#38 Mental health is "a contrario"
#38 Mental health is "a contrario"
How the idea of "health" makes us sick
Morning morning. I write this to you from Fresno, California, where I’m celebrating the holidays early so I can go away for seven days over my chosen holiday (Christmas) to a silent meditation retreat. It’s the first retreat I’ve done since the pandemic, and oh boy am I excited to go and sit with “all this” and have absolutely no where to run except directly into my neuroses. A thrill.
Last week there was a small explosion outside my mom’s house (a power line or something), which scared the living shit out of all of us, and my nephew who is six said he was traumatized by it (many, many, many times, in a way that betrayed he was not, in fact, traumatized). I asked my sister where he got that from because kids are basically alien to me and she shrugged, said “other kids” and that’s a lead in to one of my great ongoing curiosities, which is how we got here, using words such as boundaries, trauma, and gaslight with the same frequency I use the word like in a podcast. How did everything become therapy-speak? Why are we all languishing or fall-regressing or some other kind of fiat diagnosis instead of just being human? Which brings me to a book I’m reading and loving, Saving the Modern Soul, on the culture of therapy and self-help (written in 2008, recommend to severe nerds only). One nugget that’s got me thinking is this:
Ideas may be particularly forceful precisely when they do not have a clear empirical content and when they work negatively, that is, when their meaning derives not from what they prescribe but from the incessant play of oppositions they create. Mental health was significant not as a norm in itself but for the variety of neuroses and dysfunctions it would create a contrario. To posit “health” as the end goal of the psyche was to create a contrario a large reservoir of dysfunctions…they function exclusively by virtue of the negative contrasts they generate. Health and normality were powerful in this way because they were negative cultural categories. (Page 44, Eva Illouz)
In other words: the pure idea of health, mental health, or normality, which are undefinable and essentially non-existent in any kind of practical or empirical sense, mostly create the space for a near infinite number of dysfunctions or departures from the definition, or rather create an endless number of things wrong with us that we are then supposed to fix.
I thought about this idea as I spent time with my family this past week, realizing that for much of my time in my own family system these past ten years, I’ve been more focused on what’s “wrong” and therefore needs to be fixed, rather than what’s good enough. This week, with this idea in mind that the idea of an ideal, functioning family is in some ways a complete myth, I enjoyed our absolute imperfection. Whereas typically over the holidays I walk away with a list of things we should be (if only x, y, or z), or a list of things to work on within myself to achieve some elusive construct, I enjoyed what a beautiful mess the gang of us are.
I guess I’m saying, so often what we lament, or I lament, is only lamentable because somewhere out there exists an ideal I’m not sure any human has actually ever experienced. Maybe my nephew just got scared. Maybe my family is actually normal. Maybe so much of what haunts me is the fixing itself, not a thing that’s actually broken.
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Sixteen Things Right Now
Probably the best movie I saw all year. I cannot recommend enough. Bring many tissues.
Exciting news: The class I wrote about earlier this year at Notre Dame that uses a judgment-free curriculum to teach students about how they’re conditioned to drink alcohol they way they do by media, Drunk on Film, is offering a virtual training to teach teachers its curriculum. Readers of this newsletter get 50% by using the code HOLLY50, register here. I’ve been part of this class for the past year and a half, and I can tell you first hand, it’s revolutionary, it changes people.
I’ve known of Sam Harris and his work for years and without investigation wrote him off for the same category of reasons I won’t listen to Joe Rogan or walk on coals with Tony Robbins or follow the advice of Tim Ferris, etc. (and these latter statements I stand behind; nope no thank you). But when I heard he quit Twitter last week after being there for 12 years and having amassed 1.5 million followers, I was intrigued. I listened to the entire two and half hours of this podcast between him and Cal Newport on the topic, and I don’t regret the $14.99 I spent to do so. (The first 65 minutes are free.) Memorable quote from Cal: “As someone who doesn’t use Twitter, I’m not nearly as dire on humanity as most everyone I know…there’s not as much hate in my life.” As someone who used to spend up to 20 hours a week on social media and now spends about 30 minutes to an hour total a week (watching adrienne marie brown’s roundups, basically), I can absolutely confirm this is true.
As I’ve said before (last week?), I love the Dirt newsletter, and this article on the movie She Said, which I haven’t watched (I have read the book though!), on the NYT journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein story (I think, or maybe Ronan Farrow broke it, but it was close either way) and how the story is often told at the cost of the subjects and the benefit of the byline, was excellent. Related: I watched Broadcast News for the first time earlier this year and it was also excellent, if you’re looking for some pure 80’s gold on par with Baby Boom which is saying a lot.
The White Lotus season two was everything I’ve ever wanted, and not just because I made out with one of the extras in Taormina circa 2014 and felt Very Famous lols. Also plug for the daily newsletter where I read the best review, Dinner Party, which is so fun.
In other exciting TV news, I Hate Suzie is back
The original title of this article was something about how we need to talk about alcohol and I’m sad they changed it. That being said, Maia Szalavitz always hits.
NA Drinks stuff: A sober sommelier (is that a thing because yes); 10 NA holiday drinks for the kind of person that probably sends out holiday cards (not I); plant-based alternatives to alcohol (nope not pot)
Up until 2018, I read maybe one work of fiction a year (who has time for pleasure?). That changed when my literary agent, Rebecca, sent me Courtney Maum’s second novel, Touch. I read it as a favor to R, slightly unwillingly, because I was solid in the idea that I didn’t do fiction, and I’m so glad for that forcing because this book is why I now read as much fiction as I do non-; it changed me and made me hungry for made up worlds. The reason I’m talking about it here, now, is because over time, as Courtney has become an actual friend and one of my favorite writers, she’s also become my go to for writing advice. Last week she gave me some exercises to unblock me, which worked. I posted about this on Instagram, how Courtney is some kind of writer whisperer, which she is. If you’re a writer looking for help, she has a Substack that is overflowing with exercises and tips on how to write and how to make sense of the publishing world, and I can’t recommend it enough. Also please buy Touch or any of her other works, thank you.
In some good news: New Yorkers will help you get an abortion; California’s prison population is shrinking; Brittney Griner is free.
A list of some of some my lesser referenced favorite newsletters, mostly roundups, that I read religiously: Roxane Gay; Xochitl Gonzalez; Alex Olhonsky; Ann Friedman. Alex’s roundup this week was really good, love how he thinks.
“In America, there’s always more money in sick people”; on health care communism, a thing that will probably take me a few years to actually understand
Alcohol stuff: The first documentary to go inside Alcoholics Anonymous uses deep fakes instead of blurred faces; among 20-34 year olds, 1 in 4 die an alcohol-related death; Laura McKowen on the link between alcohol and anxiety; ketamine therapy could treat alcohol addiction
Update: I finished White Noise the book and I did not like and will not be watching the movie. (Actually I probably will but I don’t want to but also I’m weak in this way.) Related: I watched Harry & Meghan, and by that I mean both the Lifetime movie and the documentary. I was genuinely (and also not at all?) shocked by the backlash; I thought they seemed really nice.
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The Mantra Project, a 40-day email course to support quitting drinking, is available for purchase here.
Good enough. I do find we, both myself individually and as a society tend to slingshot in any one direction when we think we may have found something to hold on to that might be THE answer (that and the marketing people get a hold of it and all of a sudden kids are saying "trauma" a lot). And then after some time of treading water on that deep end of things we realize "that answer" is becoming a crutch vs a solution. There is ease in good enough. There is beauty in good enough. There is joy in good enough. There is laughter in good enough. And there is so much love to be had in good enough. I've found I'd rather BE with intention than GROW with intention. Good enough.
A few things
1. I would pay any amount to read the unique and amazingly thoughtful things that emerge from that talented brain of yours and the elegant and lovely way you write about them. It’s true. I’m gob smacked. I admit it, freely.
2) readers, watch Dopesick with the wonderful Michael Keaton along with the great documentary about the incredible efforts of Nan Goldin to get the odious Sackler name removed from MOMA and other art institutions around the world. All that Blood and Restless Beauty (Holly’s pick for top movie). The Sacklers basically addicted America to Oxy, and pretty much got away with it. Goldin continues to hold them accountable and make them the pariahs that they are and should be.
3) White Lotus- what a great cast, especially the wonderful Sarina Tabasco as Lucia. Hated the ending though, but I’ll hate anything that ends with the demise of the fantastic Jennifer Coolidge.
4) my favorite scene from Broadcast News: Holly Hunter accuses William Hurt of journalistic malpractice: “ “You crossed the line, Tom.”
William Hurt responds:” How would I know? They keep moving it.” Reminds me of another movie line, not sure why but in Lord of the Rings, or maybe it was Harry Potter, I forget, the main character, maybe Gandalf, says: “ “Now comes the time to decide between what is right, and what is easy.”
Thank you Holly for always it seems deciding what is right. You never take the easy path, always the road less taken. I hope it has made all the difference. And I know, as a guitar player/singer how hard it is to put one’s self out there in front of others, you just keep on truckin’.
Thank you for your courage. You are such a gift this holiday season and always.