Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

by Sally Brampton

‘Stop abandoning yourself,’ a therapist, Elizabeth, once said to me. ‘What?’ I didn’t understand. She explained it like this. Every time you feel sad and swallow down your tears, you abandon yourself. If somebody hurts you and you pretend that you are fine, you abandon yourself. Every time you don’t eat, or fail to feed yourself, you abandon yourself. If you are tired, but refuse to rest, you abandon yourself. If you drink too much and poison yourself with alcohol, you abandon yourself. If you don’t ask for what you need from somebody with whom you are intimate, you abandon yourself. The times when you resent putting somebody else’s needs before your own are the times when you are abandoning yourself. If you don’t ask for help when you need it, you abandon yourself. ‘You suffer,’ Elizabeth said, ‘from a failure of care.’ From who? ‘From yourself,’ she says. ‘And before that, from your parents. They are the ones who should have taught you how to take care of yourself.’