You can't fix yourself out of a mental health issue. You can't wake up and say, 'Today I'm not being depressed!' It's a process to get well, but there is recovery.
Interpretation
Recovery from mental health issues takes time and cannot be achieved simply by willpower.
This quote highlights the challenges of dealing with mental health issues and emphasizes that recovery is not a matter of just deciding to feel better each day. It acknowledges the complexity of mental health and the importance of the healing process, reinforcing that while it may be difficult, recovery is possible with time and proper support.
In practice
In a mental health awareness talk, highlighting the importance of understanding recovery processes.
Don't feel badly when you take off work to go for a run, to go for a walk; don't feel badly to take time to play with your children, to be part of their lives. Work is important, but you can't work at your best unless you're a whole person.
The label 'wife of the prime minister' is like a giant signboard pointing at my head from a Monty Python sketch. But I am not Mrs. Prime Minister. I'm a human being.
Do you know what prepares you for the mental hospital? Being a prime minister's wife.
Oh, am I a feminist? I usually say that I was an accidental feminist. Really, I was just being me.
I tried to be a good wife, but I was lost in my gilded cage.
I tried during the 1974 campaign to show my husband not as the aloof intellectual people think he is, but the warm, passionate man I know. But the day after the election - after I'd worked so hard - I was put back on the shelf. I was devastated.
I think it's always been normal for humans to compare themselves to each other, but we're so hyper-connected all the time now that it's driving us insane.
Insomnia’s different,” I said. It was hard to explain this to people. “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.
In a typical mental health catch-22, the alienating nature of depression tends to keep its sufferers from finding their way to the very support groups that might help them.
When public figures remain silent about depression, there is a cost to the rest of society. Silence contributes to the misperception that successful people do not get depressed, and it keeps the public from seeing that treatment allows many individuals to return to competitive professional lives.
Years of depression have robbed me of that—well, that give, that elasticity that everyone else calls perspective.
Negative thinking patterns can be immensely deceptive and persuasive, and change is rarely easy. But with patience and persistence, I believe that nearly all individuals suffering from depression can improve and experience a sense of joy and self-esteem once again.
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