Although this text is not in the public domain, I have published it within the limits of fair use.

The full text of “Willow Weep for Me” can be purchased here.

At the opening of the book, Danquah reveals why she decided to write a memoir about her struggles with depression.

When there aren’t dismissive questions, patronizing statements, or ludicrous suggestions, there is silence. As if there are no acceptable ways, no appropriate words to begin a dialogue about this illness. And, given the oppressive nature of the existing language surrounding depression, perhaps for black people there really aren’t any (21)

Starting from her childhood, Danqauh reflects on how those in her life influenced her own perception of her depression.

I was either too young or too estranged from Ghanaian culture. They even talked to each other in Twi, a language I can’t speak and have trouble understanding. I felt shut out. The remarks that were meant for me to hear were made in English. These remarks were generally jokes made by my mother about my inability to cook or clean house properly and my flare for melodrama– all faults I had supposedly acquired because I was too Americanized (33)

I would wake up every morning and freak out. I couldn’t leave the house. I would leave my house and have panic attacks on the street. I’d just start wheezing and hyperventilating. My mother used to take to me to school. Everybody was riding the train to school and there I would be with my mother holding my hand, as if I were a toddler. When they saw that I was getting worse, not better, my parents put me in therapy. The therapists kept suggesting that they put me in a special school for troubled kids (164)

Near the end of her memoir, Danquah brings her own struggles into the broader, societal context in which she experienced them.

Depressive disorders do not discriminate along color lines, people do. People determine what is publicly acceptable and what is not, who may behave in what way at which time and under which circumstances; and these social mores spill over into our private lives, into the images we create. White people take prescription drugs with gentle, melodic names; they go to therapy once or twice a week in nice paneled offices. Black people take illicit drugs with names as harsh as the streets on which they are bought. We build churches and sing songs that tell us to “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Either that or we march. Left, right, left, from city to city, for justice and for peace. We are the walking wounded. And we suffer alone because we don’t know that there are others like us (184).

When push came to shove, I beat up on myself for not being able to get with the program. After all, I’d tell myself, I was not the first woman to work and raise a child simultaneously. Black women have been doing that for ages, with and without partners. Some even held down two jobs while raising three and four children. No one ever made mention of these women griping about depression. It was a luxury that they couldn’t afford. What made me think I was so special? (195)