John's depression at 24 in Chicago: leave from Booklist, home to Orlando, and watching Harvey
story · status: told 5× · last event: retold (2023-04-18)
John's story of the depression he fell into at 24 in Chicago after a breakup, when he took leave from Booklist, went home to his parents in Florida for care and watched Harvey. He first told it in 2013 and retold it through 2023, tying that year to the first draft of Looking for Alaska.
About: Chicago (city), Booklist, Bill Ott, Harvey (film), Orlando, Florida, depression
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-10-29 (happened 2001) | told | John tells how at 24, depressed after a breakup in Chicago, he took two weeks' leave from Booklist at Bill Ott's urging, went home to Orlando for therapy and medication, watched Harvey, and felt less hopeless. | Perspective 00:00:28 |
| 2017-05-30 | retold | John has one photo of himself at 23, from his year in Chicago: an intense, loving but doomed relationship, starting and restarting the book that became Looking for Alaska, and the year when, in a borrowed Emily Dickinson line, a plank in Reason broke and he dropped down and down. | What Should We Keep? 00:00:05 |
| 2019-11-01 | retold | Watching it took John back to writing the first draft of Looking for Alaska alone in a small furnished Chicago apartment, recovering from what would now be called a mental health crisis. (hedged) | On Looking Up to Your Little Brother 00:01:41 |
| 2019-12-10 | retold | In his mid-20s John went through intense loneliness and isolation that was correlated with serious depression. | On Loneliness 00:00:22 |
| 2023-04-18 (happened 2001) | retold | John retells that in late 2001 a mental health crisis and depression got so bad that, with his parents, he decided to quit his job and move home to Florida for full-time care. | goodbye to my friend 00:00:21 |
What is said about it
14 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John thought his depression came from being dumped, but in retrospect being dumped was probably partly a result of the depression, with its obsessive thinking, self-focus and inability to act. (hedged) — 00:00:38
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: He was trying to write a novel but had not written a sentence he liked in over a year; despite a great job at Booklist, colleagues, friends and family, he was 'really losing it'. — 00:00:52
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Many days the only thing John ate or drank was one 2-litre bottle of Sprite, which he jokes leads to weight loss and eventually scurvy. (playful) — 00:01:03
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: He called his parents, they agreed he should come home, and he tried to quit; Booklist publisher Bill Ott suggested a two-week leave of absence instead, one of the nicest things anyone did for him. — 00:01:17
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Ott left John a note he still has, hoping he would be back in two weeks with a longshoreman's appetite and urging 'Now more than ever, watch Harvey'; Ott had pushed the old film for three years. — 00:01:34
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John's dad drove up to Chicago and they drove back to Orlando; John got into daily therapy, started a much better medication for him, and watched Harvey. — 00:01:51
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Still, John woke the morning after watching Harvey feeling a little better, and has never since felt as hopeless as before. — 00:02:08
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Harvey is about Elwood P. Dowd, whose best friend is a six-foot invisible white rabbit; John thinks one line really changed his life: 'you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant… I recommend pleasant.' (hedged) — 00:02:21
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Two weeks later John went back to Booklist, and within six months handed his mentor Ilene Cooper 40 single-spaced pages of what became Looking for Alaska. — 00:02:38
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: It was not all rosy: John still missed his ex-girlfriend, was still really screwed up, and those 40 pages were pretty terrible. — 00:02:47
- 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John says his friend and mentor Bill Ott, publisher of Booklist for more than 30 years and John's first boss, died last week (week of 10 April 2023). — 00:00:03
- 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John calls Bill a brilliant writer and editor and a wonderful friend who, as readers of The Anthropocene Reviewed may know, kind of saved his life once. — 00:00:13
- 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John: When John went to quit, Bill, his boss's boss's boss, did not just wish him well but said 'ah, kid' and, after a pause, told him to take time off and report back in a few weeks. — 00:00:29
- 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John: Packing up to leave Booklist, John found a note Bill had left on his computer, which he still has, ending with an urging to watch Harvey, a movie Bill loved. — 00:01:13