The anxiety phase of my first depression lasted six months. It was incredibly paralyzing. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Shutting out the depression strengthens it. While you hide from it, it grows. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I often say that the opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Dealing with depression effectively is a mark not of weakness, but of strength. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep out of me. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“Actually travel is the opposite of depression. Depression is a curling inward, and travel is an opening outward.” — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Living with depression is like trying to keep your balance while you dance with a goat -- it is perfectly sane to… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Depression is so exhausting - it takes up so much of your time and energy - and silence about it, it really… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Depressed people cannot lead a revolution because depressed people can barely manage to get out of bed and put on their shoes… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
It's important to say that depression has biological underpinnings, and that while medications do not seem to create irreversible changes in the… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
When I'm not depressed, I draw strength and beauty from depression; when I am depressed, I find no such things. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Mild depression is a gradual and sometimes permanent thing that undermines people the way rust weakens iron ... Like physical pain that… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
There is a false moral imperative that seems to be all-around us that treatment of depression, the medications and so on, are… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Though many schizophrenics become curiously attached to their delusions, the fading of the nondelusional world puts them in loneliness beyond all reckoning,… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“The people who succeed despite depression do three things. First, they seek an understanding of what's happening. They they accept that this… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
The most important thing to remember about depression is this: you do not get the time back. It is not tacked on… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
A large proportion of my best friends are a little bit crazy. ... I try to be cautious with my friends who… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance. It is tumbleweed distress that thrives on… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“I hit walls of past pleasure all the time, and for me past pleasure is much harder to process then past pain...for… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“In the throws of depression, one reaches a strange point at which it is impossible to see the line between ones own… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
One of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression is that you know it's ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“It is not pleasant to experience decay, to find yourself exposed to the ravages of an almost daily rain, and to know… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose,… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“It is too often the quality of happiness that you feel at every moment its fragility, while depression seems when you are… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“You are constantly told in depression that your judgment is compromised, but a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality and my life, as I write this, is vital even when sad. I… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“When I had the third breakdown, the mini-breakdown, I was in the late stages of writing this book. Since I could not… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“I did not want to sit on the roof, though I was also aware that if I didn’t allow myself the relief… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
Depression is the flaw in love. There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss. And that specter of despair… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
The experience of being depressed and emerging from depression made me understand the idea of a soul. I felt that the language… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“the symptoms of depression cause depression. Loneliness is depressing, but depression also causes loneliness.” — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
“There is so much pain in the world, and most of these people keep theirs secret, rolling through agonizing lives in invisible… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share Image
I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel's political importance, that encouraging a nation's citizenry to travel may… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
When I was born, the wisdom was that homosexuality was an illness; that it was caused largely by somebody's mother, and a distorted relationship… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
A lot of people are very political when they are young, and then they outgrow it. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
Having always imagined myself in a fairly slim minority, I suddenly saw that I was in a vast company. Difference unites us. While each… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
If your love didn't always contain the possibility of loss, it would be very different from human love as we know it. — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, "Never real and always true," and that is how depression feels. You know that it is… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
I met people on college campuses who were defining themselves as genderqueer to express revolutionary feelings, or to communicate their individuality; they were gender… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
“In the throws of depression, one reaches a strange point at which it is impossible to see the line between ones own theatricality and… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
“Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
One the one hand, the simple fact that there are children and that I do have an effect on them has been one of… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
I grew up feeling that to be gay was a tragedy. I didn't grow up thinking that it was morally wrong, but I grew… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
We need to acknowledge that families come in multiple shapes and sizes, that love is not a finite asset, and that caregiving involves more… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
I had always wanted to have children, so it caused me a lot of grief when I was younger, and I had supposed that… — Andrew Solomon Copy Share
