Broken (in the Best Possible Way)

Summary of Broken (in the Best Possible Way)

1. 1

   When Your Brain Becomes Your Frenemy

   

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   What if the very thing that makes you feel most broken is actually what makes you most human? Jenny Lawson can't remember entire vacations, loses shoes while wearing them, and once stood confused in her own refrigerator wondering whose house she'd wandered into. She's watched the same serial killer documentaries repeatedly, each time convinced it's her first viewing. Her memory is so unreliable that her e-reader has become an accidental time machine, revealing highlighted passages and notes from previous readings she doesn't recall making. She's solved the mystery in "Murder on the Orient Express" dozens of times, always impressed with her own detective skills. Yet this same forgetfulness has kept her marriage intact for twenty years-she forgets what they're fighting about mid-argument. Behind the comedy lurks something darker: dementia runs in her family. Her grandmother happily rereads the same Stephen King chapter weekly, forever discovering it anew. Rather than viewing this as pure tragedy, Lawson finds strange comfort in imagining all those forgotten memories locked away safely, still existing somewhere in the vast filing system of her mind. "If one day I look at you without recognition," she writes, "know that your importance remains real-the me who loved you is still sitting on that beach, forever feeling the sunlight."

2. 2

   The Grocery Store as Gladiatorial Arena

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   For some people, socializing means networking events and dinner parties. For Lawson, it means wearing sticky notes on her chest reminding herself what to say to cashiers. She maintains a running list of horrific things she's blurted during uncomfortable silences-a document she shows Victor whenever he suggests office parties. The list includes bizarre non-sequiturs about bat rabies, uncomfortable facts about bee reproduction, and accidental sexual innuendos about "wind beneath legs." During book tours, while fans wait eagerly outside, she hides paralyzed in hotel rooms. On one New York trip, unable to visit Times Square and Carnegie Hall, she curled up by the window watching tourists enter Carnegie Hall. From this trapped position, she witnessed something extraordinary: a fountain shaped like a dandelion caught sunlight at just the right angle, creating an enormous rainbow wall that waved like fire made of colors. No one else noticed this spectacle-only Lawson, from her specific vantage point of brokenness, could see it. Perhaps we're exactly where we're supposed to be, she realized-beautiful, terrible, unseen by most, unique in our particular way of experiencing the world.

3. 3

   When Your Body Declares War on Itself

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   Lawson's autoimmune diseases cascade into each other, her body attacking itself like blind soldiers mistaking joints for dragons. While outsiders see visible illnesses and assume recovery, they miss the persistent fog, bone aches, joint deformities, and exhaustion so intense she sometimes can't reach the couch. Recent tests revealed severe testosterone deficiency causing depression and brain fog, pre-diabetes requiring elimination of everything she enjoys eating, and "all of the anemias" - meaning she's mysteriously losing blood. While her doctor suggests reasonable medical explanations, Lawson is convinced attic vampires are responsible, especially after corresponding with "the Vampire Brotherhood," a scammer offering immortality for $150. The real blow came when Victor reminded her she doesn't have life insurance - too honest about health issues to qualify. Under the stars, Victor made her laugh: "You're a bad risk, but one I'm happy to take." Depression whispers lies during illness, telling her she's worthless. She recognizes these thoughts as untrue, but perception feels like reality when you're drowning - like how nightmares seem real until you wake up.

4. Chapter 4

   Woodpeckers, Electromagnets, and Finding Your Way Back

   "I am not suicidal," Lawson declares. "Yet I am at risk of suicide - this is what lurks in my doctor's notes, the unsaid thing that haunts my house." Suicide from mental illness isn't selfish. The disease itself is selfish, stealing your essence and replacing it with terrible lies. After years of encouragement, she tried repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which sends electromagnetic pulses to stimulate dormant parts of the depressed brain. Despite the painful procedure - like a woodpecker drilling into her skull - and insurance battles, she began treatment. By day seven, something shifted. She wanted to leave the house voluntarily and, most tellingly, wanted to listen to music again - something she avoids during depression because it either makes her feel too much or highlights her numbness. After her fourteenth session, she sat crying in the parking lot - not from sadness but from relief. Depression for her is a painful lack of emotions, so tears meant feeling human again. By day twenty, the slow tapping on her anxiety-prone right brain whispered "YOU. WILL. BE. STRONGER" while the rapid drilling on her depressed left brain repeated "YouWillBeOkayYouWillBeOkay." Six months after treatment, she needed less anxiety medication. Her depression returns but usually only for days. "Nothing lasts forever, good or bad," she writes. "But TMS gave me that borrowed half year where I came back to life."

   Chapter 5

   The Thread That Binds Us: Shared Mortification

   After tweeting about telling an airport cashier "you too" when they wished her a safe flight, Lawson received thousands of responses. People confessed to high-fiving retail workers waving to someone else, accidentally texting "love you" to their boss, and telling elderly customers they were "getting ready to expire" instead of their discount cards. One woman accidentally flashed her neighborhood while removing a spider from her bikini top. Another called teeth "mouth bones" during a first meeting with an attractive dentist. A teacher spent an entire parent-teacher conference discussing the wrong child. These confessions gained such traction they appeared in the New York Times, demonstrating that what truly resonates are not stories of perfection, but tales of messing up in incredibly human ways. "As these strangers shared their embarrassing stories, they felt celebrated rather than ashamed," Lawson observes. Our most embarrassing moments often become our most relatable ones, fostering community through shared vulnerability.

   Chapter 6

   Embracing Your Monsters: The Beauty of Brokenness

   Years ago, Lawson discovered a painting that became her life's metaphor-a child holding a grotesque demon monster with perfect contentment. The image mirrored her daily battle with depression and anxiety, personal beasties that manifest as dark thoughts that won't quiet or paralyzing fears that freeze her in place. Yet there's something wonderful in embracing these peculiar monsters. They give her perspective others might miss-noticing quiet strength in someone's trembling hands or finding humor in life's darkest moments. We all carry monsters: perfectionism, impostor syndrome, chronic illness, past trauma. Lawson envisions our souls as glowing half orbs that crack with sadness, loss, doubt, or pain. We search for tiny pieces to fill these gaps-a song with words we couldn't form, a line of truth from a book. Sometimes we desperately fill holes with wrong things-alcohol, drugs, bad relationships-temporary fixes that block true healing. "We are all broken and healing," she concludes, "wandering barefoot through one another's shattered shards." By accepting our peculiarities, we create safe spaces for others to embrace their monsters. In a world obsessed with perfection, Lawson offers a liberating truth: we are lovable not despite our flaws, but because of them.

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