I Decided Early In Graduate School That

From A Public Health Point Of View, Still The Overwhelming Problem Is That People Are Not Treated Enough For Depression; Depression Remains Under Treated.

Others Imply That They Know What It Is Like To Be Depressed Because They Have Gone Through A Divorce, Lost A Job, Or Broken Up With Someone. But These Experiences Carry With Them Feelings. Depression, Instead, Is Flat, Hollow, And Unendurable. ... You're Frightened, And You're Frightening, And You're 'not At All Like Yourself But Will Be Soon,' But You Know You Won't.

The Chinese Believe That Before You Can Conquer A Beast You First Must Make It Beautiful. In Some Strange Way, I Have Tried To Do That With Manic-depressive Illness. It Has Been A Fascinating, Albeit Deadly, Enemy And Companion; I Have Found It To Be Seductively Complicated, A Distillation Both Of What Is Finest In Our Natures, And Of What Is Most Dangerous.

Manic-depression Distorts Moods And Thoughts, Incites Dreadful Behaviors, Destroys The Basis Of Rational Thought, And Too Often Erodes The Desire And Will To Live. It Is An Illness That Is Biological In Its Origins, Yet One That Feels Psychological In The Experience Of It, An Illness That Is Unique In Conferring Advantage And Pleasure, Yet One That Brings In Its Wake Almost Unendurable Suffering And, Not Infrequently, Suicide.

There Is An Assumption, In Attaching Puritan Concepts Such As 'successful' And 'unsuccessful' To The Awful, Final Act Of Suicide, That Those Who 'fail' At Killing Themselves Not Only Are Weak, But Incompetent, Incapable Even Of Getting Their Dying Quite Right.