According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately 19 percent of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2018. That’s over 47 million people, and I’m one of them. So many of us are invisible—going about our lives and work under a heavy, dark cloud of depression; in the grips of silent, white-knuckled panic. Our stomachs shriveled and starving; our blood calling out for tablets or powder or tar.
One of my dearest friends, also a member of our club of 47 million, has matching tattoos on her wrists. One says HOLD FAST in classic blue-black ink. The other, FAST HOLD, is almost impossible to make out unless you look very closely. But under a blacklight it stands out in glowing relief. In order to survive with a mental illness and keep your life—specifically, your career and relationships—intact, you need to hold fast, you need a fast hold. You’ve got to keep your mental illness on a very tight tether. You know what they say about an inch and a mile.
But what if we allowed ourselves to go just a little bit mad for a day, an hour? What if, instead of yoga or meditation or therapy, we developed a daily practice of contained madness? My in-progress manuscript, What To Do, offers bespoke rituals for how to go briefly ‘round the bend, then circle back to everyday life.
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It goes without saying that you never wanted this. Some people are taken in by the glamorous madpeople of literature, the electric lunatics of the stage and screen. You might know someone who’s emblazoned their flesh with a Joan of Arc tattoo. But you know better; you know that going crazy is ugly and painful. You know that if you’re able to circle back to sanity after going round the bed, the person you rediscover in the mirror will just be older and have fewer friends. So you hold on with white knuckles. You hold fast.
But what if there were another way? What if you could step right up to the edge and return home at the end of the day unscathed? What if you let your madness out for a day, and ran alongside it in the fresh air? Or what if you ditched your yoga practice for a daily exercise in unraveling? Would that make a difference? Would that make the difference? Here’s what to do.
3.
Round up every yellow thing you own, even things that are simply verging on yellow. Don’t forget about the contents of your refrigerator (butter, bananas, frozen egg bagels). Put them all in a closet. Wait a week, maybe ten days. Then put everything back.
5.
Take a roofing job. Then, photocopy your entire journal. (If you don’t keep one, a collection of correspondence and bank statements will suffice.) Cut each copied page into small square pieces. Put a few in your pocket every day before leaving for work. When the boss isn’t looking, tack these scraps beneath the shingles.
7.
Buy a safe, a very expensive safe, a safe that will be hard to break into. Put inside of the safe whatever it is that you should not have. The decision of what exactly to put into the safe is up to you. It could be a picture. It could be heroin. It could be a telephone number that you should not call. (However, in this case, if you have the number memorized, you should lock up the phone as well.) Once the thing that you should not have has been locked away, have the door of the safe welded shut. If your safe is quite large, you may have to hire a welder who makes house calls.
Now what to do?
You may sit by the safe. You may slap its face. You may wrap your arms about it. You may bring it into your bed, cry into the sealed door as if it were the chest of a lover.
8.
Collect the most important and precious objects you own. The jewelry, the letters, the deeds and wills, the fingernail clippings and worry dolls, the bottle of pills. Make sure to seal anything that could be damaged by water in tight plastic. Put everything in a bag. Put the bag in your car. Put your car in drive and head for the nearest body of water.
When you get to the water, stand at the edge for a moment. Then turn around. Facing the land, reach into your bag and, one by one, toss those precious things into the water. You may wail while doing this.
Be sure to throw as hard as you can. Listen to the splashes.
Wait at least ten minutes.
Turn around. Face the water. Go after them. Go fish.
10.
Invest. Or don’t.
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I was diagnosed with panic disorder and general anxiety disorder at the age of 19. This means that now, at age 37, I’ve been living with the most common form of mental illness for about half of my life. For almost two decades, I’ve been holding fast. Writing this manuscript, just imagining what it would be like to loosen my grip for a moment, has offered some relief.
Diane Goettel is the Executive Editor of Black Lawrence Press. She lives in Mount Vernon, New York, with her family.