Adventure Awaits: get yourself [& share] that shitty-ass help

I'm starting to take photos at work, to remember the people and place by.
Coworkers here are blurry enough I'm going to share this one. I like and respect both these people very much, and I will miss them.

I got the Adventure Awaits mug ^ because I am trying to cultivate that attitude. I'd read about dealing with anxiety (mine) when I was working with people with dementia (it could be overwhelming, being on my own the whole time), and a helpful tip I read:
when you feel anxious about trying something new, say to yourself, "This is excitement, not fear."
That works when the anxiety is just nervousness, not, you know, paralyzing chemical tsunamis.

I have my moments of anxiety, mostly in the middle of the night.
The thought will come to me, "Maybe I'll get lucky and die, and then I won't have to look for a job/make a dental appointment!"
But I never think, "Maybe I'll make that happen".
My thought of death is more like a happy hope for delivery from making phone calls, deus ex machina.

And sometimes I'm kinda depressed, again in such a low level way, it's like: "Am I really going to have to brush my teeth for 21 more years? That's... [does math online] 7,665 days."

And then I feel kinda depressed that it's ONLY 7,665 days.
So, it's not depression. It's just life.

I have never suffered paralyzing anxiety or depression, as mattdamon does.
So I'd have hesitated to advise him, as I did yesterday,
Be pushy and make them give you help--except that I'd heard it first from an authority: comedian Maria Bamford [links to "Ask My Mom" & web series on her site].

She knows ALL about it.
"When we were dating, my husband Scott and I discovered we share the same hobby, starting at about ten years old--longing for death."

She says from long and broad experience that most help for mental illness is shitty:

"Health care can be super shitty.
Go get yourself that shitty-ass help!
Don't feel gaslit if the wait for Suicide Hotline 988 is 45 to 90 minute wait... Lower the bar--call anybody."

She does a hilarious bit about calling Hertz car rental (2:49 min.  video).

 I figured if she can push people to get help, I can too.

This video, below, is longer--45 minutes--but so good--her address to an OCD conference--where she shows her anger about how EXPENSIVE it is to get help.
Which is one (two, actually) reason she recommends 12-step programs: They're free. Free!

That’s where I differ from anti-religion people.
I get it. There're some . . . problems with humans in groups, especially if they're claiming they know Universal Truths.
But, it’s FREE.
And if you have nobody (mattdamon literally said that--"I have nobody"), they are somebody, and they will even invite you to share your name.
Which, not many strangers do that unless they're taking your credit card details.

Bamford's recent book Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere (2023) got donated recently.
I took it home and read it immediately.
It's good, but she's a stand-up comedian, and I think she's better live (on video)--so if you don't know her, I'd say, start there. Then read her book, and you'll hear her voice performing it.

I LOVE that she nails 12-step programs for being stupid cults. And that she also loves them because they are free and everywhere and offer some sort of shitty-ass help. 

I felt reassured that my suggestion to Asst Man that he try AA wasn't stupid. Or, yeah, it was stupid, but it was better than nothing.
He'd said no, he wouldn't even try AA, it was a cult.

I hadn't read Bamford's book yet, so I didn't feel empowered to say (but wanted to), "So? Is it better to drink yourself into a stupor on the couch every night, in front of your kids Join the frikkin cult, Asst Man!"

Full disclosure: I recommend 12 steps because I went to OA (overeaters anon) after my mother died, and it was, yeah, full of weird language, but also very, very helpful to sit in a room with strangers and say, "I'm having a shitty year, and I don't even know how to feed myself".

One of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me came from a woman in OA. You're not supposed to give unsolicited advice, but she came up to me after the meeting in a room with a dank carpet, and she said,
"Go to the grocery store and get makings for a green salad."

And I said, "Okay, lettuce. I don't know, though, what should I put on it?"

Without missing a beat, she said, "Mushrooms and green onions."

AND I DID THAT.
___________________

My favorite part of Sure, I'll Join Your Cult is the appendix, where Maria Bamford translates the 12-steps, with their sometimes bad advice and their off-putting Christian language. EXAMPLE:

"THE TWELVE (Silly) STEPS OF (Super Stupid) TWELVE-STEP PROGRAMS (My Version––Which Is Unapproved and Apostate)

Step 7. We humbly asked Him [God] to remove our shortcomings.

"Zoinks. that smells Xtian. HOWEVZ, there is something about the psychology of compartmentalization where if I put a problem aside even for a few hours, that can help. (As far as God removing negative character traits, it seems my bad habit of parking illegally is more powerful than any deity.)"

Wherever we are coming from, whoever we are, we can share that shitty-ass help!

Thank you. Keep coming back .

_______________________

 Maria says [on her website]:

"If you need help, dial 911.
SUICIDE HOTLINE 988.
I know. Health care can be super shitty.
Go get yourself that shitty-ass help!
I love you and think you deserve it."