In My Depression, Elizabeth
Swados explains what it is like for her to be depressed.  She gets depressed on a regular basis, and
while when she is well she is highly creative and productive, when depression
strikes, she becomes reclusive, self-critical, and negative about life.  Her mother and brother also suffered from
mental illness, and killed themselves (Swados has previously published a memoir about her
family: The Four of Us: The Story of a Family).  Swados
admits that for many years she resisted getting conventional medical treatment
for her depression, and instead tired all sorts of alternative therapies and
activities that didn’t help much.  She
also finds, once she does start psychotherapy and medication, that is has
limited success and does not always keep depression at bay.  She tries different ways to cope with her
illness and hopes that she will survive.

The famous names who wrote blurbs
for the book give it high praise — Gloria Steinem, Garry Trudeau, Jimmy
Breslin and Jane Pauley.  So far, the
first 3 reader reviews on Amazon.com also give it high praise.  Maybe Swados’s book would be helpful to
people with depression who could benefit from learning about other people’s
experience of depression, so they know that they are not alone.  Swados goes into some detail about her life
and her drawings are evocative, so readers unfamiliar with the basics of
depression may found her book a helpful resource.  It does give a clear sense of how disabling and awful it is to
have depression.

However, the most obvious fact
about Swados’ drawings is that they are very crude.  It is hard to see what benefit there is in using such badly-drawn
pictures, and why the publisher did not commission a more talented artist to do
the drawing.  Some of the images are
charming because they have some fun details — people wearing funny T-shirts,
or with a silly expression on their face, for example — but most of them just
look amateurish.  I’m not sure who would
want to own such a book; maybe someone with a quirky personality would
appreciate it.  But I would think twice
before buying the book for a friend. 

© 2005 Christian
Perring. All rights reserved. 

Link: Author web site

Christian
Perring, Ph.D., is Academic Chair of the Arts & Humanities
Division and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long
Island. He is also editor of Metapsychology Online Review.  His
main research is on philosophical issues in medicine, psychiatry and
psychology.

Categories: Depression, Memoirs, ArtAndPhotography