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Then suddenly I wanted more than a picture of the moment. I raced to the elevator and up to my eighth floor room. I grabbed the two books and rushed back to the conference room. But I was too late. The three friends were posing for pictures in front of the side door. I took a couple more pictures, then they were gone.
I started reading Bill Styron's Darkness Visible, A Memoir of Madness on the plane home. He wrote of the support he received from a close friend, a celebrated newspaper columnist, who had just recovered from manic depression. " . . . and we were in touch by telephone nearly every day. His support was untiring and priceless. It was he who kept admonishing me that suicide was 'unacceptable' (he had been intensely suicidal), and it was also he who made the prospect of going to the hospital less fearsomely intimidating. I still look back on his concern with immense gratitude. The help he gave me, he later said, had been a continuing therapy for him, thus demonstrating that, if nothing else, the disease engenders lasting fellowship." And in Leaving Home, A Memoir Art Buchwald wrote, "Bill Styron and I had depressions within months of each other. Once we recovered, we teased each other about whose had been the stronger. I claimed that mine had been a 9.9 on the Richter scale, and he said that I had suffered nothing more than a rainy day at Disneyland." At home, I'm trying to follow the example of the three famous friends, Mike Wallace, Bill Styron and Art Buchwald. My friends don't all have OCD or depression - or any mental illness. But they can all use support as they deal with life's problems. And I can certainly use help and support. I'm reminding myself to take Art Buchwald's advice - keep in touch and offer encouragement. We need each other. Next month - OCD and the Family, Part II Go To Page: 1 2 |
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