Augusten Burroughs - This is How

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running With Scissors comes a groundbreaking book that explores how to survive the un-survivable and will challenge your notion of self-help books.

To say that Augusten Burroughs has lived an unusual life is an understatement. From having no formal education past third grade and being raised by his mothers psychiatrist in the seventies to enjoying one of the most successful advertising careers of the eighties to experiencing a spectacular downfall and rehab stint in the nineties to having a number one bestselling writing career in the new millennium, Burroughs has faced humiliation, transformation and everything in between. This Is How is his no-holds-barred book of advice on topics as varied as:

• How to feel like crap
• How to ride an elevator
• How to be thin
• How to be fat
• How to find love
• How to feel sorry for yourself
• How to get the job
• How to end your life
• How to remain unhealed
• How to finish your drink
• How to regret as little as possible
• And much more

Told with Burroughss unique voice, black humour, and in-your-face advice, This is How is Running With Scissors with recipes.

Contents

How to make yourself uncomfortable
(and why you should)

For my uncle and aunt, Bob and Relda Robison, of Dothan, Alabama. With love, gratitude, awe, and boiled peanuts.

To see what is in front of ones nose requires a constant struggle.

GEORGE ORWELL

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

GALILEO GALILEI

HOW TO RIDE AN ELEVATOR

S EVERAL YEARS AGO WHEN the relationship I assumed was both nearly perfect and my last turned out to be neither and ended car-off-cliff style, I experienced an unexpected and profound personal awakening .

This awakening arrived convincingly disguised as the most miserable and debilitating period of my lifea life that would now be trimmed short from the disease of ruination.

So complete was this state of psychological collapse, it even followed me into elevators.

As I stood in a hotel elevator one afternoon on my way back to my room, it stopped on that floor with all the conference rooms, where they keep the people with name tags.

One such person stepped into the lift, pushed the button for her floor, then took a step back and angled her body so that she was not quite facing me, but neither was she looking straight ahead at the seam where the doors meet, as common American Elevator Etiquette dictates.

Even out of the corner of my now suspicious eye I was able to register the Im a people person body language such a stance suggested.

No sooner had I formed the silent thought, God, a people person . She better not speak to I heard this: Its not that bad.

Id been scrupulously careful to keep my thought about her to myself; she had not done the same.

Whats more, shed spoken these words much louder and with more conviction than you would think necessary for a space roughly the size of four caskets standing on end.

Im sorry? I said.

She was looking at me with an expression of incredulity mixed with boldness. The highlights in her spiky hair had a greenish cast in the unflattering elevator lighting and her lipstick provided her with an upper lip that I saw she did not actually possess.

I said, its not that bad, and she gave me that frank, eyebrows up, lets-be-real-here, look. Whatever it is that happened, it cant possibly be as bad as it looks on your face. How bout trying on a smile for size. And if youre all out, Ive got one you can borrow.

My first thought was, Its leaking out of me? People can see it?

My second thought was, Die, bitch.

But I am much too polite to say something like that so I said, Ill try.

Encouraged, she continued. Itll lift your spirits. The first thing I do every morning is smile at myself in the mirror and say, You are a powerful, positive person and nothing can get you down today.

Thank God the elevator doors were already open and she was on her way out as she finished yammering at me, but just to be on the safe side I reached forward and began stabbing the Door Close button.

Now, I have an uncommonly high threshold for most any category of stimulation you can think of, but especially when it comes to being shocked, horrified, or enraged.

I was all of these things now. After a mere elevator ride that could not possibly have lasted longer than thirty-five seconds. Maybe forty seconds, if we passed through some sort of time-expanding warp.

Once in my room I had to think, what the hell just happened there? Why do I hate Lipstickmouth so much?

I am not a spiritual person, as I was in childhood. But occasionally, one event in my life will so quickly be followed by a second event that so perfectly replies to the first, it gives me pause and makes me wonder if I still have my St. Christopher medal somewhere.

Glancing down at my laptop, I noticed the following bold headline in my news feed:

SELF-HELP MAKES YOU FEEL WORSE. Bridget Jones is not alone in turning to self-help mantras to boost her spirits, but a study warns they may have the opposite effect.

I immediately clicked on the link and was taken to the BBCs website, where I read the article.

Canadian researchers found those with low self-esteem actually felt worse after repeating positive statements about themselves.

They said phrases such as I am a lovable person only helped people with high self-esteem.

The study appeared in the journal Psychological Science....

They found that, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.... Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.

No wonder I had found that woman so offensive. Sometimes things feel that bad.

Sometimes you just feel like shit.

Telling yourself you feel terrific and wearing a brave smile and refusing to give in to negative thinking is not only inaccuratedishonestbut it can make you feel worse.

Which makes perfect sense. If you want to feel better, you need to pause and ask yourself, better than what?

Better than how you feel at this moment , perhaps.

But in order to feel better than you feel at this moment, you need to identify how you feel, exactly.

Its like this: if California represents your desire to feel better, you wont be able to get thereno matter how many maps you haveunless you know where you are starting from.

Finally, trained researchers in white lab coats with clipboards and cages filled with monkeys had demonstrated in a proper clinical setting what I myself had learned several years earlier in a rehab setting: affirmations are bullshit.

Affirmations are dishonest. They are a form of self-betrayal based on bogus, side-of-the-cereal-box psychology.

The truth is, it is not going to help to stand in front of the mirror, look into your own eyes, and lie to yourself. Especially when you are the one person you are supposed to believe you can count on.

Affirmations are the psychological equivalent of sprinkling baby powder on top of the turd your puppy has left on the carpet. This does not result in a cleaner carpet. It coats the underlying issue with futility.

If affirmations were effective, a rape victim should be able to walk in her front door following the attack, go into the bathroom, and, with her silk blouse hanging in shredded strips from her collarbones, scratch marks bleeding on her breastsone nipple missingand her bangs pasted to her filthy forehead with dirt and dried semen, say to her reflection, I am too strong and independent to be hurt by negativity. I feel unafraid and powerful. I am grateful for the opportunity I have had tonight to experience something new, learn a little more about myself, and triumph in the face of adversity, and then feel perfectly okay, maybe even a little bit rushy on those feel-good endorphins runners are always going on and on about.