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Welcome to My
Breakdown
by Benilde Little
c.2015, Atria
$26.00 / $32.00 Canada
288 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
You’re tired of having red eyes.
You’re tired of crying, too; tired of an empty soul, runny
nose, and dry mouth but you know there are more tears inside
you and they need to come out. Whoever said that big girls
don’t cry needs to know that that’s not true: as in the new
book Welcome to My Breakdown by Benilde Little,
sometimes crying is only the beginning.
For many years, Clara Little liked to say that she knew her
last child would be a girl. She predicted it, and it
happened – perhaps through force of will because, says her
daughter, Clara was that kind of person: self-reliant and
strong.
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Clara worked long overnight shifts, but made sure that her
house was spotless. She helped care for her neighbors and
her family, giving her children a good upper-middle-class
life at a time when that was a rare thing in their
mostly-African-American New Jersey community. Her giving
spirit and her no-nonsense personality remained well-known
for the rest of her life, and when Clara died, her many
friends mourned along with her family.
For Benilde Little, the death of her mother was a crushing
blow – the biggest in a series of events that bruised her
already-fragile, sensitive soul. Two months prior, Little
lost her father-in-law. After her mother’s death, her best
friend’s mother died, the financial market collapsed, the
Littles’ income fell, Little’s dog got sick, menopausal
symptoms exacerbated, and her husband was diagnosed with
cancer.
For months, Little could barely function without dissolving
in tears. She had trouble getting out of bed, she stopped
calling on friends, and her writing career all but halted.
Seemingly everybody had advice and most offered support but,
powerless to pull herself up and knowing that this was more
than just grief, Little began seeking help for a diagnosis
of clinical depression. She tried therapy sessions,
prescriptions, distractions, and exercise but she still
couldn’t stop crying and she couldn’t erase certain mental
images that plagued her. There were good days, but they were
eclipsed by the very, very bad ones - until she began to see
things that further opened her eyes.
We’ve all had times in our lives when nothing goes right.
Welcome to My Breakdown, shows what it feels like when
one of Those Days lasts for years.
Indeed, although it’s hard to accurately explain the depths
of depression or grief, author Benilde Little still gives
readers a good sense of the senseless, and of the confusion
that’s felt when one is completely, totally powerless to
explain why certain harmful emotions are so sticky and can’t
abate. We’re also taken on a trip through a few of the
various treatments that work – and don’t – before Little
finds a shaky conclusion.
Be aware that there’s quite a bit of back-story filler and
empty name-dropping here but since this book could be a
comfort to anyone experiencing grief or depression, the
pay-off might be worth the journey. For that person,
Welcome to My Breakdown could be a memoir well-read. |
