People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very interesting sort of thing to….

Curiosity, wonder, and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers...Restlessness and discontent are vital things... Inten….

I, quite literally, woke up from a coma, from having tried to kill myself and it was very clear to me what my psychiatrist had been saying for years.….

An ardent temperament makes one very vulnerable to dreamkillers..

Others would say to me, 'It is only temporary, it will pass, you will get over it,' but of course they had no idea how I felt, although they were cer….

Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were..

I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel bet….

Anyone who suggests that coming back from suicidal despair is a straightforward journey has never taken it..

Looking at suicide—the sheer numbers, the pain leading up to it, and the suffering left behind—is harrowing. For every moment of exuberance in the sc….

In some cases, some people do get depressed in the middle of their grief and they really need to be treated for depression..

There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst wo….

Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me..

I think you have waves of awareness and one of the things that I found with grief was actually - I was well prepared for it by the cyclicality of my ….

Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can ….

The rites of passage in the academic world are arcane and, in their own way, highly romantic, and the tensions and unplesantries of dissertations and….

When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeate….

I think that for thousands of years people have made the observation that there are certain kinds of extreme depressive states that seem to be more l….

Confidentiality is an ancient and well-warranted social value..

I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't ….

I was bitterly resentful, but somehow greatly relieved. And I respected him enormously for his clarity of thought, his obvious caring, and his unwill….

Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, sui….