Anyway

Jan Wong is a well-known journ­al­ist and author in Canada. I’d read some of her oth­er books, and then a friend sug­ges­ted I read her mem­oir about depres­sion, “Out of the Blue” (amazon.com link, amazon.ca link). For a sum­mary, read Globe’s Reac­tion to Jan Wong Depres­sion Put Journ­al­ism in a Sad Place .

Jan Wong’s book details not only how a per­son in a high-stress job can hit a wall when some­thing goes wrong, but also how the com­pany that per­son is work­ing for can help, or make it all worse. In her case, it was all much worse than it needed to be. I admit, over here in Van­couver, the entire ker­fuffle that star­ted her spir­al into depres­sion evaded my atten­tion (and, I sus­pect, the atten­tion of most people who aren’t avid Quebec/Ontario watchers).

This book is more than a mem­oir of one woman deal­ing with depres­sion; it also makes it clear how many people suf­fer or have suffered from depres­sion, wheth­er they’ve been form­ally dia­gnosed or not. There’s a stigma attached to depres­sion that makes it hard for people to admit they might have it and so they battle on and through. I sus­pect, for example, that my moth­er suffered from depres­sion after my par­ents divorced, but it isn’t some­thing she would have ever admit­ted to her­self, let alone any­one else. Some pas­sages in the mem­oir are hard to read (espe­cially, for me, the effects on her fam­ily), but in the end it’s a pos­it­ive book. I’m glad I read it, I learned a lot about the med­ic­al aspects (e.g., that depres­sion can be triggered by extern­al factors, or can be due to an intern­al pre­dis­pos­i­tion, or a com­bin­a­tion of the two). Neither the trig­gers (often stress and/or insom­nia) nor the reac­tions (fight or flight, anhe­do­nia) are widely under­stood. I did­n’t know, for example, that depres­sion is often a short-term con­di­tion, that med­ic­a­tions take so long to take effect, that so many fam­ous people suf­fer from chron­ic depression.

Recom­men­ded for any­one who works in the cor­por­ate world, or has more than a few friends and rela­tions. You may be lucky enough to nev­er work with or be close to someone who has or has had depres­sion, but even so, it’s worth get­ting an appre­ci­ation for what it’s like. Chances are, someone you know has it, had it, or will have it in the future.