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Devil Within
'I was nearly twenty before I understood that there was a name for what sometimes happened to me. Later, I learned that it has gone by many names - the black dog, the bell jar, the noonday demon, darkness visible, malignant sadness - but in my teens I'd just assumed that my fierce highs and days of disproportionate, isolating despair were part of every teenager's repertoire - how else would Morrissey have sold so many records? These pitches in mood were something I didn't speak about to anyone, because I was afraid of two things - either that it was nothing serious, and I would be told to pull myself together, or that it was serious, and I would be told that, yes, I was a mental case.' Stephanie Merritt has a career as a novelist and journalist, a beautiful son and a supportive family. Why then did she want to kill herself at the age of 29? Why could no one, neither the system of GPs and health professionals, nor her closest family and friends help her?Reading like a hybrid of Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation" and Rachel Cusk's more sober "A Life's Work", Stephanie's unflinchingly honest memoir explores areas of experience commonly associated with depression such as love, solitude and self-medication through the prism of her own experience. Beautifully written and intensely honest this is an extraordinarily moving, life-affirming book about a debilitating illness that affects one in six people in the UK alone.
272 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2008
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About the author
Stephanie Merritt
12 books124 followers(Also writes under the pseudonym S.J. Parris)
Stephanie Merritt (born 1974 in Surrey) to Jim and Rita Merritt is a critic and feature writer for various publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, Zembla and Die Welt. She has also been Deputy Literary Editor and a staff writer at The Observer.
Merritt graduated in English from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1996. Prior to this, she attended Godalming College in Surrey.
She is the author of two novels, Gaveston (Faber & Faber) which won a Betty Trask Award of £4,000 from the Society of Authors in 2002 [2:], and Real (2005), for which she is currently writing a screenplay. She has also written a memoir, The Devil Within, published by Vermilion is 2008, which discusses her experiences living with depression.
Meritt has appeared regularly as a critic and panellist on BBC Radio 4 and BBC7, has been a judge for the BBC and Channel 4 new comedy awards as well as the Perrier Award, and appeared as interviewer and author at various literary festivals, as well as the National Theatre and the English National Opera.
Stephanie Merritt (born 1974 in Surrey) to Jim and Rita Merritt is a critic and feature writer for various publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, Zembla and Die Welt. She has also been Deputy Literary Editor and a staff writer at The Observer.
Merritt graduated in English from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1996. Prior to this, she attended Godalming College in Surrey.
She is the author of two novels, Gaveston (Faber & Faber) which won a Betty Trask Award of £4,000 from the Society of Authors in 2002 [2:], and Real (2005), for which she is currently writing a screenplay. She has also written a memoir, The Devil Within, published by Vermilion is 2008, which discusses her experiences living with depression.
Meritt has appeared regularly as a critic and panellist on BBC Radio 4 and BBC7, has been a judge for the BBC and Channel 4 new comedy awards as well as the Perrier Award, and appeared as interviewer and author at various literary festivals, as well as the National Theatre and the English National Opera.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 7, 2011
Intelligent and well constructed account of bipolar depression, at first undiagnosed. Largely an autobiography too, and details intertwining issues of bullying, anorexia, and alcohol abuse. This professional writer (novelist and literary reviewer) has a very clear style and mode of expression, makes nearly perfect use of stepping back in time at appropriate moments.
Like Styron, she sees the notion of Loss as central to her depression. She is also highly gifted and intelligent, bullied for this, and bearing the weight of a very 'thick' religious upbringing in which all her family and social relationships were within the same context, and a belief system was presented to her readymade. The ethical structures against which she was later to rebel brought guilt not only because of their residue but because too her parents remained, throughout, loving and supportive, never condemnatory.
In early adult life, after anorexic periods. depression became more obvious in its classical manifestations: loss of pleasure, inability to feel communication, seemingly pushing away people, numbness... Later on, positive symptoms such as vicious nightmares spilling their affect into her days
Like Styron, who realised only post facto, that he had put three suicides into his first three novels, she realised that she had let her invented characters carry the weight of her own misery.
As so commonly, the absurd contradictions between wanting not to open oneself to others and desperately connection; the imperative at all times to hide from the world one's disintegration and attempt to appear to others as self-confident, in control and on top of things. One of the best accounts I have read of bipolar depression. Well worth reading.
Like Styron, she sees the notion of Loss as central to her depression. She is also highly gifted and intelligent, bullied for this, and bearing the weight of a very 'thick' religious upbringing in which all her family and social relationships were within the same context, and a belief system was presented to her readymade. The ethical structures against which she was later to rebel brought guilt not only because of their residue but because too her parents remained, throughout, loving and supportive, never condemnatory.
In early adult life, after anorexic periods. depression became more obvious in its classical manifestations: loss of pleasure, inability to feel communication, seemingly pushing away people, numbness... Later on, positive symptoms such as vicious nightmares spilling their affect into her days
Like Styron, who realised only post facto, that he had put three suicides into his first three novels, she realised that she had let her invented characters carry the weight of her own misery.
As so commonly, the absurd contradictions between wanting not to open oneself to others and desperately connection; the imperative at all times to hide from the world one's disintegration and attempt to appear to others as self-confident, in control and on top of things. One of the best accounts I have read of bipolar depression. Well worth reading.
January 31, 2013
As many readers have stated, this is a tough, depressing book to read. However I found it very honest and a good account of the internal turmoil bipolar and depression feels like. I am not a religious person so had no frame of reference for her struggles with her faith, but excluding this (minor) part of the memoir I found the book very useful to read and experience.
October 8, 2017
Mostly biographical book with extra information on depression, bipolarity and their researches.
I found it insightful!
Totally would recommend to someone who is going thru rough patch in life, since it is very relatable.
I found it insightful!
Totally would recommend to someone who is going thru rough patch in life, since it is very relatable.
October 9, 2011
This isn't really my sort of book - but someone had recommended it to me. And I have read a number of other memoirs which have included accounts of living through some kind of mental breakdown.
There were aspects of this book which I found interesting. The author - who towards the end of the narrative is diagnosed as having bipolar disorder - writes with considerable insight about what it's like to grow up in an evangelical Christian background. She conveys just how much is lost, when somebody loses their faith.
I think what I enjoyed most about the book was the author's clarity. She gave me some sense of what it was like to regard food as an enemy. (The writer was anorexic in her late teens.) She could make me feel what it was like not to want to stop drinking, and partying. The passages in which she describe episodes of depression are painful to read, because she communicates the feeling of finding existence unbearable, so well.
Stephanie Merritt has tried to spare close friends and family, by not writing about them in any detail. The dramas are internal, rather than external. However this made the book less vivid - and varied - than I would have liked.
The memoir has probably increased my understanding of some kinds of mental ill-health. And I did admire the honesty of the writing. Reading it may benefit someone suffering from depression or bipolar disorder - or for anyone trying to support someone with these difficulties. But I can't say that I enjoyed the book, and it was a relief to have finished it.
There were aspects of this book which I found interesting. The author - who towards the end of the narrative is diagnosed as having bipolar disorder - writes with considerable insight about what it's like to grow up in an evangelical Christian background. She conveys just how much is lost, when somebody loses their faith.
I think what I enjoyed most about the book was the author's clarity. She gave me some sense of what it was like to regard food as an enemy. (The writer was anorexic in her late teens.) She could make me feel what it was like not to want to stop drinking, and partying. The passages in which she describe episodes of depression are painful to read, because she communicates the feeling of finding existence unbearable, so well.
Stephanie Merritt has tried to spare close friends and family, by not writing about them in any detail. The dramas are internal, rather than external. However this made the book less vivid - and varied - than I would have liked.
The memoir has probably increased my understanding of some kinds of mental ill-health. And I did admire the honesty of the writing. Reading it may benefit someone suffering from depression or bipolar disorder - or for anyone trying to support someone with these difficulties. But I can't say that I enjoyed the book, and it was a relief to have finished it.
September 5, 2009
Tough, very honest memoir of living with bi-polar disorder. It took the author a long time to realize that is what she has, & a longer time to get something of a tentative handle on it. She just thought she was doomed to disappoint everyone who cared about her, due to some self-destructive force inside. This book WAS depressing to read, yet very thought-provoking. I've felt enough of what she described to find it scary, but the ending is good--realistic & good.
June 20, 2016
Couldn't really get into it. Too reglouis for my liking.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews