Introverted Bear

Memoirs are about someone's experiences, someone's feelings. They can't be contested like pop psychology books or pop history books. Mostly, I feel strange trying to articulate how this book makes me feel. It's almost if as I'm imposing my feelings onto the author, which wouldn't be appropriate at all. No matter how I feel about this book, I can't deny the author's experiences, which brings me to the point that everyone experiences emotions differently. Therefore, even if two people are diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, they can still feel different things.

What most surprised me about this memoir is the lack of emotion. The shorter and only barely descriptive entries leave much to the imagination, so much that it is almost disappointing. However, the short entries also show how much depression cuts off the author's feelings, as if she can only spend a small amount of time telling her story because her story hurts so much. I suppose that is to be expected in depression, and it happened in my case too. The more you descend into depression, the less you write even though the dark feelings are swallowing you whole. It's too painful to acknowledge that darkness, and writing about that darkness means you acknowledge it. Some people avoid acknowledging it because they're afraid it's going to take over their lives. As the author starts to come out of depression, the entries get longer and the author expresses more emotions. The short entries could have been a reflection of the author's depressive state. If anything, it seems like the entries about her depression were written after the fact or the author was somehow disconnect in her depressive state so that we don't get the full picture.

The most interesting thing about this memoir is the fact that this is a demonstration that depression is not a result of your habits or actions. Sometimes it just happens and there is nothing you can do about it. Based on the way she describes her family's history, it sounds like her depression is completely biological and genetic. Manning even hints at this with the discussion of her family's alcoholic history and with her sand castle metaphor. Even if she has a million achievements, depression can still come and knock them down. Depression doesn't care if you're a millionaire who has published 100 books and you've been elected president of the United States. Depression will take you down because it's an unfeeling, inanimate illness based on biochemistry. Now, how that biochemistry came about can determine how it needs to be treated. Mostly though, I believe Manning is right. We still don't know what causes depression or how to fix it. For some people, exercise does the trick, but for other people, they need antidepressants and ECT.

I wish our world was a bit more compassionate towards people like Manning. I wish our world was more compassionate to those who suffer from mental illnesses. Then maybe we wouldn't have to hear things like, "Oh, you should exercise more or change your diet." "You have no reason to be depressed because you have a great life." Maybe we wouldn't have to hide mental illness out of fear of stigma. I'm not entirely sure that Manning's book encourages compassion among people who don't have mental illness or who aren't familiar with mental illnesses.

Concerning memoirs about mental illness, I guess it's nice to know you're not alone, yet at the same time, you can feel isolated because your experiences don't match the experiences of the author. It's a precarious situation. I can't necessarily say that this book is good or bad. It has some great sentences that make you think yet they fall short of the "Aha!" moment. What the sentences do instead is help to invoke the existence or being of life. You can influence it but you can't fully control it. Some things are fully out of your grasp and what you don't want or need hits you smack in the face.

Manning's book doesn't offer us happy endings. It doesn't tie up things in ribbons and bows with pretty designs that you envy. If anything, it leaves you standing on the edge. Should I jump or should I not jump? If anything, Manning encourages us not to jump because even though life is difficult and you can't stop the downward spirals, you can at least make it through the painful darkness.