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An unusual, searching, and poignant memoir of one man's quest to make sense of depressionGeorge Scialabba is a prolific critic and essayist known for his incisive, wide-ranging commentary on literature, philosophy, religion, and politics. He is also, like millions of others, a lifelong sufferer from clinical depression. In How To Be Depressed, Scialabba presents an edited selection of his mental health records spanning decades of treatment, framed by an introduction and an interview with renowned podcaster Christopher Lydon. The book also includes a wry and ruminative collection of "tips for the depressed," organized into something like a glossary of terms—among which are the names of numerous medications he has tried or researched over the years. Together, these texts form an unusual, searching, and poignant hybrid of essay and memoir, inviting readers into the hospital and the therapy office as Scialabba and his caregivers try to make sense of this baffling disease.In Scialabba's view, clinical depression amounts to an "utter waste." Unlike heart surgery or a broken leg, there is no relaxing convalescence and nothing to be learned (except, perhaps, who your friends are). It leaves you weakened and bewildered, unsure why you got sick or how you got well, praying that it never happens again but certain that it will. Scialabba documents his own struggles and draws from them insights that may prove useful to fellow-sufferers and general readers alike. In the place of dispensable banalities—"Hold on," "You will feel better," and so on—he offers an account of how it's been for him, in the hope that doing so might prove helpful to others.

Depressed persons --- Scialabba, George --- Mental health. --- United States. --- causes of depression. --- chronic depression. --- crisis of faith. --- depression survivor. --- personal story of depression. --- psychiatric drugs. --- psychiatric profession. --- therapy. --- treatment of depression.

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He knew he was going blind. While his sight slowly faded, he finished graduate school, became a history professor, and wrote books about the American West until, nearly fifty years old, Robert Hine lost his vision completely. When, fifteen years later, a dangerous eye operation restored partial vision and returned Hine to the world of the sighted, "the trauma seemed instructive enough" to prompt him to begin a journal. That journal is the heart of Second Sight, an engaging, sensitively written account of Hine's journey into darkness and out again. The first parts are told simply, with little anguish and no self-pity. The emotion comes when sight returns; like a child he discovers the world and its beauty anew - the intensity of colors, the sadness of faces grown older, the renewed excitement of sex and the body. With fine understanding and humorous insights that come from living on both sides of the divide, Hine ponders the relations of sighted and unsighted people. His personal search for the meaning of blindness is enriched and made universal by a discourse with other contemporary blind writers. When the author turns to humorist James Thurber, Buchenwald prisoner Jacques Lusseyran, novelist Eleanor Clark, journalist Sally Wagner, poet Jorge Luis Borges, and teacher John Hull, he clearly relishes the kinship of a brilliant, opinionated family that "apparently can't agree on much but actually agrees on a great deal." With them he shares thoughts on the acceptance and advantages of blindness, resentment of the blind, the blind as "the darlings of the handicapped," the reluctance with sex, explanations for shadow vision, and the psychological depression that often follows the recovery of sight. But Hine's professional and personal life is the heart of his narrative. His blindness was the altered state in which to learn and live, and his deliverance from blindness the spur to seek and share its lessons. What he found makes a wonderful story that embraces all of us - those who can see and those who cannot.

Blind --- Blindness --- Hine, Robert V., --- Health. --- Blindness, Acquired --- Blindness, Complete --- Blindness, Hysterical --- Blindness, Transient --- Amaurosis --- Blindness, Legal --- Blindness, Monocular --- Acquired Blindness --- Amauroses --- Complete Blindness --- Hysterical Blindness --- Legal Blindness --- Monocular Blindness --- Transient Blindness --- Visually Impaired Persons --- Hine, Robert --- Health --- United States --- Biography --- Hine, Robert V., 1921- - Health. --- Blind - United States - Biography. --- Bilateral Blindness --- Blindness Bilateral --- Blindness Transient --- Blindness Unilateral --- Blindness, Bilateral --- Blindness, Unilateral --- Sudden Visual Loss --- Unilateral Blindness --- Visual Loss Sudden --- Bilateral Blindnesses --- Sudden Visual Losses --- Sudden, Visual Loss --- Transient, Blindness --- Unilateral, Blindness --- Visual Loss Suddens --- Visual Loss, Sudden --- Hine, Robert Van Norden, --- altered perception. --- american west. --- autobiography. --- blind. --- blindness. --- courage. --- disability. --- eleanor clark. --- emotions. --- graduate school. --- history professor. --- james thurber. --- jorge lois borges. --- life changes. --- living life. --- lost vision. --- meaning of blindness. --- memoir. --- partial vision. --- personal experiences. --- personal story. --- psychological depression. --- recovery of sight. --- recovery. --- returned sight. --- risky eye operation. --- seeing. --- sensation. --- trauma.