There’s something about laughing at a monster that makes it smaller, more manageable. Why do you think you have an impulse to be funny in the midst of something serious?Ī: Mental illness can really seem like a monster – this out-of-control thing that, at any moment, can reach out and kill you. The currents made you wink involuntarily, and you joked to a room of medical students that you weren’t trying to seduce them. Q: In the book, you write about trying transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), an experimental depression treatment that sends electric currents to specific parts of your brain. “I think the comedy helps people who don’t necessarily have my same battles want to keep reading,” she tells The Washington Post, “and also maybe have a better idea of what it’s like to deal with mental illness or chronic pain.” Life with these ailments may be brutal, but she insists it can also be funny, like the painful joint-swelling from rheumatoid arthritis that sends her stretched-out shoes flying off her feet in public places, including into a movie theatre toilet.

In Broken, Lawson is honest about her physical and mental health, but her levity (often in CAPS) is her buoy and her brand.

But the sitcom-esque bits are simply candy coating a hard pill to swallow – the dark depths of Lawson’s years-long battle with depression, anxiety disorder and autoimmune diseases. Lawson may sound twee and sentimental, like Jess from New Girl, and with a knack for awkwardly derailing social interactions like Liz from 30 Rock. During her 14-year career as an award-winning blogger (of the Bloggess) and author – her recently released Broken (in the Best Possible Way) is her fourth book and fourth consecutive bestseller – she’s penned an inordinate number of stories about squirrels. On a frantic mission to fashion booties for her dog, Dorothy Barker, she earnestly asked a drugstore clerk for “toddler-sized” condoms. She has a cat named Hunter S Thomcat and has christened a backyard owl she tried to befriend Owly McBeal. Jenny Lawson’s left shoes are called Thelmas the rights are Louises. Bloggess worship: bestselling writer Jenny Lawson (Jenny Lawson)

Jenny lawson broken