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Jump to navigationJump to searchShoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton (view source)
Revision as of 09:28, 16 August 2021
, 09:28, 16 August 2021no edit summary
If you're thinking that this sounds like another misery memoir, then forget it. It is anything but. The story is shared (and I hate to think what the writing must have cost her emotionally) because the stigma attached to mental illness has to be removed if the people who suffer from this dreadful illness are to be helped at an early stage and before hospitalisation is necessary.
There's a very positive approach in the book as Sally explores ways to climb out of depression. She's frank that there are some forms of therapy which that were counter-productive, some psychiatrists who were at least initially more interested in their growing business than the health of their patients but there's never any sense of scores being settled. She worked her way through most of the anti-depressant drugs on the market and the book is worth reading for the information that some of them make you worse and that some people are simply not suited to them at all – facts which the hard-pressed GP does not always share with their patient.
It's not a road map to show the way out of depression for everyone. It's an exploration of what did and didn't work for Sally Brampton and it goes beyond the therapies and drugs offered by the medical profession and looks at the benefits of AA, exercise and yoga. Far from 'shooting the damn dog' – a reference to the fact that Winston Churchill called his depression 'the black dog' – I found that it was having dogs and the associated need to get out and have a brisk walk twice a day which helped me, but the book is full of suggestions which might help.
Sally has no medical qualification but the book is well-researched and authoritative. For anyone who has suffered from depression , it's remarkably uplifting and it should bring hope and help to anyone who is an onlooker to the illness. It's highly recommended.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
For anyone with worries about an alcohol problem , we can recommend [[Cleaning Up: How I Gave Up Drinking And Lived by Tania Glyde]]. [[The Sunlight on the Garden: A Family in Love, War and Madness by Elizabeth Speller]] looks at a family's history of depression. You might also appreciate [[There's a Problem With Dad by Carlos Alba]].
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