A fantastic book. For anybody who has dealt with mental health issues (and we all have) this narrative provides a great insight into the problems and solutions to the issues. If anybody wants to borrow this copy of this book, don’t be afraid to ask.

From “A Subtle Thing” pg 20-21:

As I lie on my rank bed I realize that I’ve reached that stage. I can no longer recall there every being a time in which I wasn’t in this thick, viscous despair. I know that such a time must have existed and that even since first getting depressed ten years ago I’ve had at least several months between episodes, but I can’t remember it.

Forget about ever having gone to classes and worked on thesis, how did I actually get up every morning and plan for the rest of the day? How did I shower, dress, eat or speak? How did I manage to even walk a few feet away from my bed with these concrete poles for legs? How did I interact with friends, professors or Patrick, like a normal human being? And how did I summon up the motivation to do unnecessary things like shaving my legs, rolling on dedorant or checking my eyebrows for stray hairs? What made me believe that the minutiae of life actually mattered, and how can I get that belief back? As I spend an afternoon contemplating whether or not it’s worth it to get up and brush my woolly teeth, knowledge of my recent infidelity impresses me , as such actions must have required more energy than I’ll likely every posses again.

As I stare at the ceiling, my thoughts become fixated on all the times I’ve been depressed, each memory rolling into the next until they become one massive, undulating wave. My mind flips from images of having my teeaged head stroked by my mother as I sobbed across her lap to being told a few years later after one suicide attempt too many that if I wanted to run amok with my life I could no longer expect her or my sister to come along for the ride. Bobbing up and down in this ea of self-incrimnation is the image of my cousin Adam, who through it all had been a stalwart ally, until my hurricane-like tendencies caused too much damage in his own life for him to remain standing.