Depression - some thought...

“…you have to keep going when you are depressed. That means phone calls, appointments, errands, holidays, family, friends, and colleagues. For me, this is where things got tangled. Depression brought to me a new rationing of resources: for every twenty-four hours I got about three, then two, then one hour worth of life reserves – personality, conversation, motion.”

~ Virginia Heffernan from Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

 “In depression, the meaningless of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance.”

“The first thing that goes is happiness. You cannot gain pleasure from anything….Eventually, you are simply absent from yourself.”

“Rebuilding of the self in and after depression requires love, insight, work, and, most of all, time.”

“The only way to find out whether you’re depressed is to listen to and watch yourself, to feel your feelings and then think about them. If you feel bad without reason most of the time, you’re depressed.”

“Illness of the mind is real illness.”

“Depression is a condition that is almost unimaginable to anyone who has not know it.”

“It was when life was finally in order and all the excuses for despair had been used up that depression came slinking in on its little cat feet and spoiled everything.”

“Depressives have seen the world too clearly, have lost the selective advantage of blindness.”

“So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt the isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly….The loving is that you are there, simply paying attention, unconditionally.”

“The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.”

~ Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression