"Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted…the thing that made me go for help…was probably my daughter."
"Remember in the depth and even the agony of despondency, that very shortly you are to feel well again."
"I’ve been going through this really crazy time in my life…I’m asking myself life-altering questions, like ‘Who am I? Where do I fit in this world? What am I doing?”
"I hope this will help new moms not feel alone or desperate, and that there is no shame in their feelings. PPD is out of their control, but the treatment and healing process is not.”
“I didn’t know my mother had it. I think a lot of women don’t know their mothers had it; that’s the sad thing about depression.”
“It [depression] was so awful. I didn’t know how to express what it was. I remember trying to explain it to my stepdad and saying, ‘I feel like that terrible homesick feeling, but I’m home.’”
“I always liked the story of Noah’s Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind.”
“There are peaks, there are valleys. But they’re all kind of carved and smoothed out, and it feels like a low level of despair you live in.”
“I didn’t eat, I stayed in my room…I was in a really bad place in my life, going through that lonely period.”
“This time I just could not get out of the hole. The anxiety attacks were frequent and extensive. I had weight loss, which I'd never had before. I couldn't stop crying. And if I wasn't crying, I was angry, bitter, hateful, and mean-spirited.”
“My sense of worth was so low. I had to reprogram myself to see the good in me. Because someone didn’t love me didn’t mean I was unloveable.”
“I pray to be like the ocean, with soft currents, maybe waves at times. More and more, I want the consistency rather than the highs and the lows.”
"I grew up in the presence of melancholy, a feeling of loss over things that maybe I don't have or never had…It is a shadow for me. It's part of who I am. It is constantly there. I just know how, at this point, to sort of manage it."
"Like in `The Wizard of Oz' the color goes out…that is what happens in depression. Everything gets gray.”
“That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.”
"I like damaged people. And I am certainly damaged."
"It hit me that it had been months since I felt anything. That I was just joyless…finally I said, this is just not right. There is something really wrong here. A whole year of my life was lost. Too long! Too long to not live!”
“If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.”
I know a lot of people think therapy is about sitting around staring at your own navel - but it's staring at your own navel with a goal. And the goal is to one day to see the world in a better way and treat your loved ones with more kindness…”
“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”
