WEBVTT 00:00:03.952 --> 00:00:07.814 "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, 00:00:07.838 --> 00:00:10.216 and Mourners to and fro 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:13.043 kept treading -- treading -- till [it seemed] 00:00:13.067 --> 00:00:15.386 that Sense was breaking through -- 00:00:15.836 --> 00:00:17.581 And when they all were seated, 00:00:17.605 --> 00:00:19.579 a Service, like a Drum -- 00:00:19.603 --> 00:00:23.055 kept beating -- beating -- till I [thought] 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:24.845 my Mind was going numb -- 00:00:25.831 --> 00:00:29.970 And then I heard them lift a Box and creak across my Soul 00:00:29.994 --> 00:00:33.029 with those same Boots of Lead, again, 00:00:33.053 --> 00:00:36.046 then Space -- began to toll, 00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:40.177 As [all] the Heavens were a Bell, and Being, [but] an Ear, 00:00:40.201 --> 00:00:43.260 and I, and Silence, some strange Race, 00:00:43.284 --> 00:00:45.864 wrecked, solitary, here -- 00:00:46.493 --> 00:00:49.646 [And] then a Plank in Reason, broke, 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:52.987 and I fell down and down -- 00:00:53.011 --> 00:00:55.662 and hit a World, at every plunge, 00:00:55.686 --> 00:00:58.245 and Finished knowing -- then --" NOTE Paragraph 00:01:00.198 --> 00:01:03.012 We know depression through metaphors. 00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:07.365 Emily Dickinson was able to convey it in language, 00:01:07.389 --> 00:01:09.704 Goya in an image. 00:01:10.238 --> 00:01:14.833 Half the purpose of art is to describe such iconic states. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:15.997 --> 00:01:19.851 As for me, I had always thought myself tough, 00:01:19.875 --> 00:01:21.677 one of the people who could survive 00:01:21.701 --> 00:01:24.024 if I'd been sent to a concentration camp. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:24.614 --> 00:01:27.279 In 1991, I had a series of losses. 00:01:27.676 --> 00:01:29.174 My mother died, 00:01:29.198 --> 00:01:31.300 a relationship I'd been in ended, 00:01:31.324 --> 00:01:35.244 I moved back to the United States from some years abroad, 00:01:35.268 --> 00:01:37.982 and I got through all of those experiences intact. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:38.617 --> 00:01:41.516 But in 1994, three years later, 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:45.282 I found myself losing interest in almost everything. 00:01:46.059 --> 00:01:49.935 I didn't want to do any of the things I had previously wanted to do, 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:51.419 and I didn't know why. 00:01:51.987 --> 00:01:56.548 The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality. 00:01:57.127 --> 00:01:58.571 And it was vitality 00:01:58.595 --> 00:02:01.558 that seemed to seep away from me in that moment. 00:02:02.231 --> 00:02:05.908 Everything there was to do seemed like too much work. 00:02:06.597 --> 00:02:08.034 I would come home 00:02:08.058 --> 00:02:11.386 and I would see the red light flashing on my answering machine, 00:02:11.410 --> 00:02:13.950 and instead of being thrilled to hear from my friends, 00:02:13.974 --> 00:02:15.163 I would think, 00:02:15.187 --> 00:02:17.782 "What a lot of people that is to have to call back." 00:02:18.368 --> 00:02:20.930 Or I would decide I should have lunch, 00:02:20.954 --> 00:02:23.691 and then I would think, but I'd have to get the food out 00:02:23.715 --> 00:02:25.477 and put it on a plate 00:02:25.501 --> 00:02:29.365 and cut it up and chew it and swallow it, 00:02:29.389 --> 00:02:32.723 and it felt to me like the Stations of the Cross. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:33.286 --> 00:02:37.419 And one of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression 00:02:37.443 --> 00:02:39.501 is that you know it's ridiculous. 00:02:39.801 --> 00:02:42.744 You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it. 00:02:42.768 --> 00:02:44.657 You know that most people manage 00:02:44.681 --> 00:02:46.971 to listen to their messages and eat lunch 00:02:46.995 --> 00:02:48.901 and organize themselves to take a shower 00:02:48.925 --> 00:02:50.143 and go out the front door 00:02:50.167 --> 00:02:51.795 and that it's not a big deal, 00:02:51.819 --> 00:02:54.961 and yet you are nonetheless in its grip 00:02:54.985 --> 00:02:58.422 and you are unable to figure out any way around it. 00:02:58.990 --> 00:03:03.212 And so I began to feel myself doing less 00:03:03.236 --> 00:03:05.522 and thinking less 00:03:05.546 --> 00:03:06.861 and feeling less. 00:03:07.829 --> 00:03:09.567 It was a kind of nullity. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:10.049 --> 00:03:12.044 And then the anxiety set in. 00:03:12.567 --> 00:03:16.259 If you told me that I'd have to be depressed for the next month, 00:03:16.283 --> 00:03:19.522 I would say, "As long I know it'll be over in November, I can do it." 00:03:19.546 --> 00:03:20.792 But if you said to me, 00:03:20.816 --> 00:03:24.129 "You have to have acute anxiety for the next month," 00:03:24.153 --> 00:03:26.472 I would rather slit my wrist than go through it. 00:03:26.496 --> 00:03:28.054 It was the feeling all the time 00:03:28.078 --> 00:03:30.282 like that feeling you have if you're walking 00:03:30.306 --> 00:03:33.827 and you slip or trip and the ground is rushing up at you, 00:03:33.851 --> 00:03:36.563 but instead of lasting half a second, the way that does, 00:03:36.587 --> 00:03:38.468 it lasted for six months. 