Andrew Solomon: Labeling a child's mind as diseased-whether with autis...

You don't think in depression that you've put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you're seeing truly.

Andrew Solomon

truth depression happiness

When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes-and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history.

Andrew Solomon

dragons personal-history hero

I found myself losing interest in almost everything, I didn't want to do any of the things I had previously wanted to do and I didn't know why. Everything there was to do seemed like too much work. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment.

Andrew Solomon

vitality opposites want

Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.

Andrew Solomon

belief people needs

Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world.

Andrew Solomon

emotional should-have mean

It is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know.

Andrew Solomon

hate stories inspirational

The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep out of me.

Andrew Solomon

vitality moments opposites

We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful.

Andrew Solomon

pain bears believe

One of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression is that you know it's ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it. You know that most people manage to listen to their messages, and eat lunch, and organise themselves to take a shower and go out the front door, and that it's not a big deal. And yet you are nonetheless in its grip and you are unable to figure out any way around it.

Andrew Solomon

lunch doors people

At the end of the day, will God be interested primarily in whether I have been kind and helped others, or in whether I was baptized and how?

Andrew Solomon

the-end-of-the-day kind ends

Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.

Andrew Solomon

strong depression love

I can see the beauty of glass objects fully at the moment when they slip from my hand

Andrew Solomon

glasses moments hands

It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.

Andrew Solomon

expression depression people

I think a lot of the time people assume that their values are universal. And they don't understand which aspects of their values are actually universal and which aspects are very specific.

Andrew Solomon

assuming people thinking

We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.

Andrew Solomon

painful-experiences painful identity

A sense of humor is the best indicator that you will recover; it is often the best indicator that people will love you. Sustain that and you have hope.

Andrew Solomon

sense-of-humor love-you people

When you banish the dragons you banish the heroes.

Andrew Solomon

dragons hero

I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys, because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.

Andrew Solomon

ecstasy ordinary joy

If some glorious angel suddenly descended through my living room ceiling and offered to take away the children I have and give me other, better children — more polite, funnier, nicer, smarter — I would cling to the children I have and pray away that atrocious spectacle.

Andrew Solomon

angel giving children

I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.

Andrew Solomon

strong fear believe

Labeling a child's mind as diseased-whether with autism, intellectual disabilities, or transgenderism-may reflect the discomfort that mind gives parents more than any discomfort it causes their child. Much gets corrected that might better have been left alone.