4.12.2010

"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality."

vi-tal-i-ty: capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence:
"I knew that the sun was rising & setting but little of it’s light reached me. I felt myself sagging under what was much stronger than I. First I could not use my ankles, and then I could not control my knees, and then my waist began to break under the strain, and then my shoulders turned in, and in the end I was compacted & fetal; depleted by this thing that was crushing me without holding me. I had thought that when you feel your worst your tears flood, but the very worst pain is the arid pain of total violation that comes after the tears are all used up. The pain that stops up every space thru which you once metered the world, or the world you. This is the presence of major depression."

 Andrew Solomon
Author, The Noonday Demon


I just watched a documentary about depression that i got from the library, because that's just what i do.  i thought this definition was nice.  well, nice doesn't seem to be a fitting word, but you know what i mean. it's not the kind of definition you'll find in Websters, void of emotion & personal experience.

1 comment:

  1. Its always interesting and enlightening hearing about someone else's experiences from one who has actually EXPERIENCED it themselves! Thanks for sharing this...I have had very FEW "depressed days"...but living with one who is depressed does open one's eyes to a whole lot and helps to really learn compassion and patience.

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