“Opening This Close to Happy was like getting a long letter from my best friend at sleep-away camp. I had no idea it was this bad for you, was my first thought, and then, we have both been so paralyzed by grief. This is why we all feel so lonely right now—the longing, the depression, the comedy of it all, wrapped up in a story about sex and Judaism, our mothers. How hard it is to be happy. I felt so whole when snuggling up alone with Merkin’s brilliant, full-of-feeling masterpiece. Reading it was dreamy in the saddest, best way. I flew through it and hated to let go when it ended. Daphne Merkin’s existence as a writer made and makes me feel possible.”
—Jill Soloway, Emmy award-winning creator of “Transparent”
“If the face presented to the world is a mask to protect ourselves, Daphne Merkin bravely removes hers, revealing the truth of herself, courageously exploring, seeking — and sometimes even finding — the hope that glimmers on and off so briefly at the end of the tunnel. Please read as soon as possible. Hope awaits.” —Gloria Vanderbilt
“This beautifully written tale of Daphne Merkin’s depressive demons is by far the most accurate and human account of depression and its impact that I have ever read. I highly recommend it, both to those in the mental health professions and to those who care about the suffering of their loved ones.”
—Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, author of Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice
“D. W. Winnicott wrote that depression is the fog over the battlefield. In this extraordinarily lucid and moving book, Daphne Merkin illuminates the dark and desperate battle that depression can be. This is a book for all those who know nothing about depression and for those who know too much.”
—Adam Phillips, author of Unforbidden Pleasures
“This Close to Happy belongs on the shelf with William Styron’s Darkness, Visible and Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon. It brings a stunningly perceptive voice into the forefront of the conversation about depression, one that is both reassuring and revelatory.” —Carol Gilligan, Professor of Humanities and Applied Psychology, New York University; author of the classic In a Different Voice
The plunge in mood and sense of despair can be sudden and steep. Or the negative thoughts can creep in, blotting out any sense of hope or joy or accomplishment. The stubborn impulse to take her own life can return at any time to someone gripped by lifelong depression.
Now, in THIS CLOSE TO HAPPY: A Reckoning with Depression, acclaimed writer Daphne Merkin gives us the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman’s perspective. Informed by an acute understanding of the implications of living with this affliction, she describes how she has learned to navigate it. “If I can’t quite declare victory over my depression, I am giving it a run for its money, reminding myself that the opposite of depression is not a state of unimaginable happiness, but a state of relative all-right-ness,” writes Merkin.
Examining depression’s causes and its treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), she discloses her experience with therapists, psychopharmocologists, and “the California rocket blaster”—Remeron and Effexor. She discusses the stigma surrounding depression, the nature/nurture controversy, the question of whether or not to take medication, and the illness’s relationship to upbringing and creativity.
Merkin recounts her complex relationship with her mercurial, withholding mother and her experience growing up in a household that lacked love and basics such as food and clothing, despite her family’s affluence. She shares her struggle with childhood depression and early hospitalization for it in poignant detail. Sustained by her redemptive love of reading and emerging as a well-respected writer, she marries and has a child. Suffering severe postpartum depression, she is hospitalized, and then returns to the hospital once more after her mother dies, before emerging once again to re-engage with life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daphne Merkin, a former staff writer for The New Yorker, is a regular contributor to Elle. She has written a novel and two collections of essays; her writing appears in The New York Times, Departures, Travel + Leisure, W, Vogue, and other publications. Her essay collection The Fame Lunches was one of The New York Times Book Review’s Hundred Notable Books of the Year.