Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION: How ACT Saved My A$$
When I got diagnosed with depression in 2018, my first instinct was to “cure” myself. In addition to traditional CBT therapy, I overwhelmed my life with herbs, acupuncture, kickboxing, 7 a.m. pilates, sound baths, tarot cards, crystals, witch candles, vegan donuts, spending money on shoes, calling old friends, making new ones, throwing myself into work, paying off my shoe credit card, putting my bare feet in the grass, making boundaries, cutting my own bangs, falling asleep to ASMR videos of a British woman whispering positive affirmations . . . None of it worked.
Not because anything I tried was inherently wrong. In fact, some of it made me feel a lot better! I love tarot cards and acupuncture now. But the more time I dedicated to curing my depression, the more depressed I felt. It reminded me of that phenomenon where once you notice a clock ticking, you can’t unhear it. Your day flips from quiet and peaceful to the never-ending, skull-grating tick, tick, tick. OKAY I FREAKING GET IT TICK I AM GOING TO JUMP OUT OF MY SKIN. Enter acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT.
When I first poked around the concept of ACT, I assumed the acceptance part meant “giving up.” As in: “Welp. I have been diagnosed with depression. Better just give up trying to be happy and accept my new role as a Sad Person.” However, after studying Steven C. Hayes’s thoughtfully crafted ACT workbook, Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, I started to see the light. Acceptance absolutely does not mean giving up. Yes, I needed to accept that I will live with depression for my whole life, but it’s up to me to decide what living looks like. It’s less about trying to get out of the ocean and more about swimming with the tide (hope you like metaphors because that’s the first of about eight hundred in this book).
And happy? Pffft. F*ck happiness. Being human means we’re capable of experiencing EVERY. SINGLE. EMOTION. All of them! The whole boxed set! Focusing on happiness alone robs you of a full life. It’s impossible and, honestly, boring. So, where should we put our focus? Well, that’s where the C in ACT comes in. The C is for “cookies,” and we gotta focus on cookies as much as we possibly can. Sorry, I’m kidding. C stands for “commitment.” We need to decide what we commit our time to (so actually, I guess you could pick cookies if you felt really strongly about it). Steve (can I call you Steve, Steven C. Hayes?) refers to these commitments as “values,” but I’ve also heard this similar concept called “purpose,” “calling,” and “intention.” We’ll get into all that mumbo jumbo in Part Four, so get pumped. First, I want to make something clear: this book is not going to magically bring you happiness.
But holy heck, I hope it brings you peace.
Don’t give up!
Lots of love,
Christina
Sit-Down Comedian, Professional Depressed Person
