Emergency Feel-Better Kit

A step-by-step guide to pulling out of a spiral...or just riding it straight to hell

I recently went through a rough patch. I don’t want to talk about it. Suffice it to say that I found myself googling “nervous breakdown symptoms” at one point. And then I found out that a nervous breakdown isn’t even, strictly speaking, a Thing, but is in fact just something they talked about on '90s sitcoms, back before we cared about mental health or knew that the internet was going to give us all annual nervous breakdowns.

Anyway.

I’m doing better, and I thought I’d share with the world how you, too, can overcome your troubles.

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1) Make your bed. Seriously. When you get out of bed in the morning, make your bed. It creates order in your surroundings. It lets you start off your day by thinking, “Look at me. I do things.” You do.

2) Get some exercise. Move your body. Go for a stroll, a powerwalk, a jog, a sprint. Do you need a gentle release or a painful, drenched catharsis? I personally prefer to sort Peloton 45-minute classes by “hardest,” then pick a Metal Ride with a 9.2 difficulty level and pedal to Rammstein until I fear (hope?) I’ll vomit.

3) Talk to your support network. Your best friends, your siblings, your spouse. They can see things more clearly than you can right now. When your spouse suggests it might be time to call your shrink, take his word for it.

4) Stay on your meds. Maybe doesn’t need saying, but worth saying. Take your meds. With a big glass of water. Also, now is not the time to be a hero when it comes to your benzos – yes, Xanax prescriptions are a pain to get. And you’ve therefore wisely been saving the pills for an emergency. Cowgirl, this is your emergency. If one lil Xanax a night is how you get to sleep, or if one a day is how you avoid a prolonged waking panic attack, take the pill and feel the sweet release as your brain goes gray and soft and melty.

5) Gardening. So many things are good about gardening: (1) It’s physical work. (2) It produces a tangible output. (3) When your hands are dirty, you can’t touch your phone. (4) It’s enforced patience – it takes MONTHS to get a result. (5) your toddler LOVES helping plant things. (6) It’s a creative endeavor – build a mosaic of raised beds. Design a flowery display that will bloom all summer long. Create an attractive tableau with decorations. Which brings me to:

6) Get some lawn ornaments. My sister-in-law gave me a lawn ornament goose for Christmas. It’s nothing fancy – just a hollow plastic foot-tall mass-produced bird – and you need to funnel some sand into the bottom to help it stand. But my friends, the joy. He can be dressed up in a wide range of costumes. I recently put him in a yellow raincoat and hat. I defy you to look at him and not smile. I am calling mine Wally.

7) Have a toddler. Everyone will tell you that small children are exhausting and maddening and temperamental little a-holes. But that’s like 4% of having a toddler. 13% is sticky/poopy messes. The rest is joy, especially once they start talking. Singing “Baby Beluga” together? Snuggling and watching Ponyo? Teaching him to scream “GRIP IT AND RIP IT BAYBEE” right as your spouse cracks open a Lacroix? JOY.

8) Barb and Star go to Vista del Mar. Settle in for – zero hyperbole – the greatest comedy of the last 10 years. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo nail the mild-mannered upper-Midwestern lady. Jamie Dornan should do only comedic musical roles for the rest of his career. I demand a Reba cameo in every film until the end of time.

9) Do a backbend while screaming. I’m not joking – this works. I prefer Camel pose.

10) Keep screaming.

11) Keep screaming.

12) Stop screaming and answer your spouse. You dimly recognize he’s been yelling your name for a few minutes now. When you quiet down enough to hear him ask if you’re okay, tell him you honestly don’t know. Haha! You don’t! Isn’t that silly? You’ll be fine. Scream it: I’M FINE. Everyone is convinced.

13) More clothes for Wally. Guys. They make a hot dog costume for the goose. A HOT DOG COSTUME.

14) Calm down with a new show. The reviews of that show The Pitt seem to say it’s about normal everyday people doing the hard work of healing others so hey turn it on and gaaaaaa hey cool a heartbreaking scene where a mother collapses in screaming sobs after her son dies of a fentanyl overdose nope nope nope fuck this.

15) Scream.

16) More gardening. Know what? You probably haven’t built a big enough garden. Expand it. Try something new. Spinach looks easy. You’ve heard strawberries can be tricky, but you can handle it.

“You could always try sprouting some potatoes,” says a nasal voice behind you.

You turn around. The only one there is Wally. You’d swear he’s a few feet from where you placed him.

The voice again: “Maybe we just redo the backyard while we’re at it?”

