Undercurrents by Martha Manning (long form)

This is THE memoir about depression.  It is amazingly well written to the point of being lyrical. She knows pacing and timing.  All this is from the journals of a woman who has trouble seeing herself as the great counselor she is, yet alone writer.

This book will show you that even your psychologist may have gone on a similar path through the darkness. Everyone is prone to this disease; it does not discriminate.

METAPHORS: Manning’s are mostly water based metaphors. ex: endlessly rowing a boat to shore but making no progress.

She also reinforces:

• You are NOT your depression. You are a person who suffers from depression.
• Sometimes the best help is just from being held and listened to.
• That you are INCREDIBLY strong for fighting so hard and doing so much just to stay.  Every therapy session you go to, every med you take as prescribed is a tribute to your strength and will power.
• That you will get through this!

Undercurrents by Martha Manning (short form)

Undercurrents is amazingly well written, to the point of being lyrical.  Martha Manning uses mostly water metaphors to describe her depression (ex: endlessly rowing your boat to shore but never making any progress). She illustrates that the following statements are true:

• You are NOT your depression
• You are INCREDIBLY strong for fighting to get better, even if all you can do is get out of bed for therapy
• Sometimes the best help is just being held and listened to.

Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon

This is HANDS DOWN the most comprehensive, insightful, and well written book about depression that you will ever read. Solomon not only looks at depression through a multitude of academic views (politics, populations, history, alternative remedies, etc.) but he writes of other people’s experiences with depression as well as his own. He writes as a compassionate and stalwart advocate for all those suffering depression.

It makes you feel like you are not alone to read about one person’s experiences through depression, but to have a book that so thoroughly includes stories of so many sufferers is like finding a whole army of relatives you never knew about. The stories of these compatriots are not the product of one interview on one day, but many many interviews over what is sometimes years. You hear how this person had medication X not work out for them and you hear about the others she has tried and how for a few years she was happy, and then how she has had another breakdown. Being able to see so many people, from so many different backgrounds, go through what you are going through or went through is amazingly comforting. You don’t have just one other person who understands what you are going through but a whole herd of people. Granted no one would ever wish this disease upon another human being, it is just a comfort to know that you are not crazy.

Solomon is an amazing advocate in this book. In the course of the text he proves to you that you are not crazy, you are not your disease, and that you are not weak for taking medication for it. He talks about depression in the context of disease and compares it to other diseases throughout the text. He boldly tackles the struggle to define one’s self from the depression one suffers, especially the role medicine plays in the struggle for an integrity of the self. Taking medication for depression is the same as taking medications for any other disease; we don’t question when a person takes heart medication for heart disease and say he or she should only exercise and eat right. So why do we as a society tell people who suffer from depression that the only acceptable way to deal with the disease is to “buck up” and “stay positive”?

The Noonday Demon is an engaging and witty book, while it has the depth of a textbook it never sounds like one. His writing is full of humor, warmth, and passion. I would recommend this book to anyone who has had depression, whose loved ones have had depression, or anyone interested in this aspect of psychology. It not only will give you a better understanding of depression but also yourself.

Mourning Diary by Roland Barthes

Abandonitis n.- an inflamed sensitivity to/fear of abandonment; seeing it in all things (small or large); feeling completely separate, other (even with others around).

This is one of the many aspects of grief that Roland Barthes captures so brutally in Mourning Diary.  I have never read anything that encapsulates the suffering of grief with such directness and authenticity. Read it.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar is timeless.  Esther’s struggle is slow, sudden, and real. I never knew, never dreamed, that someone could capture so exactly what it is like to fall into depression.  Plath’s writing is poetic, to the point, and full of wit and humor.  You are not the only one stuck under the bell jar, suffocating, and look at a world you can see but never reach.

Here is a link to my video review: The Bell Jar: Review

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel

She gets it! Oh my god! She gets it! Elizabeth Wurtzel has described in this one book almost the entirety of what it is like to have this miserable disease (Depression).  She is unapologetic. She is honest. Even to the extent that readers can feel the frustration and anger of Wurtzel's loved ones as she navigates the darkness of depression.  

Introductions

This will be rewritten later, but here is my hello:

I want to share with you.  What, exactly, I don't know.  I am starting with these book reviews I have written for work.  Hopefully they will help both of us.   Thanks for reading.