Furiously Happy is the Gateway to my MIND: A Book Review

My BEST Friend told me about this book; "Oh my God, you have to read it, it is hilarious! This sounds just like you." The first thing I was introduced to was the Spoon Theory. She had told me "I can't come over today, I don't have any spoons." To which I responded with "Oh, okay" but after a split second I realized, "What the fuck are you talking about? No spoons?! Buy god damn spoons at the store and get your ass over here! You can have some of my spoons!! IDGAF."

In retrospect, it worked even with the theory. Sometimes people like us need to be given an emergency spoon by your best friend who says, "Sorry, you’ve been a mopey bitch too long, time to come over and drink and lets bitch about our problems." Sometimes you have to be pushed to do things, to get out of your hole. She laughed and we ended up hanging out, and she told me about this book.

She told me about running through graveyards in ballgowns, and screaming at Twilight Fans while wearing a wolf carcass, and about struggling with self harm and mental illness. "This is you," she said... and it was.

Jenny Lawson's words spoke to me, and I resonated with her crazy. I was already Furiously Happy before I even knew it. I understood the required koala costumes and how her mind made sense; or didn't, rather. And it gave me hope. It made me want to push harder to find the help I desperately need but cannot get.

If you have mental illness, if you are depressed, or have anxiety, or are even just a bit of an oddball, read this book. If you have ever felt alone in the dangerous currents of depression that sweep you under the surface so long you feel you can't breathe anymore and are about to give up... read this book. This book speaks volumes about what it's like to live with mental illness.

Maybe you don't have any, maybe your friends do, or maybe you just enjoy wacky stories. But I can tell you, NO ONE will not benefit from reading Furiously Happy.

There is a part of the book that says, depression is an illness. And when someone survives it, there aren’t any celebrations or high fives or ribbons. When someone survives cancer, pink ribbons are worn that let you know, I SURVIVED. But no one wants to talk about mental illness. It is shamed on. No one wants to talk about prescription drugs and cutting and how, “Hey, I wanted to kill myself yesterday… but I didn’t” No one talks about those survivors. No one wears ribbons for those survivors. Furiously Happy does. A silver ribbon.

A silver ribbon is for depression, mental illness, anxiety, schizophrenia, borderline, and other such illness and disabilities.

One day, I was having issues at work; and my manager asked me why. I told her, “It’s because of my disability.” to which I was told “You don’t have a disability.” Later she would tell me “You need to get this under control” and I responded, politely, “Do you think I should talk to my doctor about meds, if you feel these aren’t doing a good job?” “I don’t know I am not a doctor!” Monster Manager hissed. To which I clenched my fists and bit my lips to stop myself from screaming, “YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE A DOCTOR WHEN YOU INFORMED ME I DIDN’T HAVE AN ILLNESS!!” And if I had have read this book at that time I would have bought it for her so I could smack her in the face with it and glue silver ribbons all over her desk.

I think Jenny would be proud of me.

So this is me, speaking about this book. Telling you, that you are valid. That you are not alone. And I hope you decide to pick up this book; and realize, you’re way more than just “not alone” that you too, are FURIOUSLY HAPPY.

Here is an excerpt from the book about the Spoons:

“The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning.

But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?”

Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives.

Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine.

I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.”

**Please do not upvote this for your enjoyment of the spoon theory, as I did not write that. Actually, do not upvote this at all, because I don’t want to get credit for someone else’s amazing work. Instead, please direct all upvotes to resteeming to spread awareness, OR just read the book, or ask someone else who struggles with illness to read the book. Really, it is awesome. Rent it from the library, or join Audible free trial, they give you a credit to download 2 books for free and use it for Furiously Happy. Jenny Lawson also has a blog, facebook, and twitter under “TheBloggess” and you should probably check that out too.