Thought-provoking Quotes About Depression

People who have never dealt with depression think it's just being sad or being in a bad mood. That's not what depression is for me; it's falling into a state of grayness and numbness.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

Through my own struggles with depression, I discovered that knowledge, therapy, medication and education can provide the strength to get through it in one piece.

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

To perceive is to suffer.

Just remember that the darkest night did not turn out all the stars.

Depression is anger slowed down; panic is grief speeded up.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

Where there is a lack of rest, there is an abundance of stress.

Depression is inertia.

Things like depression and obesity are global challenges.

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.

Numb the dark and you numb the light.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

With depression, one of the most important things you could realize is that you're not alone.

Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.

Make peace with your past so it won't destroy your present.

Love your future more than your past.

It is very hard to explain to people who have never known serious depression or anxiety the sheer continuous intensity of it. There is no off switch.

I might look successful and happy being in front of you today, but I once suffered from severe depression and was in total despair.

Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.

The nearer the dawn the darker the night.

Depression is rage spread thin.

If you know someone who's depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn't a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.

Depression is a physical illness.

I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.

I wonder if that's how darkness wins, by convincing us to trap it inside ourselves, instead of emptying it out.
I don't want it to win.

She wondered that hope was so much harder then despair.

Sometimes I wonder if my heart is like a black hole--it's so dense that there's no room for light, but that doesn't mean it can't still suck me in.

Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up.

The monsters were never
under my bed.
Because the monsters
were inside my head.

I fear no monsters,
for no monsters I see.
Because all this time
the monster has been me.

The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.

If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.

Anyone who has actually been that sad can tell you that there's nothing beautiful or literary or mysterious about depression.

I saw the world in black and white instead of the vibrant colours and shades I knew existed.

I will be stronger than my sadness.

Depression is melancholy minus its charms.

Depression isn't a war you win. It's a battle you fight every day. You never stop, never get to rest. It's one bloody fray after another.

You're like a grey sky. You're beautiful, even though you don't want to be.

Mental illness is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent.

Maybe we all have darkness inside of us and some of us are better at dealing with it than others.

If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?

I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine - I'm here.
Is there something wrong with that?
Absolutely.

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love.

If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.

You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human.

The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.

In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression.

We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.

Human misery must somewhere have a stop; there is no wind that always blows a storm.

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

It's hard to be a friend to someone who's depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.

Sharing our depressions felt like having survived a war. The experience bonds you to the other person for life.

If you suffer from depression, anything that makes you feel has to the most important thing in your life, because it's the only thing that can save you.

In my experience the best way to beat depression is to get involved in something inspiring.

What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.

Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.

Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.

Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Passion is the force that springs an artist from the needling cushion of depression.

Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Living with depression is like trying to keep your balance while you dance with a goat -- it is perfectly sane to prefer a partner with a better sense of balance.

Instead of seeing depression as a dysfunction, it is a functioning phenomenon. It stops you cold, sets you down, makes you damn miserable.

Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don't need to show me thier badges. I know these guys very well.

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.

Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst.

The hardest thing about depression is that it is addictive. It begins to feel uncomfortable not to be depressed. You feel guilty for feeling happy.

I may have looked happy but inside I was hopelessly depressed.

There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.

Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore.

I think I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens.

It does not mean you're broken to have depression and anxiety. I would encourage you to speak out. Don't hold it inside. Talk to friends. Talk to parents. If it's available, go to a therapist.

Depression is when you have lots of love, but no one's taking.

Depression has existed as long as mankind itself, and certainly well before psychiatry, antidepressant medication, or the nation of America itself came into being.

I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

Getting better from depression demands a lifelong commitment. I've made that commitment for my life's sake and for the sake of those who love me.

This might be controversial, but sometimes I think that being happy is a decision. I don't mean that in a way to diminish clinical depression. But on a more day-to-day level.

The more choices we give patients affected by depression, the better we will serve them.

If you look at suicides, most of them are connected to depression. And the mental health system just fails them. It's so sad. We know what to do. We just don't do it.

Depression is incredibly pervasive and thus important to talk about.

Many of depression's symptoms - exhaustion, insomnia, nausea, headaches, weight loss, weight gain - are physical ailments.

We expect well-informed treatment for cancer or heart disease; it matters no less for depression.

The reason so many intelligent and creative people suffer from depression is that when you take the risk of being fully conscious, you open Pandora's box, and you can't close it again.

Many people think that depression is something you just have to live with when you get older, but it's not.

Depression is like the worst disease you can get. It's devastating.

Depression can take you into a black hole, so it is terrible.

Just like other illnesses, depression can be treated so that people can live happy, active lives.

We know how to treat depression, we know how to treat mental illness, and we have not had the political will in our country to make it happen.

My depression is not something very special. A lot of people go through depression. My divorce is not something very special; a lot of people go through divorce.

Do I wish I had never endured postpartum depression? Absolutely. But to deny the experience is to deny who I am.

I want to help people with depression understand that there is hope, so that they can get the help they need to live rich, fulfilling lives.

Thinking about death makes you analyse what life is. Anxiety makes you curious, and curiosity leads to understanding. I wouldn't be a writer without depression.

The thing with depression is you don't realise you have it and even when you do you don't want to realise you have it.

Depression is something that makes you lose your sight.

When you're on the verge of depression, a good leveller is to put one foot in front of the other and do some manual labour.

We don't know why, but pancreatic cancer has a very interesting physiological link to depression. There seems to be a deep link, and we don't know what it is.

While the line between stress, deep anxiety, and depression often blurs, most entrepreneurs struggle with broad mental health issues at various points in their lives.

