Olivia Walde

How much of ourselves do we really need to expose in memoirs? Does baring all on the page bring good to others, or is it better to keep the deepest and darkest internal thoughts to yourself, whether it be through journaling, regular Twitter updates, or the resharing of images on social media? Holding a personal interest in mental health and more pertinently depression, I have sought through my Final Major Project to identify the differences between memoirs that give back to their community of readers, through helpful pointers and advice from sufferers of those who have personally experienced depression, versus memoirs that are often criticised as purely self-serving and overly self-indulgent. I chose four memoirs to analyse and conceptualise my thoughts: Prozac Nation; Girl, Interrupted; Willow Weep for Me; and Furiously Happy. These memoirs span from the 1990s to 2015, and are all written by women. I chose to focus on female-written texts, concentrating principally on depression, owing to the vastness of available memoir literature and the inherent need to limit down my focal points. Through my project, my main purpose was to educate myself further on a topic I hold extremely dear, and to consider why we fetishize the tragic and suffering female figure, as well as how potentially triggering content material (particularly when relating to mental health, self-harm, domestic abuse) can safely exist in the world of published and accessible material. 

Weekly fridge vocabulary.