Reviews of “The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace
(goodreads.com)
Fedelm
This sad, well-written essay/story offers no solutions; just an accurate description of what it’s like to be clinically depressed and the many obstacles to healing, both within the depressed person’s psychology (such as her self-hatred, leading to difficulty believing that anyone could truly love her) and in her surroundings (past child abuse; her “support system” of friends who are losing patience with her—or is that in her head?). It is interesting that the depressed person is smart and knows exactly what’s going on, sees how her past affects her present, understands why she thinks and acts the way she does, and discusses every little detail with her therapist and friends—but neither having all of this knowledge nor discussing it endlessly solve her problems; she remains depressed, she still hates herself. Maybe that’s part of being clinically depressed; talking and understanding are not enough to help the person heal and move on.
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Sarah
[…]
Wonderfully modeled on the depressing spiral of searching within oneself to find an answer to a problem that is oneself.
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Riley Redgate
[…] it’s also brutally unsympathetic toward the mentally ill—or at least toward the suggestion that mental illness is something that can be weathered with the assistance of other people. The ritualized interpersonal performances of this person’s life—the therapist, the Support System, the “friends” used as tools, all used as walls for the perpetually bouncing tennis ball of the narrator’s misery—cuts deep to the uselessness and genuine selfishness of trying to fix constant mental agony with other people, whose perceived “joyful” lives are, most often, anything but.
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