There’s an insidiousness to lack of representation, and there’s an insidiousness to—I don’t quite have the language for it—but this sort of stereotypically spiritual, “Here, just have some flax seed milkshake, and then you’ll cure yourself of depression,” “You’re not really sick. What you are is this culture is sick, and you’re unbalanced within it”—all this stuff that, to me, is so harmful.

I have conversations. I’ve been both abused by the system of medication and found great relief in it, and know that it’s nuanced. People call me because they’re in a community of people trying to feed them flax seed and sage. I’m just like, “Girl, I also believe in saging your house. I do that shit. But you have to be nuanced. You have to be thoughtful about what you are really saying yes and no to.” What if I told you that the food you put in your body—that’s just as important, but it’s not the only thing?

The fact is, we’re all breathing in polluted air. We’re all suffering from traumatic culture. We all probably to some facet carry some kind of PTSD. It is a messed up culture we’re a part of, and we can’t hold people with mental illness as the barometers of, “Oh, something is wrong with you that is a reflection of our culture.” No, everybody is that. These people are just dealing with a certain type of predisposition.

I had a part of stigma whispering in my ear, not shouting, but whispering, “There is another way to do this. Maybe if you change your diet completely,” which I did. “Maybe if you exercise every day.” So I changed my diet. I exercised every day. I went down on my Lithium. And I was still on it, a teeny bit, when I had my break. It just shows. It’s like, “Girl, why are you beating yourself?” That’s the main thing I want sometimes to give people. You don’t have to take a chisel and stone and chisel hard at your being. You can rest. You can find what works for you and feel a lack of judgment there.

This idea of an artist that we love to see suffer. We need people who are like, “I’ve had four breakdowns. I’m going to continue making my work, and I’m going to prove that my work doesn’t come only from my breakdowns,” because it doesn’t. The best work doesn’t come from the breakdowns, and we need to absolutely destroy that narrative.

It’s lifelong. I have a part of me always saying, “Well, if you moved to Morocco, or maybe you were near salt flats, or you lived in the sun more, or you ate this food”—there’s a part of me that negotiates. And honestly, that’s a part of grief. I’m going to negotiate my way out of this thing that I wish wasn’t true.

It’s about letting that little voice be like a toddler and do its thing, and say, “Shira, Shira. I need this, I need that. You’re wrong. I’m in charge,” and being like, “Well, I’m driving. I’m the adult. I’m looking at the facts. And I want to live.” I don’t want to end up walking into traffic because something told me in my being that was the way to go to work that day, and then I’m dead. I just really don’t want to be that artist.

There have been temptations in my soul, too, to kind of just fall apart into that, because it’s a really intoxicating place to be. It’s exhausting and intoxicating. Some of the most incredible experiences I’ve had was while very, very, very high on whatever my body is concocting as mania. And when I’m low, there’s a glum presence and depth and blue and grey to the world that’s very textural that I can appreciate about depression.

There’s parts of it that I miss, I can kind of admit missing, but I know the consequence is so severe if I were going to play with it, the way that some artists and some people like to play with it. I’ve met them. They say, “I want it. I don’t want to medicate it.” I’m like, “Okay. Do you. And I wish you safety.” It’s the same thing with drugs. Folks that are like, “I want to do a ton of drugs.” Word. I wish you safety.

This Terarrium of Experience