Harare Review of Books

208 pages.

Expected publication date: May 16, 2023 (Counterpoint)

Non-fiction/Memoir.

I finished reading this very moving memoir last night. It will take a while to work through everything I thought and felt, but here are my initial thoughts.

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TW

I will start with some warnings: as someone on treatment for something uncannily similar to what the author describes, this book was a minefield of triggers, and will be for anyone in a similar position. Only tackle it if you’re in a relatively healthy and safe place. Also, even if you are, there is a chapter (16 in the ARC) that has very serious triggers for (—TW—) suicide, so avoid that if this is a problem for you.

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If you’re still reading: this is Bethanne Patrick’s account of her twenty-plus year struggle with double depression, anxiety, and ADD, with additional mental illness in her extended family, and is also the story of how she was still a high-functioning and high-achieving woman, military spouse and mother through all of it. It is desperately sad in some places, but also powerfully hopeful for how she has come through it all up to this point—even though, as she acknowledges, and as everyone who lives with depression knows, the battle is never completely won.

I did struggle as I read it, something I suspected I might do (and I wondered why I requested this ARC when I sat down with it and realised I actually have to read it) because reading about her experiences brought mine back in powerful ways, ways that perhaps I was not quite ready for. It’s really hard to see yourself reflected, sometimes. But this is also the strength of the book: her truth-telling casts a powerful light, surfacing things one might have forgotten, and helping to remind one of that important thing that people with depression struggle with, that your feelings are valid.

That’s my main takeaway from the book, although there is much that it brought up that I must still process. Mental illness can feel intensely lonely, and the struggle to get help can leave you feeling hopeless. When you’ve battled for decades, as she and I both have, and because depression messes up your understanding of the world, you can find it really hard to know if what you’re thinking or feeling is real. Patrick’s book is incredibly, powerfully affirming: someone else has been through and is going through it, and you’re not alone.

Thank you to Megan Fishmann and to Counterpoint for this DRC.

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