The New York Times Archives - Lawyers With Depression

The Depression Journey: Walking the Rocky Trail With a Therapist

Diagnosed with major depression by a psychiatrist when I was forty years old, I had to find a therapist who could help me. The physical side of the illness pounded me: sleeplessness, fatigue, and the inability to concentrate and be productive at my job as a lawyer. But also the psychological dimension: feelings of low self-worth, chronic sadness, and negative thoughts about my ability to recover and be happy again.

A friend recommended me to the man who would become my therapist for the next twenty years. Jerry was a psychology professor at a local university. From the Bronx, he has a wonderful, salty sense of humor. Not only was he brilliant, but he was also warm and engaging. I felt at home, and we quickly bonded.

During this dark time in my life, I felt isolated. More often than not, I felt lonely and didn’t know anyone with depression that could understand what I was going through. Jerry did. He became my closest ally, who was with me every step of the way as I dug my way out of the dark cellar of depression. It took time. And patience that was tough to come by as I slogged through depression for years. But his strong and kind presence saw me through. He gave me insight into what depression was and the ruminative, distorted thinking that the disease would churn out. Jerry called this “crooked thinking.” I learned to recognize such thoughts as not part of who I truly was but as part of the illness. It gave me a distance from them and made it easier not to identify with them. This opened up the possibility – and hope – that I could let go of these destructive thoughts and embrace more realistic, positive ones.

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Podcast Interview With Mary Cregan, Author of “The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery”

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Dan:

I’m Dan Lukasik. Today’s guest is Mary Cregan, author of the book The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery. Mary received her PhD from Columbia University and is a lecturer in English literature at Barnard College in New York City, where she lives with her husband and son. Welcome to the show, Mary.

Mary:

Thank you, Dan.

Dan: Mary, where does the title of the book come from?

Mary:

The title is the origin of the story, really. I have a scar from a suicide attempt I made in the very intense depressive episode that followed the death of my first child. That was when I was first diagnosed with major depression. The story that I tell in the book goes back to that scar which, of course, is with me always and is a kind of memory on my body of that experience. Because of the scar I try to return to that time to tell the story of my depression and the larger history of depression.

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Too Much Stress Can Lead to Depression

I listened to a National Public Radio segment about the connection between playing NFL football and brain trauma.

One retired running back said that each time he was hit when carrying the ball it was “like being in a high-impact car accident”. What a tremendous cost to pay, I thought.

For many of us, daily life is so demanding and stressful that it’s like being in a series of high-impact “stress collisions”. The word “stress” doesn’t even seem to do justice the corrosive experience of so much stress. “Trauma” is more like it.

This trauma isn’t the type inflicted by bone-jarring hits during a football game — it’s psychological, though no less real.

Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, M.D., author of the book The Everyday Trauma of Life, writes in a recent New York Times article,

“Trauma is not just the result of major disasters. It does not happen to only some people.

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Diving Into Hell: A Powerful Memoir of Depression

From The New York Times, book reviewer and best-selling author Andrew Solomon writes, “Not so long ago, the mere fact of writing that you had suffered from depression conferred a badge of courage, but such confessions have devolved into a dull mark of solipsistic forthrightness. Famous people use such disclosures to persuade you that they are just like you, perhaps even more vulnerable; it’s a way of compensating for the discomfort attached to their glamor. Indeed, in an increasingly stratified world, people with any modicum of privilege may reveal their depression as an assertion of their common humanity. Clinical misery has taken over from death as the great equalizer. Vanity of vanities, all is depression. Into this morass daringly comes Daphne Merkin with the long-awaited chronicle of her own consuming despair, ‘This Close to Happiness: A Reckoning with Depression.'” Read the entire article here.

Should I Tell My Students I Have Depression?

From The New York Times, Abby Wilkerson writes: “The new class I was teaching — “Composing Disability: Crip Ecologies” — was one of several first-year writing seminars offered at George Washington University. Given the focus, it was likely to be a challenge for at least some of the students. And it was presenting a particular challenge to me. Even before the class began, I was anxious. I have depression, and I wondered: Should I acknowledge it in the class? Would the students benefit if I did? I wanted to be sure I knew what I was doing, for everyone’s sake, before taking the leap. But I was not at all certain. The idea of disclosing in the classroom made me feel conflicted and vulnerable.” Read the rest of the story.