It really does seem to be coming from Wally.

And, okay, he’s not WRONG about the potatoes.

Maybe you need to get out of the garden for a while.

17) Brownies – This brownie recipe from NYT is pretty great. And hell – scream while you stir. Sure why not. You are metal as hell.

18) Malevolent creativity. Are you pissed off at someone? Do you have a mortal enemy who has no idea that you harbor a dark oily well of venom for them? Get that toxicity out of your system. Bang out an angry song about them on the piano. Paint a portrait of them with buckteeth and yellow oozing pustules on their chin and matted, snarled hair. Write a short story where they get a case of terminal explosive diarrhea. In front of their high school crush.

19) Act normal. Let’s not freak out our spouse. The child needs to be fed and taken to the playground and tickled and entertained. The group text with friends is a nice distraction. And if you don’t let on that you’re hearing voices, things might just resolve.

20) Remember your childhood dreams. And when you were a kid, those dreams were garden dreams. You could page through your mom’s seed catalogs for hours. You always wanted to grow gladiolus flowers. They were ostentatious – tall, with pointy, knifelike leaves and massive blooms up and down the stems.

“Oh, I don’t know,” your mom said annually. “Let’s plant a few more rows of green beans.”

So then once, in middle school, you finally went and bought some bulbs yourself, with your own money. You dug up a small patch on the front lawn. You designed a flower display that would look great in front of the house.

They grew roughly 2 inches before being devoured by bunnies.

You were crestfallen. You were defeated. This is what happens when you try new things.

But you are 42 now, and dammit, you get to do what you want.

So go get some gladiolus bulbs. See online that they are sold in bundles of fifty. Fifty! Fifty four-and-a-half-foot-tall ostentatious stalks! Plant a full patch of them.

That nasal voice, off in the corner of the backyard: “Maybe an arbor.”

You turn around. Wally is now wearing a tuxedo.

“With some climbing vines. Clematis seem nice.”

You are skeptical. “How do we keep rabbits from-”

“Throwing hatchets!” He’s excited.

You are still skeptical. You are also hesitant, as you are after all talking to a sand-filled plastic goose.

You aim for compromise.

“How about a Nerf gun?”

“Metal as hell,” Wally says. He raises a champagne coupe.

21) Act normal. Work feels good. Well, maybe not good, but familiar. A well-worn groove to roll through every day for 8 hours. You make dinner. You wash dishes. You kiss your spouse. You bathe the toddler. You sing “Baby Beluga.” You privately weep at how he knows all the words now. This is fine. Maybe it’s even good. Maybe you should just be thankful.

But also, if you’re really honest with yourself, at the end of the day, you mostly want Wally’s company. You want to talk to him about the powdery mildew on the zinnias. You want to hear his advice on deadheading the dahlias. You want him to nerf-gun the rabbits away from the lilies while you sit very still and stare at nothing.

You want him to tell you it’s all going to be okay.

22) Learn a new skill. And here I’m thinking arbor-construction. Or maybe pergola-construction? Topiary-planting and -shaping? Try them all. Maybe you don’t have time, but boy howdy do you have the energy. You find yourself staple-gunning pine slats together in the garage at 9:45 PM. You’ve never felt better. Wait, have you? You might have. You probably have. But this is great. (Is it?) You’re on top of the world. (Are you?) You are Gaia. You are Ceres. You create life. You are Shiva, destroyer of worlds. You are screaming again.

23) Fight like a mature, rational adult. Wally now wears camo and has somehow developed five-o-clock shadow. He has become overbearing.

“You have violets sprouting everywhere,” he says. “It’s a mark of carelessness.”

“They’re pretty.”

“They’re WEEDS,” he insists.

You do not like this. Wally is now undermining your confidence. Gardening is what you do. He lives in your domain. He isn’t the boss of you. He can’t dictate your worth.

You take a deep breath. You are mature. “I am growing my garden the way I choose to-”

“Lazy,” he spits.

Oh, hell no.

“Pencil-neck,” you say.

“Weenie.”

“Dumbface.”

“Stupidhead.”

“DICK.”

You do not have to endure this. You pop out the rubber stopper on his underside and shake him violently until the sand drains out. And while screaming, “I AM ENOUGH,” you drop-kick him into the neighbor’s yard.

24) Internet videos. Go watch some old favorites. Do the entire run of Teen Girl Squad. Do OK Go’s full music videography.

Then, around the time you’re 16 videos deep into ebaumsworld, your spouse walks in.

