Meditation vs. Medication: A Graphic Essay

Here is a short graphic essay by Deanna Zandt.  Struggling with depression and anxiety is hard enough without fighting an epic internal struggle about medicating.  This graphic gives a helpful perspective on the subject.  Reminder: You are not weak.  You are fighting a disease.  There is no shame in taking medication.

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

Oh my gods!  I can not begin to describe how wonderful this book is! I laughed so hard I cried; I hurt my face and back; I almost peed myself on the subway! If you are in a dark place and need a laugh, or hug, or support you will find it all in Lawson's new book.  I have never had a book make me smile so much.  She has been down in the guck and the mire.  Whether it's depression or anxiety she has been there.  And she is there with you.  Please read this book.  Thanks to Furiously Happy I know I am not alone and I now have an arsenal of funny happy memories to help me fight my monsters.

"Everything is Awful and I'm Not Okay: questions to ask before giving up"

This is a random document I found on Facebook one day. The questions are really accurate. It truly is amazing how much small items can make you feel better. Remember: stay hydrated...and fed.

Introductions 2.0

As promised I give you my revised introduction:
 
I want this to be a resource, providing short reviews about helpful books, websites, and other sources on grief, depression, and anxiety.  And as I get braver and bolder I will share my story.  I could be smart about this and make the blog be specifically about depression, or anxiety, or grief. But for me the three are so interconnected and entwined separating the tools for each would be disingenuous.

Above all I want to be honest.

For ease of access I will designate each resource for people looking for a specific topic.  And I will keep the posts short and to the point.  I can not focus well or for long when I'm in the middle of a depression, episode of anxiety, or grief wave.  It is unfair to ask you to.

As my therapist would say,"Aren't you doing this because this is what you wanted for yourself?"

   
Yes. Yes it is.  

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Kay Redfield Jamison

This book was my refuge, my anchor, when I was in the depths and darkness of a suicidal depression.  Night Falls Fast was the only reading I could focus on.  The honesty, compassion, humor and the care that Kay Redfield Jamison writes with are truly amazing.  She is honest about the nature of statistics on suicide and the nature of discovering what lead up to a suicide.  Jamison manages to wrap heart wrenching stories of men and women's suicides together with such love and feeling for the victim and their family, without romanticizing suicide.  She always gives us an intimate view while still retaining the distance and subjectivity necessary to put suicide into perspective.

Remember: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

If you or a loved one are thinking about suicide please talk to someone at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:   1 (800) 273-8255

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.