The books I read when I was chronically depressed
For some of these "read" is an exaggeration; I didn't get my ability to read consecutive pages at a time back for several months. But even skipping around in these books felt like something.
This recently republished memoir about heroin addiction was one of the first books I was able to read whole chapters of. I kept thinking, wow my life is horrible right now but not as horrible as this guy's was, dear god (which is what I was counting on when I bought it). White Out permits the reader to experience two parallel realities: drug addiction makes life hell on earth, and also doing drugs is super fun. A lot of books in this genre responsibly downplay the second part. Not this one! (This is basically what Gideon said when he reviewed this book the first time it came out, I just discovered.)
Darkness Visible by William Styron
Yeah, he pretty much nails it. This is the one book I'd recommend to someone who wonders what it's like to have the serotonin lights in your brain flicker, fade, then go off for months. When I was reading this book I wished it had been longer and had more day to day detail about the period of time when Styron was really in the thick of it, like, a set piece that was just one day in his very depressed life. I was looking for a role model I guess. How I Get It Done (surviving the hours edition.) Now I think that would probably have been boring. Maybe he wrote something like that and cut it. This book is very short.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I've read this book at least seven or eight times and the first time I was 15 or so, which is a normal time to read this book. I would wager many people read it around that age then never again. If that's you, fix yourself! Pull it down off the shelf! It's also very short and it has so much more to it than you might be remembering. I love the part where everyone gets botulism from a magazine banquet. It isn't a novel if nobody vomits, that's what I say.
The Bell Jar is also the only detailed description of a manic episode followed by a depressive episode I've read. I've read a lot about mania -- writers have an easier time describing action, I guess? -- but not its flip side. Since this is what happened to me I was encountering the book with new eyes. I wish that instead of ECT Sylvia had gotten the drugs they have now, though to be honest the drugs are still not that great.
Come for the detailed descriptions of mania, including outfits (what is it about mania that requires a sort of costume? I wore more makeup when I was manic than ever before, and even learned to do eye makeup for real -the secret is eyelid primer). Stay for the descriptions of freelance magazine writing in the late 90s and early 00s, a specific bygone era that I narrowly missed and will always be fascinated by.
Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter
This was the first novel I read the whole way through. It's an eerie old-fashioned sci-fi novel that's also about parenthood, the end of the world, and feelings. 11/10 stars I love you Hilary thank you for breaking the longest no-novel streak of my adult life.
For more about the media I consumed while I was extremely nuts click here. After I wrote it I realized I left out Emily in Paris, which I would 100% watch more of and would recommend to anyone who wishes that AJLT didn't have the burden of history on its shoulders.