00:03:38.492 --> 00:03:41.421 It's a sensation of being afraid all the time 00:03:41.445 --> 00:03:44.430 but not even knowing what it is that you're afraid of. 00:03:45.057 --> 00:03:47.668 And it was at that point that I began to think 00:03:47.692 --> 00:03:51.452 that it was just too painful to be alive, 00:03:51.476 --> 00:03:54.036 and that the only reason not to kill oneself 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:56.755 was so as not to hurt other people. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:57.295 --> 00:04:00.176 And finally one day, I woke up 00:04:00.200 --> 00:04:02.397 and I thought perhaps I'd had a stroke, 00:04:02.421 --> 00:04:04.915 because I lay in bed completely frozen, 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:06.864 looking at the telephone, thinking, 00:04:06.888 --> 00:04:10.427 "Something is wrong and I should call for help," 00:04:10.451 --> 00:04:12.162 and I couldn't reach out my arm 00:04:12.186 --> 00:04:14.428 and pick up the phone and dial. 00:04:14.801 --> 00:04:18.852 And finally, after four full hours of my lying and staring at it, 00:04:18.876 --> 00:04:20.140 the phone rang, 00:04:20.164 --> 00:04:22.543 and somehow I managed to pick it up, 00:04:22.567 --> 00:04:25.495 and it was my father, and I said, 00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:28.965 "I'm in serious trouble. We need to do something." NOTE Paragraph 00:04:29.528 --> 00:04:34.219 The next day I started with the medications and the therapy. 00:04:35.352 --> 00:04:39.555 And I also started reckoning with this terrible question: 00:04:39.579 --> 00:04:41.683 If I'm not the tough person 00:04:41.707 --> 00:04:44.207 who could have made it through a concentration camp, 00:04:44.231 --> 00:04:45.719 then who am I? 00:04:45.743 --> 00:04:47.604 And if I have to take medication, 00:04:47.628 --> 00:04:51.541 is that medication making me more fully myself, 00:04:51.565 --> 00:04:53.783 or is it making me someone else? 00:04:53.807 --> 00:04:57.267 And how do I feel about it if it's making me someone else? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:58.101 --> 00:05:01.005 I had two advantages as I went into the fight. 00:05:01.585 --> 00:05:04.256 The first is that I knew that, objectively speaking, 00:05:04.280 --> 00:05:05.877 I had a nice life, 00:05:05.901 --> 00:05:07.762 and that if I could only get well, 00:05:07.786 --> 00:05:10.986 there was something at the other end that was worth living for. 00:05:11.010 --> 00:05:13.827 And the other was that I had access to good treatment. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:14.343 --> 00:05:17.792 But I nonetheless emerged and relapsed, 00:05:17.816 --> 00:05:20.327 and emerged and relapsed, 00:05:20.351 --> 00:05:23.345 and emerged and relapsed, 00:05:23.369 --> 00:05:25.309 and finally understood 00:05:25.333 --> 00:05:29.254 I would have to be on medication and in therapy forever. 00:05:29.769 --> 00:05:30.936 And I thought, 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:33.746 "But is it a chemical problem or a psychological problem? 00:05:33.770 --> 00:05:37.703 And does it need a chemical cure or a philosophical cure?" 00:05:37.727 --> 00:05:39.854 And I couldn't figure out which it was. 00:05:39.878 --> 00:05:41.978 And then I understood that actually, 00:05:42.002 --> 00:05:45.989 we aren't advanced enough in either area for it to explain things fully. 00:05:46.013 --> 00:05:49.340 The chemical cure and the psychological cure 00:05:49.364 --> 00:05:51.038 both have a role to play, 00:05:51.062 --> 00:05:55.036 and I also figured out that depression was something 00:05:55.060 --> 00:05:57.284 that was braided so deep into us 00:05:57.308 --> 00:06:00.996 that there was no separating it from our character and personality. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:01.552 --> 00:06:06.014 I want to say that the treatments we have for depression are appalling. 00:06:06.038 --> 00:06:07.641 They're not very effective. 00:06:07.958 --> 00:06:09.728 They're extremely costly. 00:06:09.752 --> 00:06:12.249 They come with innumerable side effects. 00:06:12.273 --> 00:06:13.710 They're a disaster. 00:06:14.027 --> 00:06:18.694 But I am so grateful that I live now and not 50 years ago, 00:06:18.718 --> 00:06:21.638 when there would have been almost nothing to be done. 00:06:21.662 --> 00:06:24.045 I hope that 50 years hence, 00:06:24.069 --> 00:06:26.091 people will hear about my treatments 00:06:26.115 --> 00:06:29.783 and be appalled that anyone endured such primitive science. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:30.885 --> 00:06:34.127 Depression is the flaw in love. 00:06:35.441 --> 00:06:38.558 If you were married to someone and thought, 00:06:38.582 --> 00:06:42.292 "Well, if my wife dies, I'll find another one," 00:06:42.316 --> 00:06:44.565 it wouldn't be love as we know it. 00:06:45.364 --> 00:06:49.931 There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss, 00:06:49.955 --> 00:06:55.511 and that specter of despair can be the engine of intimacy. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:56.204 --> 00:06:59.035 There are three things people tend to confuse: 00:06:59.059 --> 00:07:02.148 depression, grief and sadness. 00:07:02.966 --> 00:07:06.305 Grief is explicitly reactive. 00:07:06.329 --> 00:07:09.210 If you have a loss and you feel incredibly unhappy, 00:07:09.234 --> 00:07:10.909 and then, six months later, 00:07:10.933 --> 00:07:14.018 you are still deeply sad, but you're functioning a little better, 00:07:14.042 --> 00:07:15.827 it's probably grief, 00:07:15.851 --> 00:07:19.586 and it will probably ultimately resolve itself in some measure. 00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:22.415 If you experience a catastrophic loss, 00:07:22.439 --> 00:07:23.741 and you feel terrible, 00:07:23.765 --> 00:07:26.554 and six months later you can barely function at all, 00:07:26.578 --> 00:07:29.092 then it's probably a depression that was triggered 00:07:29.116 --> 00:07:31.299 by the catastrophic circumstances. 00:07:31.648 --> 00:07:34.818 The trajectory tells us a great deal. 00:07:35.196 --> 00:07:38.556 People think of depression as being just sadness. 00:07:38.580 --> 00:07:40.751 It's much, much too much sadness, 00:07:40.775 --> 00:07:42.526 much too much grief 00:07:42.550 --> 00:07:44.659 at far too slight a cause. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:48.255 As I set out to understand depression, 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:50.926 and to interview people who had experienced it, 00:07:50.950 --> 00:07:54.743 I found that there were people who seemed, on the surface, 00:07:54.767 --> 00:07:57.980 to have what sounded like relatively mild depression 00:07:58.004 --> 00:08:00.742 who were nonetheless utterly disabled by it. 00:08:01.297 --> 00:08:03.710 And there were other people who had what sounded 00:08:03.734 --> 00:08:06.796 as they described it like terribly severe depression 00:08:06.820 --> 00:08:08.560 who nonetheless had good lives 00:08:08.584 --> 00:08:11.290 in the interstices between their depressive episodes. 00:08:11.885 --> 00:08:15.850 And I set out to find out what it is that causes some people 00:08:15.874 --> 00:08:18.103 to be more resilient than other people. 00:08:18.127 --> 00:08:21.343 What are the mechanisms that allow people to survive? 00:08:21.652 --> 00:08:24.850 And I went out and I interviewed person after person 00:08:24.874 --> 00:08:26.850 who was suffering with depression. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:26.874 --> 00:08:29.065 One of the first people I interviewed 00:08:29.089 --> 00:08:33.943 described depression as a slower way of being dead, 00:08:33.967 --> 00:08:36.301 and that was a good thing for me to hear early on 00:08:36.325 --> 00:08:39.432 because it reminded me that that slow way of being dead 00:08:39.456 --> 00:08:41.736 can lead to actual deadness, 00:08:41.760 --> 00:08:43.717 that this is a serious business. 00:08:43.741 --> 00:08:46.130 It's the leading disability worldwide, 00:08:46.154 --> 00:08:48.236 and people die of it every day. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:49.184 --> 00:08:52.903 One of the people I talked to when I was trying to understand this 00:08:52.927 --> 00:08:56.788 was a beloved friend who I had known for many years, 00:08:56.812 --> 00:09:01.265 and who had had a psychotic episode in her freshman year of college, 00:09:01.289 --> 00:09:04.091 and then plummeted into a horrific depression. 00:09:04.115 --> 00:09:05.754 She had bipolar illness, 00:09:05.778 --> 00:09:08.265 or manic depression, as it was then known. 00:09:08.289 --> 00:09:12.074 And then she did very well for many years on lithium, 00:09:12.098 --> 00:09:15.247 and then eventually, she was taken off her lithium 00:09:15.271 --> 00:09:17.082 to see how she would do without it, 00:09:17.106 --> 00:09:19.057 and she had another psychosis, 00:09:19.081 --> 00:09:23.441 and then plunged into the worst depression that I had ever seen 00:09:23.465 --> 00:09:26.282 in which she sat in her parents' apartment, 00:09:26.306 --> 00:09:29.578 more or less catatonic, essentially without moving, 00:09:29.602 --> 00:09:31.515 day after day after day. 00:09:31.943 --> 00:09:35.427 And when I interviewed her about that experience some years later -- 00:09:35.451 --> 00:09:38.552 she's a poet and psychotherapist named Maggie Robbins -- 00:09:38.576 --> 00:09:41.622 when I interviewed her, she said, 00:09:41.646 --> 00:09:45.165 "I was singing 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone,' 00:09:45.189 --> 00:09:48.086 over and over, to occupy my mind. 00:09:48.555 --> 00:09:51.351 I was singing to blot out the things my mind was saying, 00:09:51.375 --> 00:09:56.135 which were, 'You are nothing. You are nobody. 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:58.090 You don't even deserve to live.' 00:09:58.691 --> 00:10:01.097 And that was when I really started thinking 00:10:01.121 --> 00:10:02.475 about killing myself." NOTE Paragraph 00:10:03.193 --> 00:10:07.103 You don't think in depression that you've put on a gray veil 00:10:07.127 --> 00:10:10.491 and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. 00:10:11.001 --> 00:10:13.991 You think that the veil has been taken away, 00:10:14.015 --> 00:10:15.619 the veil of happiness, 00:10:15.643 --> 00:10:17.580 and that now you're seeing truly. 00:10:18.247 --> 00:10:21.007 It's easier to help schizophrenics who perceive 00:10:21.031 --> 00:10:25.005 that there's something foreign inside of them that needs to be exorcised, 00:10:25.029 --> 00:10:27.355 but it's difficult with depressives, 00:10:27.379 --> 00:10:30.181 because we believe we are seeing the truth. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:31.040 --> 00:10:32.585 But the truth lies. 00:10:33.987 --> 00:10:35.961 I became obsessed with that sentence: 00:10:35.985 --> 00:10:38.117 "But the truth lies." 00:10:38.435 --> 00:10:40.875 And I discovered, as I talked to depressive people, 00:10:40.899 --> 00:10:43.471 that they have many delusional perceptions. 00:10:43.815 --> 00:10:45.553 People will say, "No one loves me." 00:10:45.577 --> 00:10:46.789 And you say, "I love you, 00:10:46.813 --> 00:10:49.311 your wife loves you, your mother loves you." 00:10:49.335 --> 00:10:52.696 You can answer that one pretty readily, at least for most people. 00:10:53.124 --> 00:10:55.290 But people who are depressed will also say, 00:10:55.314 --> 00:10:59.361 "No matter what we do, we're all just going to die in the end." 00:10:59.385 --> 00:11:01.614 Or they'll say, "There can be no true communion 00:11:01.638 --> 00:11:03.000 between two human beings. 00:11:03.024 --> 00:11:05.408 Each of us is trapped in his own body." 00:11:05.805 --> 00:11:07.425 To which you have to say, 00:11:07.449 --> 00:11:08.928 "That's true, 00:11:08.952 --> 00:11:12.460 but I think we should focus right now on what to have for breakfast." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:12.484 --> 00:11:14.645 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:14.669 --> 00:11:16.314 A lot of the time, 00:11:16.338 --> 00:11:19.312 what they are expressing is not illness, but insight, 00:11:19.336 --> 00:11:21.867 and one comes to think what's really extraordinary 00:11:21.891 --> 00:11:25.023 is that most of us know about those existential questions 00:11:25.047 --> 00:11:27.091 and they don't distract us very much. 00:11:27.428 --> 00:11:29.250 There was a study I particularly liked 00:11:29.274 --> 00:11:33.017 in which a group of depressed and a group of non-depressed people 00:11:33.041 --> 00:11:35.765 were asked to play a video game for an hour, 00:11:35.789 --> 00:11:37.409 and at the end of the hour, 00:11:37.433 --> 00:11:41.043 they were asked how many little monsters they thought they had killed. 00:11:41.067 --> 00:11:45.052 The depressive group was usually accurate to within about 10 percent, 00:11:45.076 --> 00:11:46.647 and the non-depressed people 00:11:46.671 --> 00:11:51.125 guessed between 15 and 20 times as many little monsters -- NOTE Paragraph 00:11:51.149 --> 00:11:52.300 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:52.324 --> 00:11:54.076 as they had actually killed. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:55.945 --> 00:11:59.161 A lot of people said, when I chose to write about my depression, 00:11:59.185 --> 00:12:02.650 that it must be very difficult to be out of that closet, 00:12:02.674 --> 00:12:03.983 to have people know. 00:12:04.007 --> 00:12:06.276 They said, "Do people talk to you differently?" 00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:08.379 I said, "Yes, people talk to me differently. 00:12:08.403 --> 00:12:10.165 They talk to me differently insofar 00:12:10.189 --> 00:12:12.856 as they start telling me about their experience, 00:12:12.880 --> 00:12:14.691 or their sister's experience, 00:12:14.715 --> 00:12:16.356 or their friend's experience. 00:12:16.729 --> 00:12:18.927 Things are different because now I know 00:12:18.951 --> 00:12:23.056 that depression is the family secret that everyone has. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:23.715 --> 00:12:27.341 I went a few years ago to a conference, 00:12:27.365 --> 00:12:29.796 and on Friday of the three-day conference, 00:12:29.820 --> 00:12:32.825 one of the participants took me aside, and she said, 00:12:32.849 --> 00:12:39.098 "I suffer from depression and I'm a little embarrassed about it, 00:12:39.122 --> 00:12:40.964 but I've been taking this medication, 00:12:40.988 --> 00:12:44.102 and I just wanted to ask you what you think?" 00:12:44.126 --> 00:12:46.746 And so I did my best to give her such advice as I could. 00:12:46.770 --> 00:12:51.257 And then she said, "You know, my husband would never understand this. 00:12:51.281 --> 00:12:54.549 He's really the kind of guy to whom this wouldn't make any sense, 00:12:54.573 --> 00:12:56.697 so, you know, it's just between us." 00:12:56.721 --> 00:12:58.273 And I said, "Yes, that's fine." 00:12:58.733 --> 00:13:00.592 On Sunday of the same conference, 00:13:00.616 --> 00:13:02.492 her husband took me aside, NOTE Paragraph 00:13:02.516 --> 00:13:03.830 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:03.854 --> 00:13:05.615 and he said, "My wife wouldn't think 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:07.950 that I was really much of a guy if she knew this, 00:13:07.974 --> 00:13:11.732 but I've been dealing with this depression and I'm taking some medication, 00:13:11.756 --> 00:13:14.181 and I wondered what you think?" 00:13:14.205 --> 00:13:16.495 They were hiding the same medication 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.894 in two different places in the same bedroom. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:19.918 --> 00:13:21.116 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:21.140 --> 00:13:24.078 And I said that I thought communication within the marriage 00:13:24.102 --> 00:13:26.150 might be triggering some of their problems. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:26.174 --> 00:13:28.666 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:30.593 --> 00:13:32.156 But I was also struck 00:13:32.180 --> 00:13:35.698 by the burdensome nature of such mutual secrecy. 00:13:36.141 --> 00:13:38.002 Depression is so exhausting. 00:13:38.026 --> 00:13:40.972 It takes up so much of your time and energy, 00:13:40.996 --> 00:13:42.527 and silence about it, 00:13:42.551 --> 00:13:44.808 it really does make the depression worse. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:45.276 --> 00:13:46.485 And then I began thinking 00:13:46.509 --> 00:13:48.832 about all the ways people make themselves better. 00:13:48.856 --> 00:13:51.317 I'd started off as a medical conservative. 00:13:51.341 --> 00:13:53.975 I thought there were a few kinds of therapy that worked, 00:13:53.999 --> 00:13:55.444 it was clear what they were -- 00:13:55.468 --> 00:13:56.968 there was medication, 00:13:56.992 --> 00:13:58.659 there were certain psychotherapies, 00:13:58.683 --> 00:14:01.104 there was possibly electroconvulsive treatment, 00:14:01.128 --> 00:14:03.717 and that everything else was nonsense. 00:14:03.741 --> 00:14:05.669 But then I discovered something. 00:14:05.693 --> 00:14:07.326 If you have brain cancer, 00:14:07.350 --> 00:14:10.538 and you say that standing on your head for 20 minutes every morning 00:14:10.562 --> 00:14:11.715 makes you feel better, 00:14:11.739 --> 00:14:14.717 it may make you feel better, but you still have brain cancer, 00:14:14.741 --> 00:14:16.814 and you'll still probably die from it. 00:14:17.387 --> 00:14:19.673 But if you say that you have depression, 00:14:19.697 --> 00:14:22.037 and standing on your head for 20 minutes every day 00:14:22.061 --> 00:14:24.257 makes you feel better, then it's worked, 00:14:24.281 --> 00:14:26.722 because depression is an illness of how you feel, 00:14:26.746 --> 00:14:28.076 and if you feel better, 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:30.659 then you are effectively not depressed anymore. 00:14:31.112 --> 00:14:33.199 So I became much more tolerant 00:14:33.223 --> 00:14:35.611 of the vast world of alternative treatments. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:35.936 --> 00:14:38.248 And I get letters, I get hundreds of letters 00:14:38.272 --> 00:14:41.082 from people writing to tell me about what's worked for them. 00:14:41.106 --> 00:14:44.671 Someone was asking me backstage today about meditation. 00:14:44.695 --> 00:14:48.367 My favorite of the letters that I got was the one that came from a woman 00:14:48.391 --> 00:14:51.312 who wrote and said that she had tried therapy, medication, 00:14:51.336 --> 00:14:53.166 she had tried pretty much everything, 00:14:53.190 --> 00:14:56.096 and she had found a solution and hoped I would tell the world, 00:14:56.120 --> 00:14:59.692 and that was making little things from yarn. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:59.716 --> 00:15:02.609 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:02.633 --> 00:15:04.169 She sent me some of them. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:04.193 --> 00:15:06.223 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:06.247 --> 00:15:08.112 And I'm not wearing them right now. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:08.136 --> 00:15:09.286 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:09.845 --> 00:15:12.336 I suggested to her that she also should look up 00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:15.766 obsessive compulsive disorder in the DSM. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:16.979 --> 00:15:19.669 And yet, when I went to look at alternative treatments, 00:15:19.693 --> 00:15:22.121 I also gained perspective on other treatments. 00:15:22.605 --> 00:15:25.323 I went through a tribal exorcism in Senegal 00:15:25.347 --> 00:15:27.336 that involved a great deal of ram's blood 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:29.398 and that I'm not going to detail right now, 00:15:29.422 --> 00:15:31.422 but a few years afterwards I was in Rwanda, 00:15:31.446 --> 00:15:33.343 working on a different project, 00:15:33.367 --> 00:15:35.952 and I happened to describe my experience to someone, 00:15:35.976 --> 00:15:37.135 and he said, 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:39.617 "Well, that's West Africa, and we're in East Africa, 00:15:39.641 --> 00:15:41.898 and our rituals are in some ways very different, 00:15:41.922 --> 00:15:43.223 but we do have some rituals 00:15:43.247 --> 00:15:46.047 that have something in common with what you're describing." 00:15:46.071 --> 00:15:47.238 And he said, 00:15:47.262 --> 00:15:50.473 "But we've had a lot of trouble with Western mental health workers, 00:15:50.497 --> 00:15:53.115 especially the ones who came right after the genocide." 00:15:53.139 --> 00:15:55.189 I said, "What kind of trouble did you have?" 00:15:55.213 --> 00:15:58.965 And he said, "Well, they would do this bizarre thing. 00:15:58.989 --> 00:16:01.037 They didn't take people out in the sunshine 00:16:01.061 --> 00:16:02.550 where you begin to feel better. 00:16:02.574 --> 00:16:05.726 They didn't include drumming or music to get people's blood going. 00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:07.656 They didn't involve the whole community. 00:16:07.680 --> 00:16:10.916 They didn't externalize the depression as an invasive spirit. 00:16:10.940 --> 00:16:15.953 Instead what they did was they took people one at a time into dingy little rooms 00:16:15.977 --> 00:16:17.358 and had them talk for an hour 00:16:17.382 --> 00:16:19.526 about bad things that had happened to them." NOTE Paragraph 00:16:19.550 --> 00:16:21.593 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:21.617 --> 00:16:24.986 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:25.010 --> 00:16:27.439 He said, "We had to ask them to leave the country." NOTE Paragraph 00:16:27.463 --> 00:16:30.405 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:16:30.429 --> 00:16:33.007 Now at the other end of alternative treatments, 00:16:33.031 --> 00:16:35.126 let me tell you about Frank Russakoff. 00:16:35.150 --> 00:16:40.852 Frank Russakoff had the worst depression perhaps that I've ever seen in a man. 00:16:40.876 --> 00:16:42.845 He was constantly depressed. 00:16:42.869 --> 00:16:44.314 He was, when I met him, 00:16:44.338 --> 00:16:48.144 at a point at which every month, he would have electroshock treatment. 00:16:48.168 --> 00:16:50.719 Then he would feel sort of disoriented for a week. 00:16:50.743 --> 00:16:52.522 Then he would feel okay for a week. 00:16:52.546 --> 00:16:54.640 Then he would have a week of going downhill. 00:16:54.664 --> 00:16:57.254 And then he would have another electroshock treatment. 00:16:57.278 --> 00:16:58.851 And he said to me when I met him, 00:16:58.875 --> 00:17:01.240 "It's unbearable to go through my weeks this way. 00:17:01.264 --> 00:17:02.711 I can't go on this way, 00:17:02.735 --> 00:17:04.845 and I've figured out how I'm going to end it 00:17:04.869 --> 00:17:06.202 if I don't get better." 00:17:06.226 --> 00:17:10.328 "But," he said to me, "I heard about a protocol at Mass General 00:17:10.352 --> 00:17:13.574 for a procedure called a cingulotomy, which is a brain surgery, 00:17:13.598 --> 00:17:15.867 and I think I'm going to give that a try." 00:17:15.891 --> 00:17:19.184 And I remember being amazed at that point to think that someone 00:17:19.208 --> 00:17:22.205 who clearly had so many bad experiences 00:17:22.229 --> 00:17:24.365 with so many different treatments 00:17:24.389 --> 00:17:27.429 still had buried in him, somewhere, enough optimism 00:17:27.453 --> 00:17:29.238 to reach out for one more. 00:17:29.760 --> 00:17:33.957 And he had the cingulotomy, and it was incredibly successful. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:33.981 --> 00:17:35.593 He's now a friend of mine. 00:17:35.617 --> 00:17:38.942 He has a lovely wife and two beautiful children. 00:17:38.966 --> 00:17:41.891 He wrote me a letter the Christmas after the surgery, 00:17:41.915 --> 00:17:43.080 and he said, 00:17:43.104 --> 00:17:45.707 "My father sent me two presents this year, 00:17:45.731 --> 00:17:48.258 First, a motorized CD rack from The Sharper Image 00:17:48.282 --> 00:17:49.680 that I didn't really need, 00:17:49.704 --> 00:17:51.941 but I knew he was giving it to me to celebrate 00:17:51.965 --> 00:17:55.214 the fact that I'm living on my own and have a job I seem to love. 00:17:55.635 --> 00:17:58.876 And the other present was a photo of my grandmother, 00:17:58.900 --> 00:18:00.376 who committed suicide. 00:18:00.955 --> 00:18:03.860 As I unwrapped it, I began to cry, 00:18:03.884 --> 00:18:05.741 and my mother came over and said, 00:18:05.765 --> 00:18:08.757 'Are you crying because of the relatives you never knew?' 00:18:09.162 --> 00:18:12.710 And I said, 'She had the same disease I have.' 00:18:13.242 --> 00:18:15.854 I'm crying now as I write to you. 00:18:15.878 --> 00:18:19.165 It's not that I'm so sad, but I get overwhelmed, 00:18:19.189 --> 00:18:21.386 I think, because I could have killed myself, 00:18:21.410 --> 00:18:24.838 but my parents kept me going, and so did the doctors, 00:18:24.862 --> 00:18:26.692 and I had the surgery. 00:18:26.716 --> 00:18:28.798 I'm alive and grateful. 00:18:29.531 --> 00:18:34.132 We live in the right time, even if it doesn't always feel like it." NOTE Paragraph 00:18:35.856 --> 00:18:37.775 I was struck by the fact that depression 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:42.805 is broadly perceived to be a modern, Western, middle-class thing, 00:18:42.829 --> 00:18:46.960 and I went to look at how it operated in a variety of other contexts, 00:18:46.984 --> 00:18:49.175 and one of the things I was most interested in 00:18:49.199 --> 00:18:51.114 was depression among the indigent. 00:18:51.138 --> 00:18:52.686 And so I went out to try to look 00:18:52.710 --> 00:18:55.463 at what was being done for poor people with depression. 00:18:55.487 --> 00:18:57.614 And what I discovered is that poor people 00:18:57.638 --> 00:19:00.166 are mostly not being treated for depression. 00:19:00.190 --> 00:19:02.864 Depression is the result of a genetic vulnerability, 00:19:02.888 --> 00:19:06.238 which is presumably evenly distributed in the population, 00:19:06.262 --> 00:19:07.975 and triggering circumstances, 00:19:07.999 --> 00:19:11.753 which are likely to be more severe for people who are impoverished. 00:19:11.777 --> 00:19:15.280 And yet it turns out that if you have a really lovely life 00:19:15.304 --> 00:19:16.886 but feel miserable all the time, 00:19:16.910 --> 00:19:18.696 you think, "Why do I feel like this? 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:19.989 I must have depression." 00:19:20.013 --> 00:19:22.149 And you set out to find treatment for it. 00:19:22.173 --> 00:19:24.105 But if you have a perfectly awful life, 00:19:24.129 --> 00:19:25.872 and you feel miserable all the time, 00:19:25.896 --> 00:19:28.906 the way you feel is commensurate with your life, 00:19:28.930 --> 00:19:30.785 and it doesn't occur to you to think, 00:19:30.809 --> 00:19:32.346 "Maybe this is treatable." NOTE Paragraph 00:19:32.370 --> 00:19:35.572 And so we have an epidemic in this country 00:19:35.596 --> 00:19:38.254 of depression among impoverished people 00:19:38.278 --> 00:19:40.850 that's not being picked up and that's not being treated 00:19:40.874 --> 00:19:42.822 and that's not being addressed, 00:19:42.846 --> 00:19:44.917 and it's a tragedy of a grand order. 00:19:45.219 --> 00:19:46.819 And so I found an academic 00:19:46.843 --> 00:19:50.068 who was doing a research project in slums outside of D.C., 00:19:50.092 --> 00:19:53.235 where she picked up women who had come in for other health problems 00:19:53.259 --> 00:19:55.014 and diagnosed them with depression, 00:19:55.038 --> 00:19:58.110 and then provided six months of the experimental protocol. 00:19:58.134 --> 00:20:00.439 One of them, Lolly, came in, 00:20:00.463 --> 00:20:02.736 and this is what she said the day she came in. 00:20:03.069 --> 00:20:07.634 She said, and she was a woman, by the way, who had seven children. 00:20:07.658 --> 00:20:10.443 She said, "I used to have a job but I had to give it up 00:20:10.467 --> 00:20:12.682 because I couldn't go out of the house. 00:20:13.134 --> 00:20:15.074 I have nothing to say to my children. 00:20:15.447 --> 00:20:17.929 In the morning, I can't wait for them to leave, 00:20:17.953 --> 00:20:21.155 and then I climb in bed and pull the covers over my head, 00:20:21.179 --> 00:20:23.054 and three o'clock when they come home, 00:20:23.078 --> 00:20:24.520 it just comes so fast." 00:20:24.544 --> 00:20:26.838 She said, "I've been taking a lot of Tylenol, 00:20:26.862 --> 00:20:29.365 anything I can take so that I can sleep more. 00:20:29.389 --> 00:20:33.386 My husband has been telling me I'm stupid, I'm ugly. 00:20:33.410 --> 00:20:36.164 I wish I could stop the pain." NOTE Paragraph 00:20:36.935 --> 00:20:39.531 Well, she was brought into this experimental protocol, 00:20:39.555 --> 00:20:41.746 and when I interviewed her six months later, 00:20:41.770 --> 00:20:45.995 she had taken a job working in childcare 00:20:46.019 --> 00:20:50.069 for the U.S. Navy, she had left the abusive husband, 00:20:50.093 --> 00:20:52.116 and she said to me, 00:20:52.140 --> 00:20:54.395 "My kids are so much happier now." 00:20:54.419 --> 00:20:57.101 She said, "There's one room in my new place for the boys 00:20:57.125 --> 00:20:59.012 and one room for the girls, 00:20:59.036 --> 00:21:01.375 but at night, they're just all up on my bed, 00:21:01.399 --> 00:21:03.987 and we're doing homework all together and everything. 00:21:04.011 --> 00:21:05.685 One of them wants to be a preacher, 00:21:05.709 --> 00:21:07.602 one of them wants to be a firefighter, 00:21:07.626 --> 00:21:10.326 and one of the girls says she's going to be a lawyer. 00:21:10.350 --> 00:21:12.554 They don't cry like they used to, 00:21:12.578 --> 00:21:14.388 and they don't fight like they did. 00:21:15.144 --> 00:21:17.969 That's all I need now, is my kids. 00:21:18.826 --> 00:21:20.771 Things keep on changing, 00:21:20.795 --> 00:21:25.171 the way I dress, the way I feel, the way I act. 00:21:25.909 --> 00:21:29.710 I can go outside not being afraid anymore, 00:21:29.734 --> 00:21:33.222 and I don't think those bad feelings are coming back, 00:21:33.246 --> 00:21:36.182 and if it weren't for Dr. Miranda and that, 00:21:36.206 --> 00:21:39.728 I would still be at home with the covers pulled over my head, 00:21:39.752 --> 00:21:41.605 if I were still alive at all. 00:21:42.097 --> 00:21:45.603 I asked the Lord to send me an angel, 00:21:45.627 --> 00:21:47.404 and He heard my prayers." NOTE Paragraph 00:21:50.308 --> 00:21:53.288 I was really moved by these experiences, 00:21:53.312 --> 00:21:55.827 and I decided that I wanted to write about them 00:21:55.851 --> 00:21:58.668 not only in a book I was working on, but also in an article, 00:21:58.692 --> 00:22:01.271 and I got a commission from The New York Times Magazine 00:22:01.295 --> 00:22:03.414 to write about depression among the indigent. NOTE Paragraph 00:22:03.438 --> 00:22:04.675 And I turned in my story, 00:22:04.699 --> 00:22:08.159 and my editor called me and said, "We really can't publish this." NOTE Paragraph 00:22:08.668 --> 00:22:09.827 And I said, "Why not?" NOTE Paragraph 00:22:09.851 --> 00:22:11.922 And she said, "It just is too far-fetched. 