another

While I conceive of this blog as a journal, I have no interest in recounting day to day activities; rather, this is an online space for my thoughts on depression and literature. My hope is that, in assembling an honest account of my depression and by providing relevant excerpts from writers’ autobiographies and psychiatric literature, I can offer readers moments of identification that undermine the loneliness and shame of mental illness. And I suspect that blogs can contribute to the public discourse on depression in ways that more traditional representations of depression can’t; since a blog is continually updated, its representation of depression is less likely to hide or mitigate contradictions and ambiguities, and more likely to challenge practiced wisdom and “pop psychology” simplifications.

Eventually, I’d like to open this blog up to other authors, and I encourage those interested in regularly posting here to send sample posts and post suggestions to NathalieC at AOL dot com. (Be careful to include that soundless “h”!)