Furiously Happy

About the Book

One of the best literary examples of mental illness is the memoir Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, who documents her struggles with mental illness. Although Lawson has a mental illness, she believes people perceive her as crazy or that she has a mental illness; therefore, she is crazy. However, she actually has mental illness because of an experience that took place in her life. For example, there is a moment in the book in which Lawson throws her keys away, and she is digging through the trash in order to find the keys. While she is digging through the trash, she notices that others are staring at her digging through the trash. She says that “you want to explain that you’re not crazy, except that would be disingenuous because you are mentally ill, but it certainly wasn’t your mental illness that caused you to throw your keys in the trash, and you don’t appreciate your assumption” (Lawson 111). In other words, Lawson does not want people to think that she is crazy because she has a mental illness. She wants others to understand that she has a mental illness because social situations make her uncomfortable, and it causes her anxiety. The illness does not simply show up; an environmental factor has to contribute to the development of mental illness.

Despite her struggle with mental illness, Lawson finds ways to be happy according to her environment; in other words, she tries to be Furiously Happy. This is also Lawson’s ways of saying she tries to stay happy in a bad situation even when she is angry. She tries to counter that anger or sadness with happiness to be furiously happy. Furthermore, she sees the good in all the bad, the joy in the flaws, and finds ways to mend the broken. She conveys this when she talks about her “pet racoon”, or racoon corpse, Rory. She says that “even without the claws he’s lovely…broken and flawed and so strange that even people who like taxidermy still think, ‘What the shit is going on here?’ even as he’s bringing joy and laughter into lives” (Lawson 42). In other words, even though Rory is “broken”, he still can bring the same happiness to others. Rory can be used as a metaphor of how Lawson and others with depression can look at themselves that despite being broken, they can still make people happy, including themselves.

Impact

Despite having just read this today, I already fell in love with this book because I saw myself. I saw the girl who was having anxiety attacks in the bathroom stalls at Rowan, ShopRite, and Toys R’ Us. I saw the girl who broke down at Toys R Us because no one understood her social skills. I saw the girl who was alone having an anxiety attack in her bathroom when no one was home. I saw the girl who was having an anxiety attack because she couldn’t complete her Contemporary Issues in Education assignment, and didn’t think she could wake her mother to tell her. Furiously Happy gave me book to identify with, so that I can see the way in which someone who suffers like I did cope with the struggles of mental illness and how she deals with it. I like how she tries to identify with people in the outside world to, and just tries to stay “furiously happy” despite bad things. I felt connected because I had someone to relate to, and see what she did similar or different from me.

I would say that she is similar to me in her coping strategy is that she tries to see the good in the bad situation like I did when I had depression. However, we are different in the ways we would do it. She sees the good by trying by being happy when she’s angry or sad; On the contrary, I would look at all that could be good and optimistic, and although it would make me happy for a short time, that happiness would subside. I would eventually recognize my problem and get medicated for it, but this was my way of trying to see the good in a situation, but I would have a weight pulling me down that I refer to as my struggles. Now, I always try to be happy even in a bad situation, but there’s no hint of anger. I get angry then I reflect on the bad situation, and I make myself happy. I’m not necessarily “furiously happy”.

Values

The values Furiously Happy teaches are seeing the good in bad situation, and the beauty of people despite their imperfections and struggles. Seeing the good in the bad is conveyed when Lawson tries to stay happy despite her experiences with mental illness and the environmental factors that affect her. Even though she may be in a bad situation, she still finds a way to find happiness no matter how mad or sad the situation may make her. She also learns to find the beauty in herself and others despite what people have been through or their flaws. Again, she says that Rory can make others happy despite being broken or flawed. This is similar how others with mental illness should see themselves and people around them. This is not just a value that people with mental illness, but neurotypicals should also learn to accept others despite past struggles or flaws.

Significance to My Students

Furiously Happy teaches people to see the good in a bad situation. Of course, a bad situation is going to make a student upset, but students should never give up even though the situation looks bad, or internalize the frustration of the bad situation, which can cause mental illness later in life. Students should realize that just because a situation looks bad, it doesn’t mean that they should think everything is going to be this bad. On the contrary, students should look at a bad situation to see how it can be made into something good or how the bad situation helped them grow in positive ways. If students can see a negative situation in a positive light, they will feel good about themselves, decreasing the likelihood of mental illness.

Another value Furiously Happy teaches people to accept themselves and others despite their flaws. This is very important for elementary school students because this helps them build self-esteem and acceptance of others. As a future fourth or fifth grade teacher, I know that this is the age in which students are mature enough to accept their flaws; at the same time, these students can use their flaws to insult themselves. Although accepting responsibility is a very important value that should be encouraged in fourth or fifth graders, this kind of self-insult, as I will refer to it, can potentially lead to low self-esteem, and that is not what children should be feeling because the low self-esteem can lead to mental illness later in life. Therefore, it is important as a teacher to make the students see their strengths and help them feel good about themselves and the talents they can contribute inside and outside of the classroom. This is also to say that the teacher should never ridicule the students for their flaws because they can internalize the teacher’s frustration to cause mental illness later in life. With all this said, the other students should learn to accept each other and all their flaws as well. All students want is to be accepted by their peers, and a lack of acceptance from others is what can cause mental illness later in life. Therefore, teachers should encourage their students to accept others despite their flaws, and have consequences for non-acceptance of their peers. One possible consequence should be to show the student ridiculing another student what it’s like to be ridiculed so that they know what it’s like not to be accepted. Therefore, the student learns that value of acceptance.