Monday, May 08, 2006

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

I don't have terribly much to blog about at the moment. I was in a bit of a funk last week; spring, for some reason, is a difficult season for me. I'm perking up, but the edges are still a little dull. I started reading William Styron's Darkness Visible, a memoir of his battle with a depressive breakdown in the mid-1980s. This book was recommended to me quite some time ago by a great therapist, Dr. P., but I'd never come across a copy of it until wandering into the Wee Book Inn yesterday. There it was, right at the front of the store. I usually avoid reading accounts of depression, partly out of barely realized fear that doing so would trigger depression, and partly because I'm so dismally familiar with it that I don't want to read about it. Turns out I'm not alone in this. Styron wrote, "It came as an astonishment to me that I was close to a total ignoramus about depression...I had always subconsciously rejected or ignored the proper knowledge; it cut too close to the psychic bone, and I shoved it aside as an unwelcome addition to my store of knowledge." He put it better than I ever did, of course. I simply said,"Don't wanna."

When I'm not depressed I'm actually a very happy person who loves and appreciates life. Strange. You'd think depressives would just generally hate everything, all the time.

Anyway, while Richard is perched on the edge of the couch watching the Sharks win tonight, I'll be reading The Jesus Papers and The Lost Gospel of Judas.

4 comments:

tshsmom said...

"Don't Wanna", was the story of your life back then! ;)

redjane Stephanie Belding said...

Neat post. "When I'm not depressed I'm actually a very happy person who loves and appreciates life. Strange. You'd think depressives would just generally hate everything, all the time." I've grown up, lived with and dated deppressives. The swing in emotion is huge and the older we've all gotten, the deeper and more complex each of us has become, including the complexity of the depression. I'm lucky in that I don't suffer from depression. I definately get the blues for extended periods of time, but it's not the same. Spring is a huge trigger for me too- all the possibilities and endless change, perhaps. Sounds like a good book.

The Zombieslayer said...

You definitely have to review those. I've always thought in the back of my mind that Judas was following Jesus' orders and wasn't the bad guy everyone thought he was.

S.M. Elliott said...

I've always thought Judas got a bad rap, too. He did something someone had to do, so why all the flak?