Matthew

“There is no life that does not have the material for despair in it, but some people go too close to the edge and others manage to stay sometimes sad in a safe clearing far from the cliffs.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Depression is hard on friends. You make what by the standards of the world are unreasonable demands on them, and often they don't have the resilience or the flexibility or the knowledge or the inclination to cope. If you're lucky some people will surprise you with their adaptability. You communicate what you can and hope. Slowly, I've learned to take people for who they are. Some friends can process a severe depression right up front, and some can't. Most people don't like one another's unhappiness very much. Few can cope with the idea of depression divorced from external reality. Many would prefer to think that if you're suffering, it's with reason and subject to logical resolution.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“You feel all the time that you want to do something, that there is some affect unavailable to you, that there's a physical need of impossible urgency and discomfort for which there is no relief, as though you were constantly vomiting from your stomach but had no mouth.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Is it depression when I think how I would prefer to go where they have gone, and to stop the maniacal struggle of staying alive? Or is it just a part of life, to keep living in all the ways we cannot stand?”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression