Julie Hersh

An excellent memoir of depression. It stands out from other depression memoirs for two reasons:

1. The author found anti-depressants ineffective and eventually benefited from electro-convulsive therapy, which isn't commonly used anymore but can yield miraculous results for treatment-resistant depression.
2. The book shows that even the advantages of intelligence, a good education, wealth and a loving, supportive family and friends are no guarantee for mental health. This isn't one of those sob stories about an abusive family background or bad childhood or poverty. Julie Hersh came from a normal family, has a good marriage and two wonderful children and lots of friends, became wealthy and prosperous, and still became so depressed that she tried to commit suicide.

In spite of the topic, the book manages to have an upbeat tone and the narrative moves along quickly. The only flaw I can find is that it skips back and forth in time too much for my taste. It's not so much that I had a hard time figuring out what was happening when, but it was a little jarring.

(Disclaimer: the author gave me a free copy of her book for review.)… (mer)

Julie chooses to live. This is her choice now. It was not always her choice.
Her life story gives us a time line of when her depression surfaced and her journey to survival. She starts when she was a child, takes us through the teens years, college years & into the present. When did her depression actually start? Her dad was in the Navy and there was a period in time that the moved 6 times in 7 years. She also had a journal & wrote in that constantly. She also felt that the outdoors was her friend. Perhaps she felt that her family didn't listen to her since they had a busy & fulfilling life. She was the 4th of 5 children. Her mother had just started a business of her own. Did Julie feel that she was a burden to others around her?Hersh proceeded to attend college at Notre Dame where she got a Business Management degree & then went to work in Silicon Valley.
All was going well until a few months after having her first child. Did she have post-departum after her first child? Was it due to her inter-faith marriage or her socio-economic level? She had 2 children under the age of 3 & was also tending to elderly grandparents at the same time. She felt that she had no life of her own. She felt burdened. Her husband and friends noticed it and they did everything possible to get her the help that she needed.
All of these trying times in one's life makes you wonder when mental illness really strikes. It took several years of being in and out of hospitals, changing medications and therapy to will her to survive. She is hoping that through her book, she can relay to others that there is HOPE and you shouldn't need to suffer alone. It may take many years or a lifetime to accomplish this feat, but you CAN do this.… (mer)