When I was suffering with depression, people weren't talking about depression. It had a stigma.

I think most human beings go through some sort of depression in their life. And if they don't, I think that's weird.

Unfortunately, I think depression and anxiety are really hard to live with. And what people don't need is to feel bad about themselves because they decide to go on medication.

The best way to get out of depression is to work out.

Massage therapy has been shown to relieve depression, especially in people who have chronic fatigue syndrome; other studies also suggest benefit for other populations.

For many people who face anxieties, depression, trauma or grief that dominate their lives, a vital source of support may be a counsellor or psychotherapist.

I suppose I'm interested in sorrow, which is very different from depression or despair. Sorrow is continuous with the world; it allows for creativity.

This is what I am. I have periods of enormous self-destructive depression, where I go completely off my trolley and lose all sight of reality and reason.

When you study postpartum depression, there is a very clear understanding that in communities where you see more support, there is less depression.

Oddly, I believe that emotional proximity we feel to close loved ones makes it hard to be honest with them about feelings of depression.

There is a very moving and ancient connection between cancer and depression.

Oh yes, I certainly have low days. I feel that in treating the depression, it's not so much that I've become happier as it is that I can be unhappy in better ways.

Depression is a leading cause of ill health and disability, and many do not have access to mental health services and face significant social stigma around their disease.

Depression, as far as I'm concerned, is just a waste of time.

Depression can seem worse than terminal cancer, because most cancer patients feel loved and they have hope and self-esteem.

Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me.

They say depression is just anger turned inward. Sometimes I turn it outwards, sometimes I turn it inward, but I know it's about self-worth.

You take the negative, the bitter, the pain, the suffering, the depression, and all of those are ingredients for something far more purposeful than you can imagine.

Every age yearns for a more beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and the depression about the confusing present, the more intense that yearning.

Depression is so treacherous - it can be so alluring as well as punishing. After all, it's yours and yours alone - no one else can interfere with it.

I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

Being in good physical shape is the best way to combat depression. You just have endorphins running around your body. It is the best anti-depressive that there is.

Depression isn't about, 'Woe is me, my life is this, that and the other', it's like having the worst flu all day that you just can't kick.

I wanted to write a story about my struggles with depression and mental health. It's an issue that needs to be talked about more.

A big part of depression is feeling really lonely, even if you're in a room full of a million people.

We live in a society bloated with data yet starved for wisdom. We're connected 24/7, yet anxiety, fear, depression and loneliness is at an all-time high. We must course-correct.

I suffer from deep depression, so my only release is music.

Until you've had depression I don't think you're qualified to talk about it.

My recovery from manic depression has been an evolution, not a sudden miracle.

As I kept having episodes of depression, I realized that it was not a one-off: that I had, well, not a disease, really - more an illness.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.

I often say that the opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality.

It's often difficult for those who are lucky enough to have never experienced what true depression is to imagine a life of complete hopelessness, emptiness and fear.

Concern should drive us into action, not into a depression.

It's really easy to slide into a depression fueled by the pointlessness of existence.

A lot of people don't realize that depression is an illness. I don't wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it.

Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little better and can again function sufficiently.

Mental health can be just as important as physical health - and major depression is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental illnesses.

Mental illness lives all around us every day. I've seen it in other family members, I've seen it in friends, and I've dealt with it myself with my own postpartum depression.

I found that with depression, one of the most important things you could realise is that you're not alone.

Depression, for me, has been a couple of different things - but the first time I felt it, I felt helpless, hopeless, and things I had never felt before. I lost myself and my will to live.

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.

Depression is the inability to construct a future.

Keep yourself busy if you want to avoid depression. For me, inactivity is the enemy.

When people don't know exactly what depression is, they can be judgmental.

There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.

There's nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can't cure.

We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

Because wherever I sat--on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok--I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

What happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality breaks and the glass begins to fly?

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.

I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never. What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that.

Depression is a prison where you are both the suffering prisoner and the cruel jailer.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

I am living in a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep.

You don't have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.

Depression doesn't take away your talents--it just makes them harder to find.

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.

Anger is energizing. The opposite of anger is depression, which is anger turned inward.

The five stages -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance -- are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.

I was so scared to give up depression, fearing that somehow the worst part of me was actually all of me.

Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

As kids become more depressed and anxious, limiting screen time is not enough. Kids need less homework and fewer tests, longer recesses and lunches, more socioemotional learning, more unstructured, unscheduled time to play.

The scrutiny that young people face on social media can lead to anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts.

Meditation can and will order your thinking and therefore your mind. As we heal the wounded places in our minds, we grow.

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in.

Despair can never be dissolved through escape, but by observing it.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

Suffering is an indication of ignorance, but in seeking an escape from suffering you are only nourishing ignorance.

Every thought a person dwells upon, whether he expresses it or not, either damages or improves his life.

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.

I was only able to start changing my life when I realized my depression was not a malfunction. It's a signal. Your depression is a signal. It's telling you something.

Nothing has a hold on your mind that you cannot break free of.

Don't attack your problems. Face them, confess them, understand what they are. That is the process.

To heal a wound you must stop scratching it.

I need a break from my own thoughts.

I need one of those long hugs where you kinda forget whatever else is happening around you for minute.

I have never felt so much pain in my life. It was tough for me to even get out of bed and I had days when I couldn't walk, let alone write a rhyme.

Depressed means you need deep rest from the character you've been playing in the world.

Depression is a medical condition. We need to create a world where people are as comfortable seeking care for their minds as they are for their bodies.

Depression is a kind of constricted consciousness.

We cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever. We must stand up and move on to the next action.

And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in.

The fundamental delusion -- there is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.