«This essay reflects this; it is a brief philosophical exploration of depression in which I draw on my own experiences. Not to lay myself completely bare without omitting a single detail, as Rousseau writes at the beginning of Confessions. I am not interested in sketching a true picture of my life to date or in creating a self-portrait; I use my own life as a lens through which to investigate the structure and meaning of depression. This is only a small part of what I could say about myself (and facts turned into words always diverge from the events on which they are based); but it is nonetheless an important part of my life, and something that has shaped me profoundly. I do not believe that a better understanding of what depression is can cure people. And yet, it has its value. Depression is more than a chemical problem: the issues that trouble people with depression are fundamental to the human condition. Furthermore, they are linked to all sorts of philosophical questions, such as the relationship between body and mind, language, autonomy, power relations and loneliness. This essay also deals with the other side of depression: animals, trees, other people, art; it deals with comfort and hope, and what can give meaning to life«.

Eva Meijer

«Often, when people write or talk about depression, they use strong words. I’ve always been averse to comparing depression to monsters, demons or beasts (especially dogs – after all, what have they done to deserve it?), and also to metaphors involving the colour black. Partly because these images are clichés, and partly because I see depression more as an absence than as a presence. Everything of value gradually fades away, and what remains is a bare rock. Fear and sadness can cause an excess of emotion; depression, on the other hand, strips away positive feelings until everything becomes more inhospitable and empty, leaving the way clear for negative feelings. Whilst fear or sadness often relate to what is worthwhile, depression shows that nothing is worthwhile. Nor is depression black, let alone pitch black. Dark, perhaps, in the sense that a night is dark when light withdraws from the world, so that the surroundings seem more dangerous and one cannot find one’s bearings as well: everything is silent, more so than during the day, and what remains there is harder to see”.

«In depression, moreover, the dimensions of time become intertwined. The future turns into a sort of repetition of the present (with a bit of luck you manage to get through the day, but often it’s a matter of enduring each moment), whilst the past becomes a strange fiction, more distant than usual: you know it was once good, but you find it incomprehensible how; it’s something you merely know but cannot feel. During a bout of depression, you find yourself faced with a new map of your life: everything that has happened up to that point is laid out before you once more, but this time from the perspective of depression. Events are coloured by memories, but the reverse also happens: memories take on the hue of your mood at any given moment. The past is not fixed; it haunts you (and, like any good pursuer, it regularly changes its disguise). Despair takes you back to a previous despair, which reinforces it, just as sadness brings another earlier sadness to the surface. Matters from the past can emerge unexpectedly; and during a bout of depression, it is always the bad things that surface, never the good ones. What you’re left with is an empty ‘now’: you can no longer find your bearings in time”.

Eva Meijer

«It hurts not to exist in a body that does exist. I was always cold, always hungry. It’s a myth that anorexics aren’t hungry. At that time, I carried on studying philosophy and musicology for a year, but I remember very little of it. When I returned to university ten years later, it turned out I’d already passed ten modules. I only remembered that I had to sit a final exam again; I’d forgotten all the good marks I’d got».

«I spent several years like that, floating in a world alongside the real world, governed by strange rules about walking and cycling and, sometimes, eating an apple. My anorexia wasn’t about food or weight: it was an effective way of disappearing. The literal disappearance took place right before everyone’s eyes. Extreme thinness attracts attention and, in the eyes of others, turns you into a sick person, whilst at the same time acting as a mask. A body reduced to skin and bones becomes anonymous in a way: its shape disappears, and the person inhabiting it becomes a patient. But for me, it was about making other things disappear: the effort not to eat reduces almost your entire experience to thinking about food and your body, which makes it an effective way of distracting yourself from other problems».

Eva Meijer

«We are connected to those around us – our colleagues or classmates, family members, friends; each of us is rooted in a social context that we take for granted, even though it can sometimes involve a great deal of friction. You chat with a colleague, joke with your neighbour, text your sister, ring your partner, stroke your cat. All these interactions create a thin layer around you that protects you from loneliness, and by this I do not mean those moments when we feel lonely, but rather the most fundamental existential awareness that, in truth, we are all alone. Depression not only robs you of the need to connect with others (to which one normally responds without a second thought), but it also makes it impossible to reach out to them. When you look around, you see only what separates you from others, not what you share with them».

Eva Meijer