writing depression (ha, get it? thats a pun, of a synonym)
Posted: January 6th, 2006, 1:30 pm
i found this at bookslut, or maud newton, or one of those blogs or something. it's an interesting article, relevant, i think, perhaps something for discussion or debate or something. i dont know. fuck it. who gives a shit anyway. blah. heh. wa wa wa. wee!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/666933.html
Prozac in motion
By Neri Livneh
I always say that I have had the privilege of knowing the No. 1 user of Prozac in the country. It was 15 years ago. One of my girlfriends - who had an IQ on the threshold of genius and was also frenetic, with a tendency toward wildly fluctuating moods, as aggressive as a herd of elephants and occasionally as soft as pumpkin puree, marvelously attentive and impatient, generous to the point of giving away all her expensive clothing and yet as stingy as a calculating librarian - was in the throes of a writer's block that attacked her in the midst of her first book of prose (which was never published).
After she disappeared for several weeks (whereas previously, she had called me dozens of times a day in addition to paying me surprise nighttime visits), she called me all excited and happy as a lark, and told me that her new psychiatrist, the one who had replaced his predecessor in the job, whom she had cleverly dubbed "Ms. Ery," had given her a new medication to try, which "as you can hear, my dear, is doing wonders for me," she said. Not only had her mood improved dramatically, but her writer's block had disappeared, and within a few days she suddenly understood that she could play around with words and emotions as with modeling clay, and now she was about to finish the first draft of the book that she knew was about to change the face of Hebrew literature. And in general, she had never felt better.
I asked her for the name of the medication, and she told me "Prozac," and added: "You really should try it, Nerinkeh." But because I concluded from the name of the medication that it was a prescription drug for people who write prose, I replied that there was no point, since I didn't write prose. And in general, I told her, maybe I should begin with "Poezac" and write poems, because with three young children in the house, I could barely sit at my desk long enough to write limericks.
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After she finished laughing at my ignorance, she said: "So maybe if you take Prozac you'll finally write. The whole world is waiting for you to write a novel already," she added with the tremendous spirit of generosity that would envelop her every time she was in the manic stage of her bipolar disorder (popularly known as "manic-depression") from which, as it turned out during the hospitalization that immediately followed the Prozac stage, she had suffered all her life.
This week I was reminded of her and of pills for prose-writing when I reread, with a growing sense of depression - and simultaneous amazement - the anthology "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression," edited by Nell Casey (Harper Perennial paperback, 2002), which I have now translated into Hebrew and which has been published by Keter. The name of the book does not reveal the hidden treasure it contains. The writers do not simply write about "depression," like every composer of country music; they write about their own depression or the depression of those closest to them (partners or siblings). Reading this book gives one the impression that serious depression has a marvelously positive effect on creativity, and one could even recommend producing a certain level of depression - or maybe even searching for creative ways in which to induce depression artificially - to enrich the world of literature with a few more writers who retain the status of having an unfulfilled potential because of a somewhat overly high dose of joie de vivre.
But of course, we must not forget that just as pain is a painful thing, depression is above all very depressing. It depresses not only one's joie de vivre (and in its extreme forms, even the very desire to live), but also its most pleasurable aspects, such as sexual urges, appetite, creativity and even sense of humor.
Almost every one of us has a taste of depression during the course of his or her life. Anyone who has ever lost someone dear to him or her (a lover, a relative or even a pet) or has experienced a significant separation, is somewhat familiar with the experience of depression. Episodes of depression can be an almost normal part of the adolescent crisis; getting old also entails, along with its other charms, a higher probability of suffering from depression. Depression is considered a common side effect in cases of stroke, heart and bypass surgery, and certain chronic and malignant diseases.
But here one must distinguish between depression and simple sadness or sorrow. This sadness is substantially different from genuine depression in at least one way: Sadness is a shade of color or nuance - a sort of pair of eyeglasses through which we view the world. But depression is the eyes themselves. Reading "Unholy Ghost" makes it clear that as opposed to people who are sad and still see the world through a spectrum of colors, those who suffer from depression see a dark and monochromatic world.
