Mrs Mac Suggests: What to read in SEPTEMBER

I was just thinking about depression.  An awful affliction - some of my friends suffer badly.  Then I wondered how many of us dismiss any kind of mental illness because you can't see it?  My parents both worked in a mental hospital (as they used to be called) in the 1950s and 60s, and by osmosis I suppose I found out more about these conditions by listening to my parents' conversations about work.  Anyway, this led me on to something to read in September.....

..... and so I am suggesting that you find a book about mental illness of any kind.


The book that came to my mind is a fiction but based on the real breakdown suffered by the author.  I read this first when I was in my teens, and again in my thirties.... rather old fashioned now (written in the 1940s), and the practices of electric shock treatment and cold water baths are, thank goodness, no longer used.  But that book made me again aware of how mental illness was and still is looked upon, but rather more importantly, how the sufferer feels whilst all this is going on.  The book is still available and is:

The Snake Pit - Mary Jane Ward