In 2016, more than a million people in the Netherlands were using an antidepressant. While a lot has been written about the treatment of depression, its broader meaning has received far less attention. In The Limits of My Language Eva Meijer uses her own experiences with depression as a resource for a surprisingly new analysis of the phenomenon.

She explains how people with recurring depressive periouds come to resemble trees growing crookedly – how not their brain but their soul keeps adapting. She discusses the benefit of therapy, the way in which language gives us shape and how we can sometimes reshape ourselves in conversations with others. The essay is a plea for literally moving on, for going for a run and walking the dogs; a plea for being perseverant.

‘Sharp analyses of Eva Meijer’s own experiences with depression are interspersed with passages in which, drawing on Wittgenstein, Woolf, Sartre and other thinkers and writers, she philosophises on the idea of suicide, the relationship between creativity and madness, the usefulness of therapy and medication and the comfort of animal companionship.’ – NRC