Anne Sheffield

First thing I should mention- the forum frequently mentioned still exists, just not at the URL it was at in 2003 (which happens- I know several online communities have moved addresses over the past decade). You can find the Depression Fallout community here. Future editions of this book should update URLs and the web resources list.

This book was not for me- I am the depressed partner, not the one experiencing fallout. It was recommended to me by a counselor as something for my partner & I to read when I mentioned that sometimes my partner says he doesn't understand my sense of sadness & self-loathing. I read it first because it's hard to split a book between two people.

It is a useful book in that the experiences of various anonymous posters show that you're not alone, and that a community can be useful for navigating through the ups and downs of relationships with depressed/manic depressed individuals. It illuminated for me some of the reasons why a previous relationship of mine failed, though again every relationship is different and I am somewhat skeptical about drawing conclusions from a self-selecting forum population.

The reasons I *don't* like the book aren't about content- on the contrary, I find this topic very important. Rather, the writing reminds me of an older person not used to the internet- E-mail, Web site, and Message Board are always capitalized as if they're proper nouns; in the introduction Sheffield expresses surprise and delight that people came together and formed a community online; etc. On one hand, that can be explained as the nature of the internet in 2003 and earlier (myspace came into existence that year), but to a modern reader it seems outdated. I am also skeptical of using anecdotes from a forum as evidence, but if we can have books derived from reddit AMAs, I guess it's valid.… (meer)