I lied about being sick, but not in the way you think

When I was a kid, my mother used to take ‘mental health days’, as she would call them. On those days, she would call in sick to work, sit on the couch, eat crisps, watch bad TV, and basically treat herself. When I was a kid I never knew quite what she meant, but to me it seemed clear that she was unwell, that she needed those days in order to function as an adult human. I loved those days with my mom, because I really felt like I was experiencing someone recuperate themselves, and this taught me a lot about what mental illness is and what it looks like and how to deal with it. Now that I’m an adult, I feel like I can really see where she was coming from. This article is kind of about that, and kind of about me.