00:22:11.946 --> 00:22:15.609 These people who are sort of at the very bottom rung of society 00:22:15.633 --> 00:22:17.648 and then they get a few months of treatment 00:22:17.672 --> 00:22:20.045 and they're virtually ready to run Morgan Stanley? 00:22:20.069 --> 00:22:21.585 It's just too implausible." 00:22:22.013 --> 00:22:24.594 She said, "I've never even heard of anything like it." NOTE Paragraph 00:22:24.618 --> 00:22:27.071 And I said, "The fact that you've never heard of it 00:22:27.095 --> 00:22:29.198 is an indication that it is news." NOTE Paragraph 00:22:29.907 --> 00:22:33.930 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:22:33.954 --> 00:22:37.293 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:22:37.317 --> 00:22:39.434 "And you are a news magazine." NOTE Paragraph 00:22:39.950 --> 00:22:43.010 So after a certain amount of negotiation, they agreed to it. 00:22:43.034 --> 00:22:46.920 But I think a lot of what they said was connected in some strange way 00:22:46.944 --> 00:22:50.525 to this distaste that people still have for the idea of treatment, 00:22:50.549 --> 00:22:52.407 the notion that somehow if we went out 00:22:52.431 --> 00:22:55.254 and treated a lot of people in indigent communities, 00:22:55.278 --> 00:22:57.134 that would be exploitative, 00:22:57.158 --> 00:22:58.856 because we would be changing them. 00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:02.687 There is this false moral imperative that seems to be all around us, 00:23:02.711 --> 00:23:04.819 that treatment of depression, 00:23:04.843 --> 00:23:07.118 the medications and so on, are an artifice, 00:23:07.142 --> 00:23:09.465 and that it's not natural. 00:23:09.489 --> 00:23:12.432 And I think that's very misguided. 00:23:12.456 --> 00:23:15.789 It would be natural for people's teeth to fall out, 00:23:15.813 --> 00:23:19.001 but there is nobody militating against toothpaste, 00:23:19.025 --> 00:23:20.495 at least not in my circles. NOTE Paragraph 00:23:21.915 --> 00:23:23.159 People then say, 00:23:23.183 --> 00:23:26.444 "But isn't depression part of what people are supposed to experience? 00:23:26.468 --> 00:23:28.200 Didn't we evolve to have depression? 00:23:28.224 --> 00:23:29.975 Isn't it part of your personality?" 00:23:29.999 --> 00:23:32.438 To which I would say, mood is adaptive. 00:23:32.462 --> 00:23:35.539 Being able to have sadness and fear 00:23:35.563 --> 00:23:37.469 and joy and pleasure 00:23:37.493 --> 00:23:41.248 and all of the other moods that we have, that's incredibly valuable. 00:23:41.272 --> 00:23:43.186 And major depression 00:23:43.210 --> 00:23:46.572 is something that happens when that system gets broken. 00:23:46.596 --> 00:23:48.200 It's maladaptive. NOTE Paragraph 00:23:48.224 --> 00:23:49.839 People will come to me and say, 00:23:49.863 --> 00:23:52.665 "I think, though, if I just stick it out for another year, 00:23:52.689 --> 00:23:54.542 I think I can just get through this." NOTE Paragraph 00:23:54.566 --> 00:23:57.090 And I always say to them, "You may get through it, 00:23:57.114 --> 00:23:59.304 but you'll never be 37 again. 00:23:59.733 --> 00:24:03.442 Life is short, and that's a whole year you're talking about giving up. 00:24:03.982 --> 00:24:05.133 Think it through." NOTE Paragraph 00:24:05.694 --> 00:24:08.342 It's a strange poverty of the English language, 00:24:08.366 --> 00:24:10.450 and indeed of many other languages, 00:24:10.474 --> 00:24:12.844 that we use this same word, depression, 00:24:12.868 --> 00:24:16.582 to describe how a kid feels when it rains on his birthday, 00:24:16.606 --> 00:24:20.965 and to describe how somebody feels the minute before they commit suicide. NOTE Paragraph 00:24:21.495 --> 00:24:24.501 People say to me, "Well, is it continuous with normal sadness?" 00:24:24.525 --> 00:24:27.632 And I say, in a way it's continuous with normal sadness. 00:24:27.656 --> 00:24:29.830 There is a certain amount of continuity, 00:24:29.854 --> 00:24:31.791 but it's the same way there's continuity 00:24:31.815 --> 00:24:34.021 between having an iron fence outside your house 00:24:34.045 --> 00:24:35.465 that gets a little rust spot 00:24:35.489 --> 00:24:38.087 that you have to sand off and do a little repainting, 00:24:38.111 --> 00:24:40.939 and what happens if you leave the house for 100 years 00:24:40.963 --> 00:24:44.762 and it rusts through until it's only a pile of orange dust. 00:24:45.082 --> 00:24:46.935 And it's that orange dust spot, 00:24:46.959 --> 00:24:48.724 that orange dust problem, 00:24:48.748 --> 00:24:51.334 that's the one we're setting out to address. NOTE Paragraph 00:24:52.040 --> 00:24:54.254 So now people say, 00:24:54.278 --> 00:24:56.957 "You take these happy pills, and do you feel happy?" 00:24:56.981 --> 00:24:58.171 And I don't. 00:24:58.594 --> 00:25:01.562 But I don't feel sad about having to eat lunch, 00:25:01.586 --> 00:25:04.427 and I don't feel sad about my answering machine, 00:25:04.451 --> 00:25:06.649 and