One of my very favorite movies is the 1965 classic, “The Sound of Music,” because I get goose bumps when Julie Andrews sings “My Favorite Things” to the children. What a powerful message for those of us living with depression. In fact, when I was in the psych ward, the nurses made us list some of our favorite things, and then tried to convince us that we would like those things again one day.
Elisabeth Wurtzel does her rendition of “My Favorite Things” when she writes this beautiful paragraph in her bestselling book, “Prozac Nation”:

It’s funny, but when I was little, before I’d go to sleep my mom would do this routine with me where she’d tell me to think of pretty things. I would close my eyes and she would run her fingers over my cheeks and across my brow. And we’d go through the list. I think it was a way of preventing nightmares—and it would always be, you know, pussycats and puppy dogs and balloons at the zoo. Sometimes she’d mention yellow submarines, stars in the sky, blackbirds flying overhead, trees in Central Park, and even—believe it or not—that on Saturday I would get to see Daddy. Nothing that extraordinary, but when you’re four years old, it’s cats and dogs that make life worth living. And I kind of think it’s maybe not so different now.