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.

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 Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.

The ancient dialogue between reason and the senses is almost always more interestingly and passionately resolved in favor of the senses.

Grief comes and goes, but depression is unremitting

Everyone has good cause for suicide, or at least it seems that way to those who search for it. (74)

I think people don't understand how intimately tied suicide is to mental illness, particularly to depressive illness and bipolar illness.

The quickness and flexibility of a well mind, a belief or hope that things will eventually sort themselves out-these are the resources lost to a person when the brain is ill.