Depression that is properly treated can turn into sadness (as well as happiness, and an entire array of emotions that comprise our emotional world), and then creativity is possible as well. But I don't know of any writer or poet who has succeeded in writing any work when he was in the midst of a depression. Dahlia Ravikovitch once said that her periods of writing took place when the illness left her for a moment, whereas William Styron, winner of the Pulitzer Prize (as well as many other important awards), described in his exceptional book "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness," the untold suffering, the impotence, the sense of a dead end and the total despair that were his lot during the entire lengthy period when, as a result of therapy by a rather irresponsible psychologist, he was denied the medical treatment that in the end saved him and helped him to become once again what he is - an exceptional writer, family man and sociable person. "Unholy Ghost," incidentally, contains an essay by Rose Styron, which is a response to her husband's "Darkness Visible."
Some people claim that writers, and creative people in general, have a stronger tendency toward depression, or that people with depressive or bipolar tendencies are more likely to be engaged in creative work, and this book seems to prove that assertion.
Depression or bipolar disorder, after they are treated, can apparently constitute excellent raw material for creativity, but first there is a need for a period of recess. The foreword to the book in question was written by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, author of "Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" (Vintage) - an extraordinary book about her struggle against manic depression. Jamison writes about the way in which on the one hand, a romantic aura is attributed to manic and melancholic emotional states, and on the other hand, how there is an opposite tendency to dismiss their importance. She cites Edward Hoagland, among others, who writes in an essay also included in the book that although happy people seem to live longer than neurotic people, the human race did not develop and rise above the animal kingdom thanks to its calm and serenity.
But all these ostensibly wonderful things (which may turn the depressive or manic-depressive person into a creative asset and into an excellent subject of discussion among those around him or her, but still leaves the person miserable and sad) disappear and are replaced by an experience of total paralysis with the onset of the darkness of depression.
Hoagland relies on himself not to try to commit suicide again as a result of his unquiet soul. Virginia Heffernan (a doctoral student at Harvard University, and the founder and editor of the magazine TALK) describes the onset of darkness like this: In the middle of movies and at meetings and restaurants, she says she would suddenly have the urge to leave. She would shove her hand into her coat sleeve and turn her back on anyone who could see her. She would have an attack of shortness of breath. As soon as she found herself outside, she would crawl into a taxi, sink into the back seat and begin what she called her secret work. She would cry until she felt she had caught blood poisoning or something from her tears - and then would continue to cry. After a while the driver would ask if she was okay, and out of strict compliance with the demand for secrecy in her work contract, she would say defiantly, "yes!"
Heffernan, who began to suffer from depression at the age of 28, treated this situation as a fact that was suddenly thrust upon her, and whose hours lengthened from one day to the next. During every 24-hour period she had about three hours free of depression, and afterward only two, and in the most difficult state, only one hour, into which she had to fit everything the depression had taken away: personality, conversation, movement.
The essays in "Unholy Ghost" also point to the fact that before depression was diagnosed as an illness, it was known as "melancholy." When it was melancholy, remarks Susanna Kaysen, it was a widespread phenomenon, and everyone accepted it as an inseparable part of life. Now everyone complains about it.
Recently I noticed that in fact, almost everyone I know complains of melancholy - or depression, as it is more commonly called today - and that almost everyone I know is trying some drug or other. We all suffer from some level or other of what actor Assi Dayan has called "depression following birth. Following my birth, that is." Poet Jane Kenyon described it this way in a poem called "From the Nursery," from "Having it Out With Melancholy":
When I was born, you waited/behind a pile of linen in the nursery/and when we were alone, you lay down/on top of me pressing/the bile of desolation into every pore.
There are, however, some people who dismiss their own depression or that of others as a type of pampering that one should overcome by finding a hobby, taking Omega-3 pills or kabbala lessons, or becoming involved in sports. But depression is a situation that can and should be treated, and those who have treated their depression, like the writers in the "Unholy Ghost," report an experience that is equivalent to a rebirth, in which it is the suffering involved in the depression, and overcoming it, that now enable them to appreciate life to the fullest.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/666933.html
Prozac in motion
By Neri Livneh
I always say that I have had the privilege of knowing the No. 1 user of Prozac in the country. It was 15 years ago. One of my girlfriends - who had an IQ on the threshold of genius and was also frenetic, with a tendency toward wildly fluctuating moods, as aggressive as a herd of elephants and occasionally as soft as pumpkin puree, marvelously attentive and impatient, generous to the point of giving away all her expensive clothing and yet as stingy as a calculating librarian - was in the throes of a writer's block that attacked her in the midst of her first book of prose (which was never published).
After she disappeared for several weeks (whereas previously, she had called me dozens of times a day in addition to paying me surprise nighttime visits), she called me all excited and happy as a lark, and told me that her new psychiatrist, the one who had replaced his predecessor in the job, whom she had cleverly dubbed "Ms. Ery," had given her a new medication to try, which "as you can hear, my dear, is doing wonders for me," she said. Not only had her mood improved dramatically, but her writer's block had disappeared, and within a few days she suddenly understood that she could play around with words and emotions as with modeling clay, and now she was about to finish the first draft of the book that she knew was about to change the face of Hebrew literature. And in general, she had never felt better.
I asked her for the name of the medication, and she told me "Prozac," and added: "You really should try it, Nerinkeh." But because I concluded from the name of the medication that it was a prescription drug for people who write prose, I replied that there was no point, since I didn't write prose. And in general, I told her, maybe I should begin with "Poezac" and write poems, because with three young children in the house, I could barely sit at my desk long enough to write limericks.
Advertisement
After she finished laughing at my ignorance, she said: "So maybe if you take Prozac you'll finally write. The whole world is waiting for you to write a novel already," she added with the tremendous spirit of generosity that would envelop her every time she was in the manic stage of her bipolar disorder (popularly known as "manic-depression") from which, as it turned out during the hospitalization that immediately followed the Prozac stage, she had suffered all her life.
This week I was reminded of her and of pills for prose-writing when I reread, with a growing sense of depression - and simultaneous amazement - the anthology "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression," edited by Nell Casey (Harper Perennial paperback, 2002), which I have now translated into Hebrew and which has been published by Keter. The name of the book does not reveal the hidden treasure it contains. The writers do not simply write about "depression," like every composer of country music; they write about their own depression or the depression of those closest to them (partners or siblings). Reading this book gives one the impression that serious depression has a marvelously positive effect on creativity, and one could even recommend producing a certain level of depression - or maybe even searching for creative ways in which to induce depression artificially - to enrich the world of literature with a few more writers who retain the status of having an unfulfilled potential because of a somewhat overly high dose of joie de vivre.
But of course, we must not forget that just as pain is a painful thing, depression is above all very depressing. It depresses not only one's joie de vivre (and in its extreme forms, even the very desire to live), but also its most pleasurable aspects, such as sexual urges, appetite, creativity and even sense of humor.
Almost every one of us has a taste of depression during the course of his or her life. Anyone who has ever lost someone dear to him or her (a lover, a relative or even a pet) or has experienced a significant separation, is somewhat familiar with the experience of depression. Episodes of depression can be an almost normal part of the adolescent crisis; getting old also entails, along with its other charms, a higher probability of suffering from depression. Depression is considered a common side effect in cases of stroke, heart and bypass surgery, and certain chronic and malignant diseases.
But here one must distinguish between depression and simple sadness or sorrow. This sadness is substantially different from genuine depression in at least one way: Sadness is a shade of color or nuance - a sort of pair of eyeglasses through which we view the world. But depression is the eyes themselves. Reading "Unholy Ghost" makes it clear that as opposed to people who are sad and still see the world through a spectrum of colors, those who suffer from depression see a dark and monochromatic world.
