Jonathan Rottenberg

The genre of self-help for depression is littered with well-intentioned books that overpraise solutions and raise false hopes. It would be nice to defeat your depression in ten easy steps, but rarely is it so easy. Books that overpraise solutions produce frustrated, disappointed and demoralized readers and damage the credibility of experts.

Depressed people don't end up lying in bed because they are undercommitted to goals. They end up lying in bed because they are overcommitted to goals that are failing.

As she lay awake, she reminded herself that she was beating the depression; she was winning her life back. She had survived, and now she was going to be better than ever before.

You know what you have to do, you just can't do it", Sara says wearily. "It's like you have bricks on your feet.

When I noticed other people, I wondered what it was like to be alive. They did not know, could not know, how I felt inside. My shell still passed for normal. I felt like I should scream for help, someone should help, but I knew that the time for screaming had passed. Best to just keep on walking, walking dead, one of the few things I could still do. So I kept walking.

One reason we're not winning the fight against depression is that our available treatments leave so many in partial recovery limbo.

Just as a stressful life can make you depressed, continuing exposure to stressors maintains depression.

I am willing to be vulnerable and embrace the natural flow of life rather than trying to direct it to my own course and yet it has given me new courage because there is no consequence that could come as close as wanting to die_ The ver worst thing that can happen in a life is wanting to end it. So I live more bravely than ever with more respect for others and myself.

Rather than assuming weakness or defectiveness, we should acknowledge that getting through depression requires considerable strength. Rather than assuming permanent debility, we should recognize that some depressions are followed by thriving.

Though I learned little in my compromised state, I learned enough to make a decision: I was going to understand how mood could overwhelm. I was going to understand depression or die trying.

Theories without data are like daydreams.

My training makes me uneasy with a happy mystery.