Darkness Visible

“Everyone must keep up the struggle, for it is always likely that you will win the battle and nearly a certainty you will win the war. To all of you, sufferers and nonsufferers alike, I send my abiding love.”

I just read an article about William Styron, the author of many good books, like The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice.  He suffered with depression and wrote a book about his struggle called Darkness Visible (which I want to read now, having read the article).  In the 1990's, people thought we'd found the answer to depression, through drugs like Prozac, but unfortunately, Prozac and its compatriots don't work for everybody.  The article points out that the suicide rate is climbing alarmingly and suggests some reasons for it -- including climate change (!apparently, people are more likely to kill themselves when it is horribly hot) and the proliferation of guns.  It may also have something to do with the situation many people have noticed -- that we have less of a connection with our community and that we spend less time in and around the natural world -- I will suggest here that if you are feeling a bit low, go somewhere private and just put your full hand on a tree and leave it there for a minute or so.  I find that really helps me for some reason.

William Styron "came out" about his depression when it was not spoken of at all and he became an example to many of how to crawl out of that deep abyss but after a period of remission, it came back and he was concerned that if he told people or if he found himself unable to go on, other sufferers would feel hopeless and follow him down that grim path.  So he wrote an open letter just in case he killed himself and that paragraph is part of it.

My mother taught me many important lessons and one of them was to "count your blessings".  Nowadays, doctors and psychologists will suggest that you keep a gratitude journal, but years before that became a thing, Margaret Richardson (my mom) was doling out similar advice.  She had lived through difficult times -- the Great Depression (when she taught school in the middle of Saskatchewan's dust bowl in one room schoolhouses with desperately poor children in her class), the war, the death from cancer of both her parents, a difficult (my father was not easy to live with, as she often said -- but I don't think she was easy to live with either!) marriage, and then all the garden varieties of difficulties we all face.  But whenever my sister or I started getting down on ourselves, she would say that phrase, "count your blessings", and if we needed help, she could list blessings -- we lived in a beautiful, safe country -- one of the best places to live, we were healthy and smart, we had parents who loved us and opportunities open to us.  I can't ever feel sorry for myself for long -- my mother's voice always chimes in and says these things to me and it sustains me.  You might have noticed that I am trying to include pictures in my blog and so I am attaching a painting my mother made years ago.  I have her paintings all over the house -- she taught me to paint, too!  (I am not as good at it as she was.)