We can’t feel saddened over the loss of those we love without first remembering the joy of loving them. The real sadness would have been never having had them in our lives at all. Remembering is a journey the heart takes, back into a time that was, and our thoughts are the only tickets needed to ride. We who have truly loved are blessed.
anon,
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.
Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
If I can’t feel, if I can’t move, if I can’t think, and I can’t care, then what conceivable point is there in living?
Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’refrightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.
Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
