David Foster Wallace: What is it like to have depression?

Vince Campbell
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

David Foster Wallace was, and continues to be, one of the most innovative and influential writers of the 20th century. In 2008, at the age of 46, he hung himself from the rafters of his Claremont, California home. Throughout his indispensable life, he held the heaviness of clinical depression deeply in his pack as he traversed the hills, walks and climbs of life, rife with its spontaneous capacity for unpredictability and suffering. Despite his mental anguish, David Foster Wallace found powerful respite in the world of words, especially influenced by the black humorists and post-modernist writers of the 60s and 70s, such as Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Williams Gass, John Barth, Cormac McCarthy, even the filmmaker David Lynch. Raised in a highly academic environment, his father a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his mother an English teacher, these aforementioned influences only served to occupy the role of mortar in the foundation which would be his awe-inspiring writings.

David Foster Wallace is one of my favorite authors. Imbedded in his words, I found myself commandeered by a voice of insight, skepticism, irony, and the search for peace amidst an ever enraged and static-steeped world. His writings have affected me more deeply than most. What I’ve grown to cherish most about this man and his work was his comprehensive understanding of his own disease, one which I share(d) with him. Never before have I read such a succinct, informed and personal portrayal of the depressed person’s mind and thought processes. I will always be thankful to him for assisting me in my own understanding of my ailment, for in searching for such a definition, I found it was not singular, but plural. I was no longer alone, and never would be again, no matter what my mind perceived.

In writing this, I seek only to impress upon you, the reader, if there will be any, to survey your hearts in search for those who are more than likely throbbing from inner pain. On the surface, the symptoms of depression may not be apparent. In my own experience, the depressed person seldom lights up the neon sign stating “I’m depressed, how about you?” But there are moments when the mask falls, and the pervasive undercurrents of pain bolt into view like a lightning storm. Please, be aware of those around you who do suffer from depression. Do not worry about what to say. Often there need not be anything said. The proximity and presence is often the most personal and affecting tactic in easing the burdens of the mentally downtrodden. Read this, and perhaps you’ll be inspired with what to say in future moments of compassion.

For those who may read this, and are themselves depressed, please know that you are not alone in your existence. We as human beings are interconnected, ebbing and flowing with the ever shifting tides and tempests of the world and the self. Trust that you need not sink, for there are those ready and willing to equip you with the life preserver(s) you stand in need of. They themselves may be that life preserver.

Now that I’ve carried on for far too long, please read this short story by David Foster Wallace. It was written for you.

Vince Campbell

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no longer dying in idaho…

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