Andrew Solomon Quotes

If the spectrum linking everyday depression to Major Depression sometimes hinders understanding of it, it also offers an opportunity for empathy. Because almost everyone, at some point, experiences feelings of sadness, of hopelessness, of emptiness, not to mention lethargy and irritability.

Depression is an illness and not a necessary part of healthy living.

The mental health conversation is very important to me. I have friends that struggle with various mental illnesses. I've struggled with depression and anxiety. I'm very interested in how we deal with that.

In American culture we are supposed to take a pill when we're depressed or in grief as opposed to actually feeling.

At Somerset I played with Marcus Trescothick who has spoken very openly about his battle with depression and anxiety. I had a few conversations with him about his problems but I also read his book which provided me with a great insight into what he went though.

It's estimated that 16 million people in the U.S. have struggled with depression - and I include myself in that statistic. It's real, and it's not shameful, and there is help available. You can bring it to the light, you can tell the truth, you can go to a meeting, you can reach out to a friend. None of us are alone.

A lot of times, people think that it doesn't make sense for people to be depressed when they have everything, a loving husband, a successful career, fame and fortune. I wanted to make this point that profound despair can strike anybody.

The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.

One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.

One of things so bad about depression and bipolar disorder is that if you don't have prior awareness, you don't have any idea what hit you.

I think one thing is that anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.

I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy.

I fight manic-depression, and I have been able to live battling that sadness that I get sometimes.

Washington is riddled with unstable people who are either depressed or make other people depressed.

I don't find anything upsetting or gross or degrading about fighting with a mental illness: Bipolar or Schizophrenia.

I think that there's a clinical mental illness called depression, but I believe that post-industrial America has been narcotized by progress. There's a cultural malaise - mental illness or no - that everybody suffers from at some point in their life.

As I kept having episodes of depression, I realized that it was not a one-off: that I had, well, not a disease, really - more an illness.

I've had a mental illness for nearly half my life, and I can no longer imagine myself without it. It seems less like something that happened to me than like part of who I am; some days, it is the thing about me, but it is always at least a thing about me.

When I was suffering with depression, people weren't talking about depression. It had a stigma.

I think people are interesting enough. People with mental illness, or just real people going through real circumstances in life.

It was a really lucky childhood and while, yeah, there were bits of darkness, which is known about because my mother has made no bones about her struggle with depression, the overriding memory of it is a very happy, good one.

As far as making people feel less depressed, that, in and of itself, is a political act.

Being mentally ill is not a joke. It is a most painful thing.

I'm always going to have to manage my mental health issues.

I wanted to write a story about my struggles with depression and mental health. It's an issue that needs to be talked about more.