“Did you spend $400 on Dutch flower bulbs?” he says.

“I just needed some self-care.”

“You’ve installed topiaries in the backyard.”

“I just needed some self-care.”

“They’re trimmed in the shape of hatchets.”

You look at him.

He looks at you.

“I really needed some self-care.”

25) Act normal. Normal people sit on their front porches on Sunday mornings, smiling and waving at passersby. Normal people put out the sprinkler. Normal people roll their eyes at rabbits on their lawn.

You raise your gun and take aim. The rabbit squawks as the foam arrow hits him, dead square between its little shoulderblades. You let out a triumphant whoop.

Your spouse: “You’re soaking.”

You look down. You’ve been sitting directly in the sprinkler stream, probably for half an hour now.

Spouse is on the edge of tears. He squats down, soaking himself.

“Is there any way I can help?” His voice quavers.

You shoot at a shrub.

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t been to church in a while,” he says, holding your hand. “You used to like that.”

26) Go to church.

Your spouse leads you to the bedroom and helps you get showered and dressed. He and you and the toddler go to the car. You drive to church.

And you’d never – I’d never – neither of us would ever evangelize about Jesus or God or any other grand poobah in the sky. But the advice I’m giving you here is to go somewhere with (a) other people (b) quietly having a common purpose for an hour, preferably (c) without phones.

I’m saying go somewhere and think about bigger things than your troubles, and see other people doing the same. Maybe a place you’re not thinking about news stories or politics or whatever is driving you crazy.

I want to say this is about perspective, but again, that seems to cheapen it to “there are more important things in the world than whatever you’re worried about” or the deeply irritating “things could always be worse.”

I’m saying come up with a bigger purpose than simply defeating that thing or person that’s slowly shredding your sanity.

And as you sit in your pew, you have a realization.

It’s one you’d normally dismiss as saccharine, simplistic. But you are depressed and anxious and probably worse and at any rate your brain is pudding at this point, so any life preserver looks like The Answer right now.

The realization is that it just might have to be enough to aim for being kind, to act with love, to give it your best shot and wake up and do it again. That has to be its own reward, you guess, because in a chaotic and often cruel world, trying to shoot for any particular outcome is foolhardy.

It just might be that going to a place one hour per week where everyone faces the same direction – literally and figuratively – and renews their faith in millennia-old texts about love and forgiveness, and aims their attention away from their own decaying meat sacks, that just might be what makes you feel fine right now.

27) Go back to the garden. You get home. You go inside. Your spouse says you should go relax. You go to your back garden. You sit on the bench in the far corner. Sooner or later, you realize you’ve been crying.

You sit for a long time. You get sunburned. Bugs bite your arms. A squirrel sniffs at your foot. You keep sitting. Dusk falls.

You look around. Your backyard is a postage stamp, but you could legitimately get lost in it now. Your bench faces three topiaries (hatchet, bunny, hatchet). Mammoth hibiscus shrubs embrace you on all sides. A few feet away, a hummingbird – the first you’ve ever seen in your life – flits past. You are struck by how it really does, in fact, hum, and how that’s kind of incredible.

You’ve built something breathtaking.

A voice: “Hello?”

Your spouse is calling from the back door, about 30 feet away.

It’s a solid minute before he weaves his way to you.

He sits on the bench next to you.

“You okay?” he says.

“I guess.”

It’s a lie and you both know it.

“You going to be okay?” he says.

You think.

You say: “I mean, there’s no other choice.”

Spouse looks at you. He nods. You nod.

You lean on each other and swing. You stay there for hours, until the fireflies come out. It’s kind of pretty.

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LINKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Trump and the Fed. We did an NPR Politics Podcast last week where I got to go back to my covering-the-Fed days and talk at length about how absolutely off-the-map it is for Trump to loudly and angrily criticize Powell and his decision-making. Stay to the end to hear me expound about Katy Perry and Lauren Sanchez and the feud with Wendy’s and Blue Origin.

The White House and immigration. We also did an episode about the court challenges to Trump’s attempts to deport planefuls of Venezuelan migrants, not to mention Mr. Abrego Garcia.

YOUR OLD-INTERNET JOY OF THE DAY: The goat remix of Taylor Swift’s “Trouble.” Joy for ages.

YOUR NEW-INTERNET JOY OF THE DAY: I’m obsessed with the itsmisterfinn TikTok account, a lot of which is just this wonderful high school choir teacher teaching his kids to sing a lot of millennial classics.