By Laurie Finklestein, author of Next Therapist Please
Depression is never funny, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find humor in it. That’s how I live my life. Managing depression, anxiety, and OCD is daunting. To offset daily assaults, I turn to comedy. It’s a coping mechanism. My novel, Next Therapist Please, resulted from taking aspects of my life, including hopping from one therapist to another, and placing them within a fictional light comedy and romance. The book’s main character, Janie, exhibits my unique experiences with mental unrest. Of course, there is a happy ending. The process of coping with my illnesses is still all-consuming. I struggle, as many people do with the same disorders, to get parity in health coverage, to battle the high cost of medications, and to find services in town. Forget Starbucks on every corner; we need walk-in mental health clinics on every corner. To address a glaring issue, I’m on a mission to break the stigma of mental illness so people begin to treat all illnesses appropriately. Nobody breaks a bone and says, “Oh, I’ll just ignore it and it will heal on its own.” Or, “I have high blood pressure, but I don’t want to take medication because it will make me look weak.” Mental illnesses are neurologic and biologic brain disorders and should be treated as such. I’m also experimenting with cannabis in various forms to alleviate some of my symptoms. I’ve been documenting my progress and have written a book to help others navigate the cannabis world. The title is AHOOT! A Higher Order of Thinking — What every senior and marijuana virgin should know before lighting up. It’s time to treat our health like we treat our favorite pastime, which as a nation is TV — with devoted attention and binge-worthy focus. Watch a comedy, laughter is healing.
Next Therapist Please
Next Therapist Please – Part 2
