Life B: Overcoming Double Depression

by Bethanne Patrick

A bracing and fresh look at a lifelong struggle with depression and mental illness

Expanded from Bethanne’s popular ELLE piece, Life B is a powerful meditation on how to navigate through the stubborn, thorny roots that engulf mental illness, and how to fight for a path to recovery. Recognizing the intergenerational effects of trauma and mental health struggles, Bethanne unearths the stories of her past—through her grandmother, her mother, her sister—in order to forge a better future for her two daughters, dismantling the stigmas surrounding mental illness in the process.

With the acute self-awareness of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind and the honesty and vulnerability of Daphne Merkin’s This Close to Happy, Life B is Prozac Nation for baby boomers. It’s an intimate portrait we haven’t yet seen—of a lifelong struggle with depression, of midlife diagnosis and renewal and late-found strength. and, most importantly, a life-affirming blueprint of how to accept it and live alongside it.

Genres: Memoir, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Book Club, Disability

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 2023

About the author

BETHANNE PATRICK maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200K followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as at The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

LIFE B is courageous, powerful, and riveting — and among the most moving memoirs I’ve ever read. Bethanne Patrick, one of our most important literary influencers and critics, offers a stunning and honest account of her depression, and the ways it scarred her and her family -- and what it took to learn to live with it. To overcome it. Her story will make you recall Plato: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a bit conflicted on this memoir. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge how incredibly brave and courageous Bethanne Patrick is to share her very personal story about being diagnosed, at 52, with double depression. If you, like me, haven't heard of the term before, the commonly held definition is that it's a combination of PDD (Persistent Depressive Disorder), a chronic depression that's present all the time, and MDD (Major Depressive Disorder), known as clinical depression resulting from a significant event (or events.)

Hence, double depression.

In her memoir, Bethanne writes about the various mental illnesses present throughout her immediate family of origin, particularly with her grandmothers, and the impact this legacy had on her formidable years. After getting married right after graduating from Smith College, she struggles to adjust as a young military spouse overseas. She is frustrated about the difficulties in establishing a writing career (more on this in a moment) and the sacrifices, including a dozen moves, she's made for her husband. Bethanne's accounts of her challenging relationships with her two daughters make for some of the most heartbreaking passages in the book. (In one scene, her daughter Martha confronts her by saying she "never did anything" for her. "You didn't cook. You never did the laundry. You didn't come to any of my soccer games. When my friends came over you were always in bed.")

All of this is a lot. From having a front-row seat to several loved ones' lifelong battles with depression and anxiety, I can certainly empathize with and understand how the intersection of genetics and life's circumstances ultimately led to the double depression diagnosis.

But I want to address three issues that made this a 3-star read for me.

1) A recurrent theme and source of frustration to Bethanne is her difficulty in establishing a writing career. I'm not a military spouse, but I know from others who have been that it's extremely difficult to sustain a career when your life consists of frequent moves.

I was eager to read this book because Bethanne Patrick has been a presence in the book world for many years. I remember being at a book event (maybe the Book Blogger Convention in 2010?) and listening to her on a panel, and thinking how accomplished she was as a writer, reviewer, and critic. She was a big part of Twitter and for all I know she still may be (I deleted my account last fall). There, she created the viral hashtag #FridayReads. A quick search here on Goodreads shows that she has written or contributed to 10 books.

So it was a little surprising to find zero mention of any of this in Life B: Overcoming Double Depression. There's somewhat of an explanation in the acknowledgements: Bethanne mentions that she and her agent amicably parted ways because of her decision not to include "a story" about her work in publishing. I respect that decision, but I wish I understood more of why it wasn't included. I think this would have been a stronger memoir if there was some discussion of how she was able to create what is clearly a successful career and to take pride and ownership in doing so. To me, this was a glaring omission.

