Michelangelo, Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh, John Keats, Ezra Pound, Leo Tolstoy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron and sixty-one other poets, writers and artists are listed as probable sufferers of manic-depressive illnesses or major depression. Seventeen of them committed suicide, nine attempted suicide and twenty-five were committed to an asylum. The frightening thing is, the list is actually shortened and is in fact twice as long.
In my opinion, today doctors are too quick to diagnose someone with depression. When my grandpa passed away in 2008, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the first time I’d ever experienced someone I love so deeply dying. So, I went to my doctor, but instead of explaining to me that this was grief I was suffering from, and the best option would be to talk it through with a therapist, she prescribed a course of pills, which are used to treat depression. I just saw this as a quick-fix solution, which would just placate the problem, rather than get to the root of it.
Sorrowing Old Man (‘At Eternity’s Gate’) by Vincent Van Gogh 1890
At the age of 22, a series of events lead me to end up on the verge of a nervous breakdown; featuring all the tell-tale signs – erratic behaviour, extreme anxiety, euphoric highs coupled with soul destroying lows etc. If you can imagine the London tube system during the 5 o’clock rush hour on Christmas Eve, you’ll get an idea of what my mind felt like at the time. After a few consultations with my doctor and, what feels like, a thousand hours talking through things with my best friend (who is training to be a psychiatrist) I felt everything was under control, I’d nipped it in the bud at the 11th hour, before any real damage was done.
Since then I’ve been fascinated by how events and chemical imbalances can tip even the strongest mind into complete disarray. When it comes to the complexity of depression itself, I still have no idea how it works, but the comedian and writer Stephen Fry, himself diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, gives a good description –
To understand depression you can do no better than read Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney. A graphic memoir in which Forney, a Seattle based cartoonist, talks through her year-long ordeal to find some mental harmony after being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.
She begins by relating the period shortly before her diagnoses. Her vibrant illustrations give a meticulous and vivid explanation of a time that, to Forney, felt normal, but with a foreboding undertone of confusion.
The most poignant moment in Marbles, is Forney explaining her diagnoses. In an odd way, it felt like a validation as a creative when her therapist confirmed she was suffering with bi-polar disorder. As an artist, she found herself ranked amongst the great and the good. When Forney explained this, it didn’t feel like she was being narcissistic or self-aggrandising, but more like an effort to trick herself into thinking everything would be ok.
As she begins trying to understand her condition, along with attempting to tell her family and friends about it, Forney’s illustrations move to fit her mood, from ecstatic and erratic, to sombre and eerily subdued.
Forney is a lively cartoonist, and she encapsulates the weirdness and confusion of depression well. Her witty insights into what she did to try and tame her disorder, along with retelling those moments of intense emotional darkness, are so magnificently done.