Lost Connections. Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope

You need your pain. It is a message, and we must listen to the message. All these depressed and anxious people, all over the world—they are giving us a message. They are telling us something has gone wrong with the way we live. We need to stop trying to muffle or silence or pathologize that pain. Instead, we need to…

I started to see depression and anxiety as like cover versions of the same song by different bands. Depression is a cover version by a downbeat emo band, and anxiety is a cover version by a screaming heavy metal group, but the underlying sheet music is the same. They’re not identical, but they are twinned.

When I yelled for drugs to stop my worst symptom—the extreme room-spinning nausea — the doctor told me: “You need your nausea. It is a message, and we must listen to the message. It will tell us what is wrong with you.” If I had ignored or silenced that symptom, my kidneys would have failed, and I would have died. You…

Depression and anxiety might, in one way, be the sanest reaction you have. It’s a signal, saying—you shouldn’t have to live this way, and if you aren’t helped to find a better path, you will be missing out on so much that is best about being human.

You aren’t a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met. You need to have a community. You need to have meaningful values, not the junk values you’ve been pumped full of all your life, telling you happiness comes through money and buying objects. You need to have meaningful work. You need…

...and she made a verbal slip. She meant to say "when I was young." What she actually said was "when I was alive."