2) Related to the above, I felt that the memoir underdelivered on the subtitle. I wanted to understand a bit more about the specific ways she overcame double depression, and I'd have to assume that her work as a freelance writer, reviewer, critic, and podcaster was and still is part of that. There's some discussion about practicing yoga (she's a fan) and medication, but it felt a bit glossed over and commonplace. I also wanted a deeper dive into the Life B analogy, or an extension of it, somehow, beyond this:

"Two weeks later, after dutifully downing a green-and-white capsule daily with my coffee, I woke up and knew something had shifted. It was as distinct as the moment when the optometrist clicks two lenses into place and you can suddenly read everything on your chart. 'Which is better?' says the optometrist. 'A or B' If she took one of those lenses away, I would have Life A. Life A is blurry, fuzzy, difficult to decipher. When she puts it back into place, I have Life B. Life B is clear, sharp, delineated. I chose Life B. In Life B, someone identified what was wrong inside me and had the tools necessary to fix it. I didn't think, then, of all of the things medicine cannot fix."

3) There was something about the writing style that didn't work for me. It's clunky in parts (the above quoted passage is an example), there are several incorrect usages of semicolons, and the narrative had abrupt transitions and time jumps. It felt like I was reading someone's journal. It felt like it needed at least another round of edits.

I don't mean to be harsh or do this memoir a disservice or minimize everything that the author went through. Although this didn't quite work for me, I admire her for writing about a condition that, even in 2023, still holds considerable stigma.

Read for Mental Health Awareness Month (May).

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this raw, brave, and beautiful memoir in one sitting, utterly captivated by the author's life story. As a lifelong depression sufferer and former therapist, I had not heard of the diagnosis of double depression before. Learning that it is a form of bipolar syndrome was eye-opening!

In Bethanne's case, she suffered depression all her life but it wasn't until midlife that she was accurately diagnosed and given an anticonvulsant medication, in addition to her already prescribed antidepressant. The combo gave her an equilibrium she'd never known, and an experience of genuine hope and joy for the first time. Because of her candor, many others may recognize themselves in her story and seek help.

LIFE B stands with the top titles in the mental health canon: William Styron's Darkness Visible, Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, and Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon. A must-read for all depression and bipolar sufferers and those who love them.

Brava, Bethanne!

#lifebovercomingdoubledepressionamemoir #bethannepatrick #counterpointpress #majordepressivedisorder #chronicdepression #BipolarSyndrome #topbooksonmentalillness #bookstagramcommunity

[Susan Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve read a a lot of memoirs of those who have suffered mental illness and this one I did not care for. I was very excited but ultimately disappointed. While Ms Patrick does, at times , grudgingly acknowledge her privilege, she comes across as well, judgmental, snobby and downright unlikeable. She mercilessly insults her husband’s career, and emotional intelligence portraying him as some sort of a military buffoon(although quick to point out he could have achieved great success in academia had he had the prescience to pursue this much more refined career path). Now while I may have thought and said equally nasty things re my spouse, I’d stop short at publishing them in a fb post no less a book. She also constantly laments how his career choices stymied her own potentially brilliant path and her unwillingness to settle for a job beneath her intelligence and credentials. So on the one hand while I admire her honesty, she’s not really winning many points as a a sympathetic character. I really was disappointed as hoping to learn more than I already do re the implications of the double depression diagnosis. I think a personality disorder diagnosis should be considered as well.

[Trish Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

LIFE B is a beautiful, candid, often heartbreaking book of Bethanne Patrick’s journey with what she finally learned was “Double Depression” - a combination diagnosis that made sense of her struggles and helped her find her way towards the wholeness and full life she craved. This is an incredibly brave book, and I recommend it to anyone struggling to understand what it’s like to struggle with mental illness and work towards a better life.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book.

[Evonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with depression in college, and finally found relief with talk therapy and medication. I had a situational depression (a temporary condition brought on by stressful external events), but some loved ones suffer from chronic long-term depressions. 'Life B' chronicles Bethanne Patrick's life-long battle with both chronic and acute depression and it's impact on her life, her career, her family.
She has mental illness in her family (both grandmothers, her sister) and it exhibited in different ways for each of them. Patrick is brutally honest about her own struggles and her fight to find a correct diagnosis to receive the optimum treatment (finally arrived at her 50s).
Much of the book focuses on the challenge of treating mental illness as we treat physical illness - it is not something someone can just 'snap' out of it, will their way out of, or grow out of. And of course, there is still a stigma in our culture though fortunately that is changing.
This book has its sad moments, but is ultimately one of hope. There is a way to get help. There is support. There is a way through the tunnel back to a life.
If you or someone you love struggles, this book will provide encouragement and ideas. Kudos to Patrick for sharing her personal story in hopes of helping others bring mental illness into the light.

[juli :) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Warning: This is way longer than I intended oops.
I want to preface this review by saying that I have read a *lot* of bad books, and while I usually tend to go into a new reading experience with a positive "cut the author some slack" type mindset, I just could not find any redeeming qualities in this one. The vast majority of the time, there are the books that aren't aiming for literary excellence and know it (YA, fantasy, romance, Tom Clancy-esque action, etc) and the ones that *are* aiming for literary excellence but fall flat, despite the occasional glimpse of meritorious prose or a solid message/bottom line. However, Bethanne Patrick's new memoir, 'Life B: Overcoming Double Depression', has managed to find its way into a third, less populated category that I like to call The "Oh-God-Please-Make-It-Stop-Why-Was-This-Published" Pit, better known simply as The Pit. The Pit houses the books that, no matter how hard I try, I can't find any angle that makes them look even somewhat decent. Unfortunately, Life B has found a definitive place at the very bottom of The Pit for so many reasons that I'm struggling to figure out where to begin.
Let's start with some of the horrendous content, shall we? I understand that depression memoirs can be tricky, as the author constantly walks the line between emotion and objectivity. Err too far on the former side, you could come across as whiny and self-pitying, but err too far on the latter side, you risk losing all emotional charge. But it seems that Patrick did not take this into consideration... at all? She doesn't seem to do very much but moan and groan the entire time. Her sister was better at violin than her when they were kids, big whoop. Her grandmothers both struggled with mental illness, big whoop. She has to move a lot because she married a military guy, big whoop. The only thing she ever talked about that I felt was valid was her miscarriage, but she was a pain in the neck long before then. What Patrick struggles to understand is that she is not special in any way, shape, or form. Everybody's ancestors have gone through trauma/mental illness, everybody with a sibling has been overshadowed by them at some point, everybody struggles under their parents' expectations, if they're lucky enough to have parents who give a damn at all. In fact, her grievances sometimes veer into the realm of downright insulting, such as when she implies that her family is poor because she said they "don't have anything as fancy as a tray" despite the fact that her father was an engineer and she and her sister regularly attended sleepaway music camps on the East Coast as children, which isn't exactly cheap. She even says at one point that she didn't want to teach high school, either public or private, because it "felt like settling for scraps", which is awfully rich coming from somebody who has never had to support herself. There are millions of amazing high school teachers out there who work their asses off every day and are certainly far more worthy of respect than Bethanne Patrick, who manages to be simultaneously elitist and lazy. Also hypocritical, since she mentions classism in the military community at one point, even though there are numerous examples of Bethanne herself being classist, including the high school teacher comment. Oh yeah, and I'll let this next quote speak for itself: "For me, the combination of a genetic tendency toward depression combined with a familial expectation of excellence might as well have been regular beatings." Honestly, this is possibly one the most offensive things I've ever read. Golly gee Bethanne, depression runs in your family AND your parents expect you to exceed in school?!?! Unheard of! Somebody call CPS! This annoying trait later follows her into her adult years, where she focuses all of her whining onto her poor husband. Words simply can't describe how sorry I feel for this man, who essentially supports her little jobby (because by the way, she gets fired from every real job she has. Shocker.), paid for her grad school as well as her therapy and psychiatric bills, all for his wife to crap on him throughout her whole book. It's clear that she holds a lot of resentment towards him and thinks that if she hadn't married him, she would've been the next Charlotte Brontë. She openly romanticizes what her life would've been like without him, even though, realistically, that would have just been a life of financial instability. It's clear from the way she breaks down over her master's degree that she simply can't handle stress, which doesn't exactly bode well when you need to support yourself, something Bethanne has never had to do thanks to Adam, her husband. He's the only reason she has any ability to write at all and the fact that she's too spoiled to see that is ridiculous. Without him, I can confidently say that Bethanne would have done absolutely nothing. That's not to mention how she constantly brings up his hesitation to pay huge bills for her psychiatry and acting like it's some great injustice, blatantly ignoring that A) he's in the military, so they get pretty great health insurance, but B) she's specifically going to a psychiatrist who's out of network when C) they literally live in Northern Virginia, where I can guarantee you there are loads of great psychiatrists who would be covered by their insurance, she just wants the one who isn't covered. Why? Because she takes every opportunity to be difficult. She goes to the hospital for burning her hand on the coffee maker (which sounds like something Michael Scott would do), has to be in a wheelchair for about a month because she fell off her front porch steps, and has apparently broken all four limbs all in different ways. And who do you think paid those hospital bills? She tries to masquerade self-awareness about this at certain points with half-hearted declarations of "I love my husband though!" without any proof she cares about him at all. Talk about telling instead of showing. Honestly, part of me hopes he leaves her and writes a rebuttal memoir called "Life C: The Revenge." #JusticeForAdam. Additionally, she hates moving and complains about it constantly, even though, as her own daughter puts it at one point, she knew what she was getting into when she married into the military. She hates living in Berlin, even though most military people -- hell, most people! -- would view being deployed to Germany as an incredible opportunity for adventure. But nope, not Bethanne, who just whines about it the whole time and claims it exacerbated her depression. She later says that they were "stuck" in both Kansas and Texas (which probably won't bother most people, but as a proud Texan I was ready to throw hands) and seems to only be somewhat happy in Virginia, where she gets her master's from UVA (paid for by her husband, of course) and, you guessed it, complains some more about how difficult the program is and how she would regularly burst into tears over it. This is blamed on "adult-onset ADHD", even though she then proceeds to contradict herself and say she showed signs of ADHD as a child. Sorry Bethanne, but not everything's a diagnosis, maybe you just couldn't do the program. The worst part is how she essentially blames her lack of a PhD on the birth of her second child and shows what sounds a little bit like resentment about it when, in reality, if she couldn't handle the master's program, I doubt she would've succeeded in a PhD, kid or no kid. This isn't the only time she blames her family for her "problems" though, as she claims that the stress of being a mom and wife made her unable to write like she wanted. She seems to forget that she is a stay-at-home mom whose kids both go to school all day while her husband goes to work, leaving her home alone for hours at a time to do... what exactly? It's hard to believe that she could never fit in writing considering she was alone for about seven hours a day five days a week. I like to imagine her just sitting on the couch while home alone, blank Google Doc mere inches away, as she says "Damn, I wish I could be a writer!" Depression is a very real illness and I understand that, but a lot of her gripes with life are just the result of being an overly privileged upper middle class white woman.
While I have many, many issues with the content of this memoir, we don't have all day and the poor writing needs some attention. And let me just say, an editor was really needed on this one. On a mechanical level, typos are strewn all over the place, paragraphs are regularly indented incorrectly, she swaps tenses between paragraphs all the time, and she's less responsible with hyphens than a four-year-old is with a loaded gun. It got to the point where I started to question the validity of the education system because if someone with master's in English from the University of Virginia (a top-rated university with a theoretically exceptional English department) has this little understanding of the bare mechanics of the language, I can't imagine what they're supposedly teaching there. She also randomly skips entire segments that I would imagine to be important, such as meeting her husband, the birth of her first child, and the death of her father. All of these things are glossed over and reduced to small mentions after jarring, unmarked time skips. And a lot of the details she does mention are completely pointless, such as what type of wood the floor of her childhood home was. It reads like she thinks adding minute detail is somehow inherently literary, which is so far from the truth. Good writers have an eye for good detail, it's part of what makes them good writers. Bethanne, on the other hand, seems to have a romanticized idea in her head about writers and writing, without ever actually thinking very deeply about it, and this is merely an example. She constantly says she wanted to be a writer growing up without saying what it was she wanted to write. Was it just about her depression? Or did she just hear that writers lived romantic lives and decided that it sounded cool without knowing what that really means? I genuinely don't understand.
There's definitely a few things I forgot to mention, but all in all, this was a frustrating and disappointing read. I had high hopes going into it, I really did, and I got it as soon as I could, but this is possibly one of the worst books I've ever read if not the definitive worst. I expected breathtaking passages about the cold, hard truth of mental illness but all I got was poor writing, a tired and irritating perspective, and worst of all, incessant navel-gazing. I guess if I really have to reach for anything positive about this book, I'd say I'm glad it was a super short read, but that's really it. Sorry, Bethanne Patrick, but you're really not as interesting or talented as you clearly think you are. I can't believe trees died for this.
Edit: I don't think y'all know how to read because there's no way this stupid waste of paper deserves this much praise.

[Leeann Vasilyev · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the vulnerability of anyone who chooses to talk about their struggles with mental illness, however, I personally struggled with this book. It’s 180 pages, so it’s not a long book but I found it hard to stay focused. The thoughts seemed jumbled and it almost felt like something you’d read on a blog site.

Not my cup of tea to read but it might be for someone.

[Kelly Pramberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book came into my NetGalley feed at exactly the right time. As someone that struggles with anxiety and depression I devour books about these topics. I didn't know about the double depression diagnosis that Patrick writes all about. I am better for having the details she has shared in this book. I appreciate her honesty and how this has shaped her entire life. It's hopeful! 5 Stars!

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bethanne Patrick is well known in the book world I have followed her book reviews and still do.Now she shares with us her harrowing behind the scenes look at her life with depression.This is an open intimate look at her life her suffering and the pain her family felt dealing with her behavior. her husband her children.Finally given the correct diagnosis double depression and medication she has begun to heal to enter ilife again.This is an important book a book to share and discuss people suffering with depression and those living with them will find this very helpful.#netgalley #lifeb

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Jessica Smyth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trigger warning for educators and enlisted military personnel: Prepare to be offended by classist and elitist verbiage in this sloppily written memoir.

I was excited to read this book after the remarkable LA Times review, but I’m thinking that either Ms. Patrick is besties with the reviewer or paid them off because this memoir is tedious, whiny, and terribly written. I don't know how to summarize it other than to say, she marries right out of college and then joins her army officer husband, Adam, to various assignments and military installations. And rather than make the most out of living in places like Germany and Texas, she perseverates on what she could have done with her life instead. This coulda-woulda-shoulda, however, is not clear. Could she have written sci-fi novels, children's books, trashy romance novels, or gotten a PhD in Victorian Literature? We don’t know, because she doesn’t know. She has no goals other than to resent Adam for the nothingness of what could have been. Thankfully, he’s there to pay the bills while she grumbles.

She may not have been specific about what she wanted to be, but she knows what she did NOT want to be: a teacher, because that would be “settling for scraps.” That’s right. She literally says being a teacher is “settling for scraps.” As an educator, I was deeply offended. My kiddos depend on me every day to show up with support, enthusiasm, knowledge and a can-do attitude. I assure you, Ms Patrick, and the rest of your elitist, privileged gaggle of pampered ladies-who-lunch, teaching future generations to be more humble and open-minded humans than you are, is anything but “settling for scraps.”

As if that little dig wasn’t pernicious enough, when they arrived at military housing in Germany, which apparently was more ramshackle than Little Miss Entitled Elitist was expecting, she said to Adam, “do they know you’re an officer?” I guess because they only put enlisted folk in the dilapidated sheds? As someone who grew up in enlisted military housing - my dad was a Navy Chief Petty Officer - I was again offended by this remark. Our housing was always adequate, and there is nothing wrong with enlisting in any branch of the armed services. Plus, I am sure my sonar technician father worked more hours in a day than she has in her whole life. But then again, my father did not have Adam to support his daily lollygagging and despairing over nothing.

Forget double depression, I have been double offended. Is that in the DSM-V? When you have been offended but then keep reading and get even more offended. But no one should be more offended than Adam. All those years of support - financially and mentally - and she hangs him out to dry. He sounds like a good catch and she could not be more ungrateful. Hey Adam, I’m single; DM me when you get tired of being publicly bashed.

[Robin Perkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

I did enjoy this book, however, at I was confused/lost at several points throughout. There are several time jumps throughout the book without clearly letting us know where we are at in the authors life. It would have been helpful to have a timeline to follow along with or a heading with year and location to help the reader understand where they are at in the story. This is not a book that will give you step by step guide to "cure" your depression, instead it takes on the important mission of letting the reader know that they are not alone if they are dealing with depression. Also I believe it will help you understand more if you have a loved one battling depression. It gives great insight into what someone with depression is dealing with.

[Lizanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bethanne Patrick's memoir is uplifting but unsparing: she reaches a place of stability, health, and peace, but she does not gloss over the effects her illness had not only on her own life but those of her husband and daughters. I know Bethanne IRL (a little bit) and, while I knew she had crafted a unique and creative career in the book world, I had no idea she struggled most of the time with debilitating double depression. It is a testament to her strength that she made it to these heights, and she describes her journey in prose that is sometimes lyrical, sometimes brutal, but never asks for pity or congratulations.

[Michelle Brafman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bethanne Patrick has written a raw, beautiful, and entirely unsentimental memoir about her history with mental illness, specifically her harrowing journey to diagnose and manage a unique type of depression (double depression). And yet, the vivid details of her quest make her story relatable to anyone who has experienced the shame, frustration, and grace that can accompany negotiating various health challenges. This is a hopeful book about our ability to claim and transcend a difficult family legacy. So much pain, and healing and love too, in these pages.

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this brave and candid memoir, Bethanne Patrick looks back on her life with a new understanding, one born of a fairly recent diagnosis of double depression, which Patrick defines as a mental illness "in which chronic depression spirals into major depressive episodes during times of great stress." In less clinical terms, Patrick writes, "What all this boiled down to for me was bad days, bad days, bad days, and some worse days."

Read my full review at the New York Journal of Books.
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...

[Kathy D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bethanne has brought out a lot of the mental health issues and challenges she has faced out in the open. We still face a stigma today over this even though it’s a rising awareness of how many people, particularly teens, are impacted. And yet, there’s little if any effort to understand this crisis or investigate how it should be addressed. I saw no less than four mental health places close down. We do not put near enough research or funding toward this. Thank you, Bethanne for acknowledging your life with depression so we can hopefully get more assistance for everyone who needs it.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the author's childhood, coming-of-age, early years of marriage, and motherhood. It goes into her family history, family dynamics, and mental illness. But after a lifetime of depression, this book is about the moment in mid-life when she thinks there must be something better, life B. Life B is where she confronts a problem and figures out where to go from there. The book also examines the roots of depression and describes the different treatment approaches.

I learned a lot about double depression, a form of cycling depression where you always experience what we know as depression combined with periods of major depressive episodes. This book is important for anyone struggling with clinical depression, friends or family suffering. She shows us what it's like to struggle with mental illness but work hard toward having a better life despite it.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...

[Carol Benton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is a reminder that the scientific world of diagnosing and treating mental health is now beginning to come out of its infancy into an adolescence of creative new diagnosis and treatments that are not all pharmaceuticals. Bethanne lived much of her life thinking she was just "sad" but she didn't begin to recover until she was diagnosed as having double depression. Because of my experience with non-clinical depression that was easily cleared by a small dose of what was then a new drug Prozac, her experience felt very real and the difficulties of her every-day life were palpable.

[Caroline Bock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bethanne Patrick wrote LIFE B- Overcoming Double Depression for her daughters but she wrote it for all of us as well -- it's a memoir about resilience, about the bravery and courage to confront her depression, suicidal-level despair, amid the trappings of success. Ultimately, it's a memoir I could feel in my bones -- about being a strong woman in so many ways--even when you feel you cannot be strong for one more person, or one more moment. It's a beautiful story-- and life-affirming. This is worth reading. Caroline

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author Patrick's memoir tells her personal struggle with depression, military family moves, etc. Her writing style is choppy as if some of her earlier writings were cobbled together and the continuity is missing. Her recent diagnosis of "double depression" and the medicine she states that helped her are to be questioned as the drug is usually prescribed for seizures and has many cautions and side effects.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested in this book because I have also been diagnosed with double depression. I found much of what Patrick had to say very relatable. She articulates many of the nuances of depression, how it lies to you and can be every bit as debilitating as a physical illness. Not a feel good book, but definitely worth checking out if you have depression or love someone who does.

[Victoria Wymer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished my Aunt’s memoir last night, Life B. This book is incredible. If you are close to someone who struggles with depression, I highly recommend reading this. Bethanne shares her journey in a beautiful and deeply honest way. Follow her at @dearbookmaven Congratulations, Bethanne!

[Vee Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mental illnesses are finally being talked about. So much is genetic, but early sexual abuse and terrible parenting also contribute. I applaud anyone afflicted with mental illness getting out of bed each morning and trying to live a normal life.

[Marcia Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful and important memoir on mental illness. Highly recommend!

[Megan Abbott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brave, bracing and important.

[Theresa]

This is a well-written, honest account of Patrick's struggles with double depression.

[Alex Hachet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good description of her journey, but a bit confusing at points as the author tended to jump around. Glad she's doing better.

[Joe Olipo · Rating 1 out of 5]

"This one was working." — Gertrude Stein

On the Relation between Triple Depression and the Third Estate:

Eugene Thacker's remarks in the largely unremarkable, In The Dust of This Planet (2011), are so much dross in comparison with the clarity of his introductory statement: anti-natalists don't kill themselves simply because suicide remains a Positive act. So it happens that one may find oneself a remarkably productive academic success, putting together a dissertation, publishing several books to critical acclaim, and finally a professor of media studies at The New School with a full teaching load, all ostensibly without abandoning this commitment. ("And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile.") We are suspending our aversion to armchair-psychiatry to suspect Thacker (and others) of going beyond dysthymic disorder with depression (AKA double depression) to reach dysthymic disorder with depression with dysthymic production (AKA triple depression). This one was working; a depression which is producing a surplus value, but a negative one for us.

Whereas [triple depression] criticizes itself constantly; constantly interrupt itself in its own course; comes back to what seems to have been accomplished, in order to start over anew; scorns with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of its first attempts; seems to throw down its adversary only in order to enable it to draw fresh strength from the earth, and again, to rise up against it in more gigantic stature; constantly recoils in fear before the undefined monster magnitude of its own objects—until finally that situation is created which renders all retreat impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out: "Hic Rhodus, hic salta!" — Marx

Some further examples of Doubling:

"If you strike me down now I shall become twice as depressed as you can possibly imagine." — Lucas
"You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." — Beckett