Danny Baker > Quotes

“I’d previously thought I’d get better. I’d always thought it true that hope and depression were bitter rivals until one inevitably defeated the other, and I’d always thought that hope would win out in the end. But for the first time in my life, I was void of hope. I honestly believed that being depressed was just the way I was, and that being depressed was just the way I’d be, for the rest of my life. And because I was so convinced that I’d never get better, there seemed no point in fighting my illness. Instead of willing myself to “hang in there” because I believed that my suffering was temporary and that everything would be better one day, I comforted myself with the knowledge that human beings are not immortal. That I would die, one day. One special, glorious day. Then I could spend the rest of eternity mouldering in a grave, free from pain. You might be wondering why I didn’t just kill myself if I wholeheartedly believed that my future consisted of nothing more than excruciating misery. Well, first of all, I still was not a quitter. But more importantly, I didn’t want to hurt the people that loved me.”
― Danny Baker, The Danny Baker Story: How I came to write "I will not kill myself, Olivia" and found the Depression Is Not Destiny Campaign

“No one knew about my pain. That’s one of the most perverse realities of depression, or of any mental illness for that matter. With a physical illness, the symptoms are much more evident, so family and friends are aware of the patient’s suffering and often do their part to help. But depression? No one can see that. When you’re cutting yourself alone, no one can see that. No one can read your thoughts and see how unhappy you are – or in the worst cases, how much you hate your life and want to die. That’s why suicide usually comes as such a shock – because no one knows what’s going on inside the victim’s head. Their mind is a closed book, with a cover that blends in with all the others.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“Then there was one girl I met who would invent stories for why she always had bandages around her arms. She’d claim she was attacked by a cat, fell on a piece of glass in the playground, or sprained her wrist playing netball. She told me that every day, she’d make sure she fell over in front of everyone, just so she could develop a reputation for being a klutz and thereby make her injuries seem more believable. She was 12 years old.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“When you’re that depressed, that insanely and utterly depressed that you genuinely believe you’ll suffer that acutely for the rest of your days, life seems to lack all purpose. After all, I figured, what’s the point in working, fighting, striving for a better life if you’re sentenced to one of chronic anguish and despair? There is no better life. There is no life outside of pain. So what’s the point in doing anything but waiting until death finally arrives on your doorstep and whisks you away”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“If at the end of the day, all people want is to be happy, then isn’t this feeling – will I forever be condemned to a life of misery and despair? – the most terrifying feeling we can possibly experience? The fact that it haunts everyone in the throes of a prolonged depression – not to mention that by definition, sufferers are, to say the least, unhappy – is what makes clinical depression such a horrific illness.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“Depression has the ability to deaden the senses, suck the pleasure out of everything.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“Sometimes, I find myself thinking of Olivia’s dog – little Jack Russell, cute as can be. He spends his days in a tranquil slumber. I watch him, enviously, just lying there. And I feel jealous. Jealous that he’s not burdened by despair. Jealous that a biscuit makes him happy. That he can just lie in bed, sleep all day. That his life expectancy is 14 years instead of 76. That his life is not mine. And then I realise just how fucked my life is. I’m jealous of a dog, for fuck’s sake.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia

“And this turned my illness into a self-fulfilling prophecy: the worse my concentration, the less work I got done, and the more depressed I became . . . the more depressed I became, the worse my concentration, the less work I got done, and the more depressed I became . . . and so the cycle went.”
― Danny Baker, I Will Not Kill Myself, Olivia