How Exercise Might Help Keep Depression at Bay

The New York Times reports that a review of by scientists of studies about exercise and depression showed that exercise, especially if it is moderately strenuous, such as brisk walking or jogging, and supervised, so that people complete the entire program, has a “large and significant effect” against depression, the authors wrote. People’s mental health tended to demonstrably improve if they were physically active. Read the rest of this article.

How Exercise May Help the Brain Grow Stronger

The New York Times reports that a new study with mice fills in one piece of that puzzle. It shows that, in rodents at least, strenuous exercise seems to beneficially change how certain genes work inside the brain. Though the study was in mice, and not people, there are encouraging hints that similar things may be going on inside our own skulls. Read the News

Book Review: ‘Ordinary Well: The Case for Antidepressants

Dr. Abigail Zuger writes in The New York Times, “Dr. Kramer’s bottom line is well summarized by the double meaning of “Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants” — he argues that antidepressants work just about as well as any other pills commonly used for ailing people, and that the drugs keep people who take them reasonably healthy.” Read the News

Opening Up About Depression

Steve Petrow writes in The New York Times, “Most people, even those who know me well, don’t see my depression. I’m a ‘high-functioning’ depressive, for sure, and perhaps an artful one, too, obscuring its symptoms with a mix of medication, talk therapy, exercise and knowing when to close the door on the world. And unlike my surgical scars (thank you, cancer), those left by depression are invisible.”

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Liz Swados’ Journey Through Depression

If you’ve ever suffered from depression, you know what a dark muck it can be. Helpless and hopeless, this deadened state leaves people at the bottom of a dank well with no ladder out.

I’ve gone through major depression. I count myself one of the 20 million in this country so afflicted. I’ve gotten to know so many fellow sufferers over the years. One I didn’t get the chance to meet, to my great chagrin, was author, composter and Tony-nominated playwright Liz Swados. We had a few things in common – we both grew up in Buffalo (she left for a theater career in NYC years ago and I’m still here), a lawyer connection (her dad was one and I’m currently one) and we both struggled with depression on and off during our lives.

Sadly, Liz died on January 5, 2016 of cancer at the age of 64 before I had the chance to meet her.

If you not aware of Liz’s work, you should be. She’s the author of the book, My Depression: A Picture Book.

The book is a memoir in words and pictures of Liz’s journey through depression that is by turns poignant and funny. Through her whimsical drawings, readers get a unique view of the experience of depression: from the struggle to keep her condition a secret, to the strange effects of ‘new’ drugs, to the small things that can trigger relapses. At its heart, it is a gentle reminder fellow sufferers are not alone and that they can lead a fulfilling and happy life.

She’s also the creator of the brilliant HBO animated film, “My Depression (The Up and Down of It)” that appeared last summer.

Here’s what Liz wrote about the film:

“It takes us through a journey from the beginning of a depression, through the darkest symptoms and searching a person can do to try to find a cure, to discovering small bits of light, be them from anything – chocolate, yoga, therapy, medications… We didn’t come to any brilliant conclusions; we just went by our instincts and experiences. We have been showing it to various audiences and have found that many people identify with it, which is a true pleasure because I wouldn’t want to represent something so sensitive in a wrong way. I’ve received emails and all kinds of communications from people telling me that they feel simpatico with me, and that’s the best: to give someone an identity and a way to be not alone in a very empty, difficult time of life. I think the most important part of the film is the humor. Depression may not be funny to live through, but if you look at it in a certain way, if you look at yourself and others as creatures under some silly dark spell, it can help lift the weight.”

It’s so hard to describe to others who have never been through depression what it’s really like. It’s tough, I think, because they really don’t have a reference point. They’ve been through sadness. But depression isn’t sadness – it’s an illness.

Liz’s book and film have done a lot of good to help others understand and, hopefully, offer more love and support.

But it’s also is a powerful visual journey for those who suffer. It gives voice to an experience that so often, in it’s most miserable manifestations, mutes that voice.

The voice of our truest and most vital selves.

And it does it all with a panache of humor.

Thanks for everything you’ve done Liz and rest in peace.