Depression- Part I

Many famous people have suffered from depression such as writers Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath, together with artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Michelangelo.

Quotations from notable individuals survey their thoughts and feelings about depression:

German poet, novelist and playwright, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote:” My creative powers have been reduced to a restless indolence. I cannot be idle, yet I cannot seem to do anything either. I have no imagination, no more feeling for nature, and reading has become repugnant to me. When we are robbed of ourselves, we are robbed of everything!”

Pulitzer prize-winning author William Styron wrote, “I would lobby for a truly arresting designation. ´Brainstorm´ for instance…a veritable howling in the brain, which is indeed what clinical depression resembles like nothing else.”

Winston Churchill called the severe depression that he suffered from “My black dog.”

Abraham Lincoln acknowledged, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would be not one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better it appears to me.”

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confident….My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.”

Actor Nicolas Cage appears to be talking about handling depression when he says, “I cry a lot. My emotions are very close to my surface. I don’t want to hold anything in so it festers and turns into pus—a pustule of emotion that explodes into a festering cesspool of depression.”

Musician Jonathan Davis states, “A lot of people don’t realize that depression is an illness. I don’t wish it on anyone, but if they know how it feels, I swear think would think twice before they shrug it off.”

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote “Every act of life, from the morning toothbrush to the friend at dinner, became an effort. I hated the night when I couldn't sleep and I hated the day because it went toward night.”

Depression strikes not only famous people but also ordinary individuals. Next week I will continue my discussion about depression.

Copyright © 2005 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.