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My last post considered the human costs associated with intellectual misunderstandings of depression. A great case in point is Cliff Richey, who has written a wonderful memoir, Acing Depression: A Tennis Champion's Toughest Match. I am writing to recommend this book as an entertaining yet serious read, a great illustration of how depressions are made more punishing by our society's misconceptions, and an inspiring story of how a man can still make meaning out of even the most savage and unrelenting depression.
Cliff Richey was a top tennis player, achieving the #1 ranking in the United States in 1970. The first leg of the book describes how Richey was nurtured to become a great tennis player, but also as someone who was almost inevitably bound to suffer serious depression. Woven among stories of matches won and lost, are the strong roots of his depression, include the driven, sometimes stifling nature of his family and his own intense fears of failure, which spun a win-at-all-costs attitude.
But as depression deepened, Richey's descriptions are unsparing; for example, one summer he placed black trash bags over the windows of his house, to make it easier stay in bed all day and cry in the dark. Richey's book does not wallow in self pity, however. He rightly points out the numerous barriers and misunderstandings that kept him from seeking help for his symptoms including, being male, being a male athlete, competing in an individual sport, immersion in a macho West Texas culture, and having a strong independent streak. Despite the fact that Richey was battling depression at various grades since young adulthood his depression was not truly diagnosed until he was nearly 50 years old. He makes it easy to understand how the culture of winning and the culture of tennis allowed Richey to mask the depression from himself and from others. The world (still) expects peak performance from sports champions and has difficulty tolerating anything less. This virtually insures that a champion with depression will be even more isolated and misunderstood than the average person with depression.
Finally, I recommend Acing Depression as a story of redemption, but importantly one that does not airbrush out the ugly chapters. Richey is unblinking in his recitation of hurts, including how he acted badly during his depressions. Richey is candid in describing the ways that depression made him self-absorbed, self-hating, and took away from his ability to be the best father and spouse that he could be. At the same time, Richey shows us how he could use the most serious depressions as a sign to "always change a losing game." In fact, one gets the impression that Richey thinks that the depressions were needed for him to ultimately get the message that certain aspects of his personality, such as extreme competitiveness, needed to mellow. In this connection, it should be noted that the book was written with the assistance of his eldest daughter, Hilaire Richey Kallendorf: One suspects that the writing of the book was itself a step towards redeeming father-child relationships previously frayed by depression.
Acing Depression presents an unusually wise and realistic view of depression as both creative and destructive. It's doubly refreshing to read a bold new memoir about depression from a competitive male athlete, a group that society has historically discouraged from being candid about the subject.
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Acing Depression explains how athletic greatness and personal tragedy can co-exist
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Update: To those readers who shared their story of misunderstood depression with me, THANK YOU!
If you are comfortable sharing your story via email or are interested in being interviewed for my book, please email me at chartingthedepths@gmail.com
