I met Janelle Hanchett in person backstage at BlogHer's Voices of the Year show, where she was preparing to read "We Don't Start Out With Needles in Our Arms."

She was also wearing a baby at the time. We spent about five minutes debating whether or not said baby should be worn onto the stage (I was a fan of the idea in theory but, having worn a baby myself in the past, not a fan of the reality of having a baby anywhere near a microphone in a room of 3,000 people). 

Janelle's story is a shocker, both for its rock-bottom and for its normal. I volunteered to be on the launch team for her memoir, I'M JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE, because after putting out a book about mental illness myself, I get how scary that is. Not only are you sort of laying yourself bare as a writer, you're exposing to the Instagram world what mental illness really feels like. Janelle's story is one of addiction and recovery, but I recognized in her writing a lot of the same rage I've felt at times in my life and the same mental pain that is so severe it feels physical. 

What I've always admired about Janelle's writing: Her beautiful sentences. While I feel confident she could turn the mundane details of life into art, she's got some pretty compelling material to work with, and the result is truly important writing. A few of my favorite quotes:

I signed my daughter out, chatted with the receptionist, held my girl's hand to the car to make sure she was safe, and all these actions felt like tiny miracles. I gave the death glare to the woman when I saw her in the parking lot, because I was sober, not Jesus.

But then I would think of the inhumanity of my former life, of the morning I woke up and realized I could not exist among humankind, of the day I couldn't use the restroom properly, of the day I woke up alone in a hospital bed, and the day I spoke in the cracked dialects of the wholly insane, and I'd think, I am only human, and that is precisely the miracle.

And then, most disturbing of all, I got sober and realized I was still an asshole. I got sober and realized I still hurt people. I even resolved my childhood issues, and I'm still fucking bored.

My story wasn't untrue. It was simply unsustainable.

When I finished reading the book, I thought about all the ways everyone tries to self-medicate when we're still bored. I'm reading THE SHALLOWS right now, which is about how the Internet is affecting our brain circuitry and making it harder to focus. As pissed as I am at Louis CK right now, his ditty on how we can't stand to be alone with ourselves for even five minutes still deeply resonates. We joke about needing chocolate or a glass of wine or a Xanax, but not about another Oxy or some heroin, because dude, that is a serious problem. But isn't the real problem that we're bored? Janelle is no different from you or me: I've met her. She was making jokes and swigging water and wearing a baby. When I was unemployed, I avoided talking about it too much with people because I'd see the fear in their eyes that what happened to me might happen to them. I remember Stacy Morrison writing in her book about how her friends acted as if divorce was catching. What's truly terrifying about others' misfortunes is how easily they could happen to us.

What's amazing is that whatever misfortune befalls us, we can be resilient. It might take a try or twelve. It might take Good News Jack to overcome our three a.m. bad ideas. It might take getting over our egos or our childhoods or learning to sit with the shitty as well as the sublime. I've given all this a lot of thought in the past year with the lay-off and the cancer. Sitting with shitty is really hard. Learning to be more resilient is really hard.

Janelle has given us a gift with her honesty. We can't understand true resilience without seeing the bottom and hearing the mental monologue. This book is that. 

In 2010, I wrote a post about anorexia and Dr. Phil. Shortly after that, I wrote a response on BlogHer which seems to have been lost in the abyss. Shortly before I was laid off from SheKnows Media (which acquired BlogHer and is now being acquired by Penske Media, I transferred some of my posts to Medium on a lark. One of them was 5 Things You Should Know About Your Girlfriend With an Eating Disorder.

I've said it before: It's amazing, but I have received between 3-5 emails a week since I originally wrote the article sometime between 2010 and 2016 (yes, I admit, I don't have the will to research my posts on BlogHer -- it's painful). Originally I tried to write back individually to people, and at one point I had a six-month ongoing conversation with a mom, but after a while it became too overwhelming to keep up with all of the stories. And, after all, I wrote a book about this whole thing. So I started sending back this reply to the people who write me:

I get so many emails like this I put everything I know about eating disorders and recovery in a novel called THE OBVIOUS GAME. You could read it together and use it as a conversation starter. Either way it should help you understand. Good luck - there is a lot about romantic relationships and how they are affected in the book. 

RJBA

One time prior to today someone had an adverse reaction to this response, saying I was trying to sell them a book. I pointed out that THEY wrote ME, and that was the end of it. So imagine my surprise when today, I got this:

"send me an email and I will answer your questions"

"Fuck you and buy my book"

Thanks for nothing

There is a very long list of responses I wanted to send to that email. The post is years old. I haven't even worked at SheKnows Media since August 2016. My book came out in 2013. I stopped writing publicly about eating disorders around 2015/2016. Also? These are the last two paragraphs of the post referenced:

I’m sure some boyfriend somewhere right now is wondering how he can help his girlfriend as she once again refuses to eat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, you can email me and I will try to point you in the right direction. My personal email is ritajarens@gmail.com.

My debut young adult novel is The Obvious Game, published by InkSpell Publishing. The Obvious Game is based on my experience with anorexia. If you are a librarian and are having trouble finding my book, please write me at ritajarens@gmail.com to purchase the book at the 40% author discount price.

Beloved was pretty shocked at the whole thing. I wasn't, but I admit I was angry. I've had a long week. I just had my year-anniversary mammogram of my diagnosis this morning. (It was clean! Thank you, Jesus!) I wrote that post to help people a whole lot of years ago and this kid is treating me like a telemarketer at Grandma's dinner hour.

This is what was going through my head: WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO ME LIKE THIS WHEN YOU EMAILED ME? ARE WE CONFUSED ABOUT WHO IS DOING THE CONTACTING?

But I sat with it. I went to the gym. I ran a few miles. I reflected on my clean mammogram and all the imaginary problems I had worried about that are not at this moment coming to fruition. I reflected on my recent eight-pound weight loss (anyone who loses weight due to cancer is apparently not a stress eater like me) that I pulled off without undue restrictions or falling back into old bad eating disordered habits.

And I thought: This kid is in pain. He thought he would write me and maybe I'd become some sort of personal mentor to him, and I let him down with my canned response.

And yeah, kid, I get it. I did.

Here's the thing: I want to be a helper. I really do. I want to help you get through this. But I also am a cancer survivor and a lay-off survivor and a mom and a daughter and a sister and a wife and a co-worker and a friend. I have a house to manage and a career. I walk my cat in a freakin' harness every morning. I take fish oil and am working on a new novel.

So when I tell you I put everything I know about eating disorders in a novel and maybe you should read it, I'm not pitching you to buy my book. Go request it from your library or download it off of one of the million pirated sites I see every day on my Google alerts. What I'm saying is that I put three years of thought into what you're asking and I WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT.

I get that you're frustrated.

I get that you need help.

We all do. And lashing out at each other is not the way to get it.

So no, I'm not going to use your name. I'm not going to shame you.

But dude, let up. I feel your pain because despite overcoming one kind of pain, there is always another. Be kind to each other - you never know who escaped a repeat cancer diagnosis today: THIS WOMAN.