How To Weep In Public: A Grown Up Book Report

I was recently talking to a friend about how I’m super nerdy and miss school. Specifically I miss writing essays. This has come up before and was one of the reasons my husband pushed me to start this blog in the first place. And so I decided I should write a book report, for old times sake. The book I’ve chosen is called How To Weep In Public: Feeble Offerings From One Depressive To Another by Jacqueline Novak.

This was by far the most delightfully funny book I’ve ever read on the topic of mental illness. Novak writes it as a self help book to teach the reader how to be a depressed person, or depresso as she calls it. Starting in early childhood she includes chapters on topics like “Let’s make a family tree: Where every branch is a mood disorder” and “Develop a social anxiety on the playground that will come in handy as an adult.”

One of my favorite things she includes throughout the book are various lists. I’m a sucker for a good list. In the first section of the book she includes a list of birthday present ideas for ‘The Child Depressive-In-Training.’ “1. Jack-in-the-box, classic clown face. Offers an early opportunity to explore the anxiety of anticipation. As all depressives worth their salt understand, knowing something will happen but not knowing when can fill one with a far greater dread than is appropriate.” I read that part out loud to my husband after he made fun of me for looking up spoilers to a television show we were watching together. I will honestly enjoy the show more if I know some of those spoilers.

In addition to being hilarious this book also nailed a number of the aspects I have experienced in my own mental health struggles. She talks about her mother’s struggles with OCD, specifically with intrusive thoughts. Speaking of her mother’s childhood she says, “She wasn’t tempted to self-harm; she was merely confronting the disturbing reality that nothing beyond willpower stands between us and horribly irreversible actions.” I personally faced a similar struggle with intrusive thoughts about 5 years ago. At the time I didn’t understand much about OCD or intrusive thoughts so they caused a truly excessive amount of anxiety. I still experience intrusive thoughts pretty regularly but I’ve learned not to be scared of them. Apparently I am now far enough away from that traumatic experience to find humor in it, so that’s nice.

As the book moves on to the early adult years she includes topics like, “Your first therapist: Convince her that she fixed you at the end of every session, then go home for more suffering” and “College, people say they’re the best years of your life: Prove them wrong.” The whole college being the best years of your life thing has always bothered me. For starters my college years sucked. If I had really believed those were the best years I would get, I probably would have had much more suicidal ideation that I actually had. To any of my younger readers out there, if anyone tells you that college is the best years of your life, they are full of shit and you do not need to listen to them.

Later while discussing the fetal position she says, “I know this fetal image may sound like a cliché of a depressed person, but remember, clinical depression is a disease and diseases have typical symptoms...Lung cancer patients don’t hold back their coughing because they’re worried about people accusing them of overplaying it.” This is a bit of wisdom that is so often overlooked when it comes to mental health topics. She says it in a humorous way but it really is a disease and diseases really do have some specific symptoms. I have often tried to downplay parts of my experience with depression and anxiety to make the people I’m interacting with more comfortable. That shouldn’t be my job. Living with depression is hard enough without trying to make it more palatable to other people.

Novak’s express goal in writing this book is to help people struggling with mental illness to feel slightly less alone and for me at least, she did that wonderfully. While reading this book I was laughing out loud practically every page. Often I would stop and force my husband to listen to me reading sections out loud to him. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, especially for people who live with mental illness and use comedy as a coping mechanism. Click https://amzn.to/2ZMuUyL to order this book from Amazon. Thanks and enjoy!