When FRIENDS first premiered, I had just started my junior year of high school. I was busy pining over my very gay best friend, performing in the local youth theater, and writing angsty prose in my journal. Thursdays at 8pm I was tuned into My So-Called Life and was entirely uninterested in six trendy twenty-somethings living a dream reality in NYC.

I don’t actually remember when I first started watching; I can’t even remember if I watched any episodes when they aired. But, I do remember catching reruns on TBS and experiencing a gentle sensation, like warm soup in my belly. I remember collecting each season on DVD and enjoying all the extra scenes and bloopers like one experiences a new meal at their favorite neighborhood restaurant.

As streaming started taking over, the idea of getting off the couch to swap DVDs went from an inconvenience to intolerable to offensive. My DVD collection – all 10 seasons of FRIENDS, included – sat on my shelves as a memorial.

And then – January, 2015. I was six years deep in a job I wasn’t even sure I liked. I was signing up for, and not attending, different classes at Brooklyn Brainery and Gotham Writer’s Workshop. And I was looking for a new therapist.

I have been in therapy on and off since I was 12. The first time I went was after I saw Tales from the Crypt: The Movie and became convinced a mummy was going to come into my bedroom and pull my brains out through my nose. I could hear the coat hangers rattling in the closet outside my bedroom door. The second time came after listening to the Muppet Show soundtrack, and getting the Kermit the Frog classic, Lydia the Tattooed Lady, stuck in my head. Not in the way that songs normally float in your brain. This was non-stop, repetitive torture that kept me awake at night, praying a mummy would come and end my misery.

Then there was ‘high school’ therapy (see above re: gay best friend and angsty poetry), ‘college’ therapy (my first foray into medication), ‘making bad decisions’ therapy (more medication, a misdiagnosis of bi-polar), and ‘trying to get back on track’ therapy (a relationship that lasted 3 sessions until I caught a glimpse of his computer reflected in the window, and saw he was perusing cars on Craigslist).

Now I was looking for ‘I think I need help’ therapy. I was flailing – unmedicated and depressed. I had been in New York for 13 years, and I wasn’t living the life I had envisioned for myself. I had abandoned all my hobbies – concert tickets sat unused in my desk drawer, travel plans abandoned in mid-stream. I had few friends and no meaningful relationships. While searching for a doctor to help, I also found another source of comfort – streaming the unreality of six friends who had many hobbies, many plans, and endless meaningful relationships.

FRIENDS became the thing I came home to every night. It was a bright and familiar refrain, where even the most troubling of concerns (someone stole your credit card!!) is resolved with ease and comedic relief (you’re now friends with the thief and your credit score is entirely unaffected!)

Netflix doesn’t actually show you your view count – but I would guess I’ve watched the entire series at least 50 times since its streaming debut (one full viewing every six weeks). By watch, I don’t actually mean pay attention to. FRIENDS is on when I’m cleaning, when I’m cooking, when I’m taking a nap, when I’m writing blog posts. In fact, it’s on right now [Season 10, Episode 9]. It’s basically like an agoraphobic roommate that doesn’t make a mess and lets me walk around naked.

FRIENDS is the white noise of my apartment. If you spend any time watching Frank’s instagram stories (full name: Frank Jr Jr – a FRIENDS reference) you’ll hear FRIENDS in the background of 87% of them.

Then, eighteen months ago, I woke up in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, breathed in the cool, morning air, and felt nothing. I would be turning 40 in a day and about to face the hardest year of my life.

I went through stretches of being completely hollowed out and moments of feeling absolutely everything. I encountered a new level of anxiety that left me agoraphobic, paranoid, and exhausted.

Every day became a battle. A battle to get up, take care of myself, take care of the animals. Even walking Frank became fraught with anxiety – we would walk through a plaza flanked by large buildings on either side and I imagined snipers on the roof picking people off. I imagined a crazed driver plowing his van into us. Eventually, I changed our route and shortened our outings. But I battled. Every day. My world became very small – bite sized pieces of life that I could manage. Determined to take another bite.

After any notable suicide, there are lots of social media murmurings about ‘asking for help’ and ‘checking in on your friends’. But here’s what I learned during this time. It’s impossible to ask for help when you can’t even notion what it is you need. Hopelessness doesn’t seek out help. It seeks out silence.

Every week in therapy my doctor would ask me if I had suicidal thoughts. And my answer was always no, which was true. But he didn’t ask me if I ever thought about just not waking up in the morning, or getting a rapid and fatal disease. Not being suicidal doesn’t mean you want to live.

But, watching Chandler and Monica fall in love, laughing at Phoebe’s bad taste in men, imagining hanging out with my own coffee at Central Perk, was a salve and an oasis from the darkness. The characters on the screen didn’t look at my pained face and ask me what was wrong. They didn’t question my tears or my silence. They just lived and laughed, worked through their challenges and always ended up okay. I knew them people so well, their pasts and presents (and even futures) that anxiety was unnecessary. The familiarity saved me. My brain was so overloaded, but FRIENDS was a pause button. Twenty-two minutes of predictability.

Therapy is how I fought the beast, and FRIENDS is how I let the beast sleep.

Combined with new medication, a compassionate family, and the passage of time, I eventually found my way through the worst.

Next year, FRIENDS is leaving Netflix. It will find a new home on HBO Max, but I’m thinking it might be time to let these six pals move away. At least for now – when the beast seems to be hibernating and the world becomes more expansive. But, it’s comforting to know that they’ll be there if I need them.

note: portions of this were originally written in May, 2019