Through the healing process of time-and through medical intervention or hospitalization in many cases-most people survive depression which may be its only blessing; but to the tragic legion who are compelled to destroy themselves there should be no more reproof attached than to the victims of terminal cancer.
William StyronA disruption of the circadian cycleโthe metabolic and glandular rhythms that are central to our workaday lifeโseems to be involved in many, if not most, cases of depression; this is why brutal insomnia so often occurs and is most likely why each dayโs pattern of distress exhibits fairly predictable alternating periods of intensity and relief.
William StyronThe stigma of self-inflicted death is for some people a hateful blot that demands erasure at all costs.
William StyronFor a person whose sole burning ambition is to write - like myself - college is useless beyond the Sophomore year.
William StyronDepression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self -- to the mediating intellect-- as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode.
William StyronIn depression . . . faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come - - not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute . . . It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.
William Styron