{"id":1185,"date":"2013-05-20T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2013-05-20T10:57:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:57:00","slug":"out-of-the-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2013\/05\/out-of-the-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of the Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan Wong is a well-known journ\u00adal\u00adist and author in Canada. I\u2019d read some of her oth\u00ader books, and then a friend sug\u00adges\u00adted I read her mem\u00adoir about depres\u00adsion, \u201cOut of the Blue\u201d (amazon.com link<\/a>, amazon.ca link<\/a>). For a sum\u00admary, read Globe\u2019s Reac\u00adtion to Jan Wong Depres\u00adsion Put Journ\u00adal\u00adism in a Sad Place <\/a>. <\/p>\n

Jan Wong\u2019s book details not only how a per\u00adson in a high-stress job can hit a wall when some\u00adthing goes wrong, but also how the com\u00adpany that per\u00adson is work\u00ading 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 Van\u00adcouver, the entire ker\u00adfuffle that star\u00adted her spir\u00adal into depres\u00adsion evaded my atten\u00adtion (and, I sus\u00adpect, the atten\u00adtion of most people who aren\u2019t avid Quebec\/Ontario watchers).<\/p>\n

This book is more than a mem\u00adoir of one woman deal\u00ading with depres\u00adsion; it also makes it clear how many people suf\u00adfer or have suffered from depres\u00adsion, wheth\u00ader they\u2019ve been form\u00adally dia\u00adgnosed or not. There\u2019s a stigma attached to depres\u00adsion that makes it hard for people to admit they might have it and so they battle on and through. I sus\u00adpect, for example, that my moth\u00ader suffered from depres\u00adsion after my par\u00adents divorced, but it isn\u2019t some\u00adthing she would have ever admit\u00adted to her\u00adself, let alone any\u00adone else. Some pas\u00adsages in the mem\u00adoir are hard to read (espe\u00adcially, for me, the effects on her fam\u00adily), but in the end it\u2019s a pos\u00adit\u00adive book. I\u2019m glad I read it, I learned a lot about the med\u00adic\u00adal aspects (e.g., that depres\u00adsion can be triggered by extern\u00adal factors, or can be due to an intern\u00adal pre\u00addis\u00adpos\u00adi\u00adtion, or a com\u00adbin\u00ada\u00adtion of the two). Neither the trig\u00adgers (often stress and\/or insom\u00adnia) nor the reac\u00adtions (fight or flight, anhe\u00addo\u00adnia<\/a>) are widely under\u00adstood. I did\u00adn\u2019t know, for example, that depres\u00adsion is often a short-term con\u00addi\u00adtion, that med\u00adic\u00ada\u00adtions take so long to take effect, that so many fam\u00adous people suf\u00adfer from chron\u00adic depression.<\/p>\n

Recom\u00admen\u00added for any\u00adone who works in the cor\u00adpor\u00adate world, or has more than a few friends and rela\u00adtions. You may be lucky enough to nev\u00ader work with or be close to someone who has or has had depres\u00adsion, but even so, it\u2019s worth get\u00adting an appre\u00adci\u00adation for what it\u2019s like. Chances are, someone you know has it, had it, or will have it in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jan Wong is a well-known journ\u00adal\u00adist and author in Canada. I\u2019d read some of her oth\u00ader books, and then a friend sug\u00adges\u00adted I read her mem\u00adoir about depres\u00adsion, \u201cOut of the Blue\u201d (amazon.com link, amazon.ca link). For a sum\u00admary, read Globe\u2019s Reac\u00adtion to Jan Wong Depres\u00adsion Put Journ\u00adal\u00adism in a Sad Place . Jan Wong\u2019s \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cOut of the Blue\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}