I know what you're thinking. Omg, Catcher in the Rye. What a dumb, boring, whiny piece of literature.
Well you're wrong. But I'd like you to take a moment and appreciate how lucky you are to be wrong.
For me, Catcher is one of my favourite representations of depression. It's not a glorified work about the beauty of the wilting flower and the triumph of Man's Eternal Spirit. It's about a teenage boy who's lost in the big wide world of adulthood. In my experience, depression does not go away just because you want it to or will it to. You can't just 'get over' depression in the way that most people suggest that Holden does. It's a slow upwards struggle that is neither glorious or triumphant.
Depression doesn't need a reason to hit you.
Depression doesn't care if you are young or old, rich or poor.
I read Catcher both before struggling with depression, and afterwards. At first I "didn't get it" but now I do. I know what it's like to be failing classes for no good reason, to be in an empty room with no one to call and no one to turn to. Depression is isolating, and it makes you very insular in your thinking. I didn't know where the ducks had gone or what I was going to do with my life, just like Holden didn't.
It's a truly horrible feeling, and that's why I'm partially glad when people 'don't get' Holden. Because it means that they haven't been through what we've been through.
But it also upsets me when people dismiss Holden's problems, or tell him to 'get over himself'. Mental illness is like a physical disease. You don't tell someone with cancer to 'get over themselves' after a few days of bed rest yet both problems can be debilitating and suck the life force out of you. Holden's cure was specialist treatment, not a spiritual journey. Telling someone with depression to 'cheer up' doesn't help. It just invalidates their feelings and exacerbates the problem, often with tragic results.
