Show 16: the agony aunt on beating the depression that almost killed her...
Sally Brampton began her career on Vogue before moving to the Observer as fashion editor. She launched Elle in the UK, which she edited for five years, leaving to write full time. She has published several novels, a television documentary and a screenplay, and has written extensively for all the major national newspapers and magazines. She writes a weekly column on emotional issues for the Sunday Times. She lives in London.
From the introduction to her book, Shoot the Damn Dog, here’s why she wrote it: “I was (and continued to be) so repulsed by the stigma around depression that I determined that I must stand up and be counted, not hide away in shame” She wrote a personal account of her suicidal depression for the Daily Telegraph and received 2,000 letters all saying they were glad that they were not alone. It was then that she knew that she had to write the book and not just for other people but for herself. “I never want to feel so alone again”
People said that she was brave to write the article –she says she didn’t write it out of bravery but rather from anger. “I admit that my anger took me by surprise . But then so did depression. I had never thought about its implications, or its consequences. The more I inhabited it, the more I came to see the fear and the shame surrounding it. The more depressives I met, the more I came to understand that we are not simply fighting an illness, but the attitudes surround it. “
“It is an illness. That is its beginning and end. It is neither a moral flaw nor an immoral state. It is not a matter for shame, guilt or secrecy. I wish that I had known that when I first became ill. I wish that I had not spent so long trying to manage the unmanageable because I was so ashamed. Or ignorant. Or both. ”
“My path through depression is neither right nor wrong, it is simply mine”
Shoot The Damn Dog
Severe depression affects more than 120 million people worldwide and more than 5 million in the UK. By 2020, according to The World Health Organisation, severe depression will be one of the worlds most debilitating conditions, second only to heart disease.
I believe that we learn through stories. We learn that we are not alone. Sally Brampton is an optimist. The founding editor of Elle, a successful journalist and novelist, she loves gardening, friends and life. She is also a depressive.
Shoot the Damn Dog blasts the stigma of depression as a character failing or moral flaw and confronts the terrifying illness Winston Churchill called the black dog, an illness that humiliates, punishes and isolates its sufferers. Sally Brampton has written an incredibly brave and honest account of her journey through depression. For four years her life stood still, mired in the tears, despair and desperate loneliness of mental illness. The brief joy of a stumbled recovery was cruelly, swiftly followed by a relapse into a deeper darkness, alcohol abuse and two suicide attempts.
Hers is a story at once deeply personal and profoundly universal which, by way of shared experience, offers a connection to those who feel so terribly alone and afraid. It is also a practical book, offering ideas about what might help. There are no promises, only suggestions: small steps towards understanding and managing this illness and slowly coming back into the light. With its raw, understated eloquence, this book will speak volumes to any person whose life has been haunted by depression, as well as offering help and understanding to those whose loved ones suffer from this debilitating condition.
