Pick a man, any man. Every guy I fall for becomes Jesus Christ within the first twenty-four hours of our relationship. I know that this happens, I see it happening, I even feel myself, sometimes, standing at some temporal crossroads, some distinct moment at which I can walk away and keep it from happening, but I never do. I grab at everything, I end up with nothing, and then I feel bereft. I mourn for the loss of something I never even had.

I could not bear the deep freeze settling around my bones at the thought that yet another attempt to get out of my life alive would end in disappointment. Time became palpable and viscous. Every minute, every second, every nanosecond, wrapped around my spine so that my nerves tightened and ached. I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be.

My God, I could raise a family of six children and hold down a full-time job with all the energy I expend on depression!

I don't think it matters how many parents you've got, as long as those who are around make their presence a good one.

They can give you all the pills on earth and do whatever - and you're still yourself.

As someone very sagely said during the parricide trials of the Menendez Brothers: anytime your kids kill you, you are at least partly to blame.

Mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent