Shoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton
Sally Brampton was the founding editor of Elle and now writes a column in the Sunday Times. Shoot the Damn Dog is her story of her experiences with depression. She deliberately writes it as a story and not a manual or textbook as she believes that we learn better through stories. Each chapter has a distinct theme and while suffering the early onset of depression I cheated slightly and read the recovery chapters first as the first few chapters were so true to life they hurt. I have now read the book in order assured that there is a happy ending.
The premise that it is the story of a fellow sufferer and not a doctor endeared the story more to me and cemented the validity of the experiences and solutions. Depression is an illness of isolation, one that can be fatal if it is not discussed therefore the fact that at least one other person in the world would talk about it gave me great strength.
Each chapter begins with a quote, all are useful, and some I found to be inspirational. It was actually a chapter title “what we resist, will persist” that she states was first used by Carl Jung that was my favourite. This was a eureka moment for me. The causes of depression are many, a mixture of experiences and genetics but the thing that we all have in common is that the recovery cannot start until we can admit what the problem is and that it is disabling us. The author believes that until we engage the problem instead of avoiding it the problem will only worsen. She accurately describes how hard this is when it is by definition the one subject we don’t want to talk about but this avoidance exhausts the brain. This she says can even carry into therapy where we talk about every subject other than the one that troubles us. I did that. She shows that the hardest task is to engage with our own self, not easy with zero self esteem.
For her the turning point was the lowest point. She disliked herself so much that she attempted suicide. She describes it like giving in completely to the condition and starting again. This meant she was responsible for herself and for her recovery. She describes the steps that she took to help; some will be useful others won’t. They are common sense, being kind to yourself and the last thing that you think of when you are depressed.
Sally Brampton has produced an honest and vivid account of her battles with depression and the treatments of it. The point to writing the book was to help others who find themselves in the darkness, disabled by self loathing and total lack of self esteem. It attacks the stigma of mental health when in fact one of the roads to recovery is being able to talk about it. It is an illness, a terrible debilitating and isolating illness and one that we have to decide that we will conquer for ourselves. This book started me on that road by making me believe that I was not alone.