It's Kind of a Funny Story

by Ned Vizzini

I just want to not be me. Whether it’s sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up. That’s what’s important.”

“I have an idea. Instead of spending your time trying to trace maps of Manhattan, why don’t you make your own maps of imaginary places?”

I did cities on the ocean, cities with two rivers meeting in the middle, cities with one big river that bent, cities with bridges, crazy interchanges, circles and boulevards. I made cities. That made me happy. That was my Anchor. And until I turned nine and turned to video games, that was what I wanted to be when I grew up: a mapmaker.

I love how a negative experience turned into such a positive coping mechanism. Excellent parenting from his Mom.

“The Cycling.’” “Going over the same thoughts over and over. When my thoughts race against each other in a circle.”

“No, just thoughts of what I have to do. Homework. And it comes up to my brain and I look at it and think ‘I’m not going to be able to do that’ and then it cycles back down and the next one comes up. And then things come up like ‘You should be doing more extracurricular activities’ because I should, I don’t do near enough, and that gets pushed down and it’s replaced with the big one:

“And then the thoughts keep turning and I lie down on my bed and think them. And I used to not be able to lie down anywhere; I used to always be up doing something, but once the Cycling starts I can waste hours, just lying and looking at the ceiling, and time goes slowly and really fast at the same time—and then it’s midnight and I have to go to sleep because no matter what I do, I have to be at school the next day. I can’t let them know what’s happening to me.”

lie there thinking about how everything I’ve done is a failure,

“After college, I went through my own shit and decided that all the physical suffering in the world couldn’t compare to mental anguish,” he said. “And when I got myself cleared up, I decided to help other people.”

“Yes. Time is a person-made concept.”

I was at school as opposed to home in my bed.

The therapists told you that you needed to find happiness within yourself before you got it from another person,

“Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner.” Dr. Mahmoud leans in. “Life is managed.”

“See, when you mess something up,” I muse, “you learn for the next time. It’s when people compliment you that you’re in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”

regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.

know that myself. You can lie there for an hour and a half without thinking anything, just worrying about what the day holds and knowing that you won’t be able to deal with it.