Introduction
Art by Mara McWilliams, Recovery Through Art
http://www.maramcwilliams.com
"For me, depression is a living, ever-changing creature that impacts each and every aspect of my life. I can not, no
matter how I try, ever avoid depression and its grip on me. I don't understand it and I can't defeat it. I try to outwit it
and live my life, but what I really spend my time doing is just existing...from hour to hour...day to day...year to year.
I have no past because of depression. I look back over my life and I see nothing but emptiness, failure and loneliness. I
look at the future and I see the same. There is no hope and though I try to remain positive, I know that I am kidding myself.
There is no hope or salvation for me. I will not be one of the lucky who escape depression's grip."
-Anonymous, Collected by Julia Kosatka
http://home.blarg.net/~charlatn/depression/whatis.html
"Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational
thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that
feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that
brings in its wake unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide."
- Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind
Global Impact
(World Health Organization, 2001)