Depression that is properly treated can turn into sadness (as well as happiness, and an entire array of emotions that comprise our emotional world), and then creativity is possible as well. But I don't know of any writer or poet who has succeeded in writing any work when he was in the midst of a depression. Dahlia Ravikovitch once said that her periods of writing took place when the illness left her for a moment, whereas William Styron, winner of the Pulitzer Prize (as well as many other important awards), described in his exceptional book "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness," the untold suffering, the impotence, the sense of a dead end and the total despair that were his lot during the entire lengthy period when, as a result of therapy by a rather irresponsible psychologist, he was denied the medical treatment that in the end saved him and helped him to become once again what he is - an exceptional writer, family man and sociable person. "Unholy Ghost," incidentally, contains an essay by Rose Styron, which is a response to her husband's "Darkness Visible."
Some people claim that writers, and creative people in general, have a stronger tendency toward depression, or that people with depressive or bipolar tendencies are more likely to be engaged in creative work, and this book seems to prove that assertion.
Depression or bipolar disorder, after they are treated, can apparently constitute excellent raw material for creativity, but first there is a need for a period of recess. The foreword to the book in question was written by Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, author of "Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness" (Vintage) - an extraordinary book about her struggle against manic depression. Jamison writes about the way in which on the one hand, a romantic aura is attributed to manic and melancholic emotional states, and on the other hand, how there is an opposite tendency to dismiss their importance. She cites Edward Hoagland, among others, who writes in an essay also included in the book that although happy people seem to live longer than neurotic people, the human race did not develop and rise above the animal kingdom thanks to its calm and serenity.
But all these ostensibly wonderful things (which may turn the depressive or manic-depressive person into a creative asset and into an excellent subject of discussion among those around him or her, but still leaves the person miserable and sad) disappear and are replaced by an experience of total paralysis with the onset of the darkness of depression.
Hoagland relies on himself not to try to commit suicide again as a result of his unquiet soul. Virginia Heffernan (a doctoral student at Harvard University, and the founder and editor of the magazine TALK) describes the onset of darkness like this: In the middle of movies and at meetings and restaurants, she says she would suddenly have the urge to leave. She would shove her hand into her coat sleeve and turn her back on anyone who could see her. She would have an attack of shortness of breath. As soon as she found herself outside, she would crawl into a taxi, sink into the back seat and begin what she called her secret work. She would cry until she felt she had caught blood poisoning or something from her tears - and then would continue to cry. After a while the driver would ask if she was okay, and out of strict compliance with the demand for secrecy in her work contract, she would say defiantly, "yes!"
Heffernan, who began to suffer from depression at the age of 28, treated this situation as a fact that was suddenly thrust upon her, and whose hours lengthened from one day to the next. During every 24-hour period she had about three hours free of depression, and afterward only two, and in the most difficult state, only one hour, into which she had to fit everything the depression had taken away: personality, conversation, movement.
The essays in "Unholy Ghost" also point to the fact that before depression was diagnosed as an illness, it was known as "melancholy." When it was melancholy, remarks Susanna Kaysen, it was a widespread phenomenon, and everyone accepted it as an inseparable part of life. Now everyone complains about it.
Recently I noticed that in fact, almost everyone I know complains of melancholy - or depression, as it is more commonly called today - and that almost everyone I know is trying some drug or other. We all suffer from some level or other of what actor Assi Dayan has called "depression following birth. Following my birth, that is." Poet Jane Kenyon described it this way in a poem called "From the Nursery," from "Having it Out With Melancholy":
When I was born, you waited/behind a pile of linen in the nursery/and when we were alone, you lay down/on top of me pressing/the bile of desolation into every pore.
There are, however, some people who dismiss their own depression or that of others as a type of pampering that one should overcome by finding a hobby, taking Omega-3 pills or kabbala lessons, or becoming involved in sports. But depression is a situation that can and should be treated, and those who have treated their depression, like the writers in the "Unholy Ghost," report an experience that is equivalent to a rebirth, in which it is the suffering involved in the depression, and overcoming it, that now enable them to appreciate life to the fullest.
