Antonio Muñoz Molina: "Depression is going to sleep and not wanting to wake up."

Barcelona"I have been fortunate to have fundamental support in life, such as that of Elvira [Lindo] and my family, and also to find professionals who have cared for me and helped me," explains writer Antonio Muñoz Molina. in the program Saved of the Sixth. He says this to Ademuz, the town in the Valencian Community that has become the couple's refuge and where he is recovering from depression. "Depression is going to sleep and not wanting to wake up," he says.

Muñoz Molina, who was director of the Instituto Cervantes in New York, has long suffered from depression. In addition to medical treatment, he completes his therapy by tending a vegetable garden. It was his wife, the writer Elvira Lindo, who suggested working in the garden "as occupational therapy." "I think Antonio has gone through a very complicated period, and part of the therapy has been precisely the contact with the earth," Lindo explains.

"I've returned to working in the garden, as my father taught me. The only difference is that now I do it for pleasure, with pleasure, as therapy," says Muñoz Molina.

Regarding the overwhelming weight of depression, the author ofWinter in Lisbon She remembers meeting up with her children or cleaning, and she didn't have the strength to go. "I told Elvira, 'Tell them no, I can't.' On the one hand, you know you don't have the strength to do it, but you're also aware that not seeing them affects you." According to Muñoz Molina, this paradox explains the "perverse" nature of this disease, which "feeds itself."