and friends, and of life. It makes you fragile and vulnerable and you throw up walls so that no one can reach inside, because you have to protect that core. But—and here’s the tricky part—you also have to protect the break … that empty place that you always feel, because that break is what makes you who you are.