Crazy Is My Superpower, the autobiography of April Mendez Brooks, is a book that I think everyone should read.
Whether you are a wrestling fan, or you have experiences with mental illness or you’ve always just felt a bit different, this book is honestly one of the best things I have ever read.
April Mendez Brooks, better known to wrestling fans as AJ Lee, was a three time women’s champion in WWE, won Diva Of The Year Twice and pulled the heavily male dominated company into a new direction by refusing to comply with what her bosses thought a female wrestler should look or act like. She was small, scrappy, outspoken, and most of all a complete nerd.
As you may have already worked out, I am madly in love with her.
But she's in America.
And married.
But I'm also in love with her husband so I'm sure we could make it work.
I'm getting side-tracked now.
Where was I?
So while AJ was rewriting the game and challenging the rules, what hardly any of her fans or co workers knew before she released her memoir was that she spent most of her childhood homeless, experienced abuse in varying forms, survived a suicide attempt and has battled bipolar disorder both in herself and her mother since she was a child and still does to this day.
The character, the persona she created when she achieved her dream of becoming a professional wrestler with WWE, was labelled “the crazy chick”. This was because, as Lee put it, she was “hiding in plain sight” she used the darkest moments and parts of her disorder and life to create a persona that, combined with her natural talent in the wrestling ring, made her one of the most popular wrestlers in the company.
This book, AJ’s story, it… it hits a little harder for me than most books.
And the reason it does is why it is such a good book.
AJ Lee overcame everything and anything that was thrown in her path. Poverty, homelessness, abuse, mental illness, discrimination, sexual harassment and everybody telling her no.
No, you’re not pretty enough. No, you're too crazy. No, you’re too skinny. No, you’re not strong enough. No, nobody wants to have sex with you. (That’s not a joke, that is an actual quote from one of her bosses!)
Basically, throw a dart at a wall of sh*tty things and AJ overcame it.
Now call me sappy, but that’s pretty damn inspiring to me.
If she can do it I can do it too.
I can recommend this book to anyone who:
A) Feels like they are alone
B) Struggles with mental illness
C) Needs inspiration to overcome a challenge
D) Has ever felt like they don’t fit in
E) Wants to read a book with ups, downs, tears, laughter and an unholy amount of F words.
And now we take a break to look at the most glorious of all book covers and a woman who could crush you without breaking a sweat.
I read this book at one of the worst times of my life. Less than a month after I was hospitalised on a psychiatric review, when I hadn't even gone back to school yet, my mum dropped this book on my bed first thing in the morning.
If I'm honest, I'd forgotten that I'd ordered it.
Mum dropped it on my bed, I read it in three hours and then I read it again.
And again. And again and again and again.
Even if you never listen to another word I say, or read another word I write, please just listen to this:
Read this book.
If you have ever felt alone or different. If you have ever felt like everything was against you. And most importantly if you have ever questioned your worth.
First of all you shouldn't. You are all worth every star in the sky.
But if you have ever doubted that you are not worthy of love or success or kindness or peace...
Read it.
Trust me.
As AJ says in the book:
“We were rough around the edges but that didn’t make us worthless. Being a little damaged does not make someone broken.”
I want to be like AJ when I grow up.
I think I’m halfway there.
After all…
Crazy chicks do it better right?
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