Let’s Bring Back The Nervous Breakdown

I want to fall apart glamorously.

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

I’m about thissssssss close to completely falling apart. And amazingly enough, it has nothing to do with COVID. I actually find that COVID has a lot of benefits as far as I’m concerned.

1. No one tries to hug me. Normally, when someone goes in for a hug, I stiffen into a large chunk of wood. Like if a tree didn’t know what to do with its hands. That’s me.
2. Fewer people at the grocery store. I hate standing in lines. Loathe it. I feel exposed and helpless in lines — where are we really going? What’s at the end? Are we all jumping off a cliff one by one? Yes, I know this is a Kroger, but you can’t be too careful.
3. No one thinks it’s weird when I back away from them. I did this before the pandemic, and I will do it long after the pandemic is over. It’s like I’m a magnet, and everyone else in the universe has opposite polarity. (This is science. Look it up.)

Back in the good old days, people had “nervous breakdowns” which were cured by “rest” in something called a “sanitarium” (which is like a terrarium for people).

I always envisioned this as someplace where women (usually women have nervous breakdowns, and God knows we deserve them) lounge around in chiffon robes and fuzzy mules, drinking martinis. Less…