Dave Tarnowski wants to strip the stigma from mental illness, one disappointing affirmation at a time

Dave Tarnowski wants to strip stigma from mental illness, bring the conversation further into the mainstream and make people feel seen. (Supplied: Chronicle Books)

“Have a panic attack,” the affirmation reads. “You’ve earned it.”

When Dave Tarnowksi, an introverted 46-year-old author from Queens, New York, posted these words on Instagram, over a picture of a pink cloud-strewn sky, he had no idea they would catapult him to online fame. He had spent years posting memes online, in various guises, and writing unfinished novels, but it was these eight words that exploded in August 2022, going viral. Three months later, to his astonishment, he had an agent and a book deal.

Tarnowski’s account, Disappointing Affirmations, has 2.2 million followers and is very funny. His dark words spread over photos of nature that he has taken himself on various holidays over the years, providing a delicious counter to some of the lamest, most toxic positivity sayings (like, “everything happens for a reason!”, “quitting is for quitters!”, “live, laugh love!” and other nonsense).

Some of my favourites include:

“Just be yourself. But not your real self. No one wants to see that shit.”

“No one is coming to save you. You are the adult. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re doing the best you can. Which is pretty sad.”

And this one really made me laugh:

“This too shall pass. And then some other bullshit will come and take its place. It never f***ing ends.”

But Tarnowski’s point is serious. As a man who has lived with depression and anxiety — including panic attacks — his entire life, and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD, he wants to strip stigma from mental illness, bring the conversation further into the mainstream and make people feel seen.

With his work, he says: “I found out there are a lot more people out there like me than I ever imagined.” The message of his book, called Disappointing Affirmations: Unfollow Your Dreams, is “It’s OK not to be OK”.

‘Blue is my baseline’

When I asked him what he has learned from his own experience about how people get by, he answers with characteristic blunt candour: “I’m going to be completely honest — I wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for the people who love me. If I had no one in the world who would be impacted by me committing suicide, I wouldn’t be here. I’m proud of myself for making it to this point. But that option is never off the table in my mind. And I don’t see it as a bad thing. And it’s part of why I do this. An open conversation about mental health cannot exist without acknowledging suicide.”

When Tarnowski asks the question “what’s on your mind?” in some of the Q&As he has posted on his pages for years, he says “the amount of people telling me in this anonymous setting that suicide was on their mind was and still is staggering”.

His frustration is that Instagram won’t allow open conversations about suicide on their platform. And he wants mental health to be taken as seriously as physical health.

When I spoke to Tarnowski, a kind-faced, bearded man who laughs readily and listens intently, he was having a good day. Most days, though, are not: “I’m always blue. It’s my baseline. Always has been. I don’t know if I’ve been bipolar my entire life, but I’ve definitely been depressed from very early on. Childhood trauma and all that.”

Being able to “function” is a very relative term, he points out — he can get out of bed, others can’t: “This is one of the things that made me start making these satirical affirmations: someone telling someone who is so depressed that they can’t get out of bed that they should try exercising. It’s pointing out the tone-deafness of a lot of the toxic positivity out there.”

Finding your ‘why’

He has, however, found that one consistent balm is listening to sad music — he has a Spotify playlist called “Sad Bastards” — and having a good cry. Sometimes you need to acknowledge crappy feelings, roll with them, acknowledge them and let it all out. “Crying can be so f***ing transformative,” he says.

After we hang up he sends me a link to Radiohead’s Codex, a song that Rolling Stone defined as being about “washing yourself clean in a world of dirty water”.

Another balm of sorts is therapy, which Tarnowski said both saved and changed his life: “What you discover can change you, your entire perception of yourself, in amazing ways.”

So, if he were able to talk to those people at risk of suicide, what would he want to say to them? He sighs, then says: “Find your why, your reason for being here.” He cites the Nietzsche quote: “If you know the why, you can live anyhow.”

This is something he has wrestled with recently. He works in banking which, he says, “does nothing for my soul” but is good for health insurance, which he depends upon for his medications, and he has found meaning in creating and writing.

In the early years of the COVID pandemic, he had just split up with his second wife and was living alone in Washington DC, far away from family. “I went through a very dark night of the soul that winter leading into 2021,” he says, “and I was suicidal every single day. The mere fact that I’m still here is a huge win for me, even if some days I’d still rather just give up”.

But he has a “why” that keeps him going: “Namely sharing my feelings and staying alive to show that no matter how deep the pain, there’s still stuff to live for.”

Making light by shining light

The irony of Tarnowski’s work is that it is actually, ultimately, affirming, showing that negative feelings can be affirming, too.

He describes his book of 80 affirmations as a story that begins with “feeling all alone in the world, like you’re trapped inside yourself”, and ends with “self-acceptance, with lots of ups and downs and detours along the way”.

Sometimes people tell him his work is not disappointing enough, he laughs.

But his philosophy is, strangely enough, all about light: “Making light by shining light.”

He wants to shine a light in the dark “by making light of serious issues with introspective, fatalistic, sometimes nihilistic affirmations”, he says. “There’s something about seeing your worst fears in print. Plus, I like to invite my audience to feel all their feelings. A good cry can be as relaxing as a massage. And a good laugh at something you can see yourself reflected in is priceless.”

This is part of a regular series called Staying Upright, where I explore how humans manage to persist, despite everything. Feel free to contact me here.