Eva Meijer

Depression is like mourning, and mourning can cause depression. It’s like grief and fear, too, generic terms for what happens when you lose something, or are afraid of losing something; for when you fall, or have already fallen. But depression is also different: it’s coupled to another kind of loss—the loss of reality. Life-changing events make you see the world differently—when you fall in love, you gain a whole new world; when you lose someone, you lose a

that barrenness isn’t purely bad: it’s also the starting point of freedom

In The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus wonders whether understanding that life is meaningless should necessarily lead to suicide.

Death always splits the world in two, of course, but for me something really did shift in how I thought things fitted together.

Things don’t always get better; certain fractures still remain, more than twenty years later. The inconceivable can actually happen.

Things don’t always get better; certain fractures still remain, more than twenty years later. The inconceivable can actually happen.

Things don’t always get better; certain fractures still remain, more than twenty years later. The inconceivable can actually happen. I

hings don’t always get better; certain fractures still remain, more than twenty years later. The inconceivable can actually happen.

work gives my life meaning, and working gives me and my days their shape. I’ve taught myself a routine that keeps me going. It makes a difference that I’m an
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optimistic depressive: I have the urge to realize myself and I’m disciplined and militant. And the beauty of the work I do is that my feelings can flow into what I create. I wrote the final section of my novel The Peacock But

A bed is a good metaphor for depression, because depressions are often endured in bed, and because it’s a place outside of real life.