Sorrow and Bliss

an ode to all the fleabags of the world

I actually picked up this book Sorrow and Bliss, by Meg Mason (for my birthday nonetheless) because I read somewhere on Instagram that it is the book version of Flea Bag. Turns out that it is a bit, but also not. There are similarities. The protagonist, our heroine - Martha Friel, is alone and grappling with mental health issues, just like Pheobe (Flea-bag). She comes from a dysfunctional family. She's incredibly close to her sister. The mood of the book is slightly dark—humor laced with sarcasm, heavy yet sharp.

But this book, being the virtue of being a book, takes this story to the next level. Or rather deeper. There are supposed to be many funny moments in the book, but I teared up most of the time.

It tells us the story of Martha Friel, and her life through her mental illness. The exact mental condition that she suffers from is not mentioned in the book, which might strike as odd. But then, it is of little importance. The consequence of it on her life is. My guess would still be bipolar disorder, from the symptoms displayed by Maratha and also the name of the book.

“So why is everything broken? Maybe Martha is someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her”.

Lines on the back cover of the book reads.

Martha still pulls off a (seemingly) normal life, at least by society’s standards. Yes, her first marriage fails due to a wrong decision, but she goes on to build a decent career, share a life with a husband who always loved her, keep a few friends, and have a family that still gathers for Christmas celebrations.

When you’ve grown up in a family like Martha’s (or your own version of dysfunction—remember, happy families are alike, but sad families are each unhappy in their own way)—an eccentric mother, a self-deprecating father who can’t quite pick up the pieces, and a sister who is your partner in crime in the bitterness against your mother—then all these small things become monumental achievements. Trust me.

Her husband Patrick carries his own baggage. Everyone does, in their own way. They wrestle with ghosts of the past and cobwebs in the closet that sometimes—often—spill into their adult lives. d. Her sister Ingrid. Her cousins. Her parents. You see the cracks they navigate, and the sheer effort it takes them to fill those cracks, to climb out. The human capacity we all possess to redeem ourselves—like Martha’s sister, determined to be a hands-on mother to her four children, despite having been nearly deprived of a mother’s love herself (Or perhaps having four children was her way of undoing some of that damage). Patrick grapples with abandonment issues, the weight of a selfish father’s absence.

But nobody suffers like Martha. No one conquers like she does either. What she endures isn’t the kind of anxiety that you learn to soothe with a podcast or reading a few self-affirmations. When her condition takes hold, it cripples her, spirals her into self destruction, trapping her in a dark hole with no escape. It drives her to hurl things at her maddeningly patient husband—until even we begin to get tired of her a little.

And yet, it took Maratha nearly half her life to even accurately diagnose what was happening to her. Yes, the state of affairs.

Mental health is a tricky subject, even when social media is full of it these days. You are either in denial of it or you genuinely don't know what is wrong with you. Or perhaps you do know, but you’re simply terrified to admit that something is wrong—that you might be cast out of the normal world and into an abyss, judged by a cruel society. Or you are simply too vulnerable to be able to seek help (where - in a country like India?) and pull yourself up.

Or perhaps you’re too self absorbed to care about the damage it’s doing to your loved ones. And I say this with caution—it’s a controversial statement. How can you be selfish when you’re helpless with a mental illness? But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of it, you might be inclined to agree with me. Then again, one could argue that the worst damage is ultimately inflicted on yourself.

I remember writing about Charlotte—the Netflix web series mapping Queen Charlotte’s life with King George III—and how much being a caregiver must have taken a toll on her. A friend, angered by my take, asked whether the King should ever be blamed for what was happening in his life, insisting that his mental illness was simply beyond his control. I agree. And still, I also want to spare some thought for Patrick, Martha’s husband, who in spite of loving her, in spite of knowing what a wonderful person she was, ultimately succumbed to distancing himself away from her.

When Mathew Perry died, and the details of his destabilizing, lonely life was made public, I asked my sister - the greatest fan of FRIENDS - how could his co-stars, who gave friendship goals to everyone, leave him alone? Why did they not reach out and help him?

“You can only take help when you want it”, she said. She also reminded me of one of my friends that I tried hard to convince for therapy - in vain - but ended up pushing her (or myself) away. Another of my friends said a while ago - “people don't even let their therapists tell you what you don't want to hear about yourself . They want to be in their echo chamber”.

So not only do we lack the resources to identify and treat mental illness, but we’ve also built a complex web that makes it even harder to understand what we—or someone else—are going through.

The book doesn’t offer answers. These are the kind of answers you must seek for yourself. It simply takes you through Martha’s journey—how her condition affects her ability to fulfill her aspirations, or even to aspire at all. How it strains her closest relationships. How she lets go of her most ardent desire. And how, unexpectedly, her relationship with her mother evolves.

Sorrow and Bliss is not a novel designed to raise awareness. Yet it teaches us more than any lecture on the subject ever could. The way I see it, the book is about developing empathy—an overused word that remains elusive for most of us. Empathy to understand why someone like Martha does what she does, why it is so hard for her—because one day, it could be you. If it hasn't been already. And also, embracing your vulnerability, in a way that you are able to see, through not just yourself, but also through the lives of those around you, like a prism that casts multiple colors into everything when you look at it. We all come with multiple shades.

The book doesn't end with Martha getting cured or something like that. Even her marriage ends spoilers, sorry). The only constant is her relationship with her sister—unbreakable, if only by the default of being biological. But the end is not an unhappy one, especially if are able to appreciate what happiness can be, different for different people.

It ends with her coming to terms with her. Living with it. In spite of it. Writing a better ending for herself, or if not - inspiring us to try.

P.S - I wrote too much, right? I still want to add two cents about Winsome - Martha and Ingrid's Aunt, who - in all her strictness about rules and convention, manages to look after the girls. How often do we truly appreciate someone who rises above the madness, providing stability and holding the fort for others? Love is the only way to do it—the only way we can bear it all.