Matthew

“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

“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

“Even in the best of spirits, it's always been as though I wrestle with the present in a vain effort to stop its becoming the past.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“The monolithic problem of depression cannot be expressed with a monolithic response; depressions are contextual and must be interpreted within the contexts in which they occur.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression