I'm back with another review of a mental health memoir. I'm hoping that you like these posts as I have a shelf full of these books waiting for me to read. I've already managed to read more books in just over a month than I was able to read in the entirety of 2015. Depression has really affected my concentration levels, even when it comes to watching TV or flipping through a magazine. I tried to distract my mind with fiction books last year but I couldn't keep up with the plot. Whilst reading novels I'd end up spending an hour reading and re-reading the same two pages because the information just wasn't going into my head. I seem to be having more success with non-fiction, particularly these books written about personal experiences of depression. It might sound like a tough read, but they've really helped reinforce the message that I'm not alone in feeling the way I do.
This week's review is on 'The Devil Within' by Stephanie Merritt. This book covers several stages of Merritt's life, through the brutal bullying she experienced in school to the alien world of extravagance in her sixth form and through to how earlier problems effected her in her adult life. Merritt shows how much strength she had as a teenager. Initially she avoided confronting her bullies and sought refuge in some of the quiet parts of her school. Bullies target the strange, the abnormal, sometimes things we are deeply insecure about and also things we'd never noticed about ourselves. Merritt eventually realised that no matter how many physical changes she made to her appearance, the bullies wouldn't relent. Instead of letting them pick her apart she stood up to them and removed any power they once had. She could have left the school, it was an option at one point but she decided to tough it out until she could leave and progress to sixth form. It was when she started sixth form that problems started to arise. She found herself attending an all girls sixth form college, one in which a uniform of luxury labels were worn and a certain body image was present across the school. What initially began as a way of attempting to fit in whilst also improving her health, Merritt developed an eating disorder. Her parents thought that she was going through a faze and was claiming her independence through cooking separate meals from the family. When she didn't see the results she had hoped for, her diet became even more restrictive and her exercise regime became obsessive.
An interesting dynamic of this book is that she grew up in an Evangelical Christian community. This was something that she once embraced and enjoyed. As the church started to develop and turned towards new practises she became skeptical of the church. The adults of the community started undertaking exorcisms which involved speaking in tongues over someone writhing on the floor as the devil within them was extracted from them through their mouth. Her parents believed that she needed the help of a church counsellor for guidance with her 'difficult' period believing that she required an exorcism due to her acting out. I wasn't expecting to be able to get through this part of the book, I wasn't sure I'd be able to process the religious content. I was happily surprised to find it very interesting.
Merritt's memoir also discusses her experiences of loss, her own depression as well as the secret illness of a friend, alcoholism and depression during and after pregnancy. Anyone that has experienced eating disorders or alcohol dependency might find some of the content difficult to read and could be a trigger. Although I've never had a problem with alcohol I have had an eating disorder and found some of the writing to be a slight pull towards those practises again. If anyone is interested in reading this book but would like to avoid that content I will happily tell you which pages to avoid. The reflections upon her time being pregnant were particularly interesting to me. Although I'm not ready to start a family just yet, I have worried about my increased risk of developing depression with pregnancy. There aren't any tips and tricks provided to avoid it, but her account enabled me to think about the environment and support network needed to help mitigate any symptoms of depression whilst pregnant and after the baby is born.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I purchased it based on reviews on Amazon. From reading those reviews I knew that she discussed her issues with alcohol but I hadn't expected some of the other issues she dealt with in her life. I found her account of her life at university particularly helpful for my peace of mind, it seems that we encountered similar difficulties. As well as being a fantastic memoir of depression, this book is also an engaging coming of age story, one which most of us will be able to relate to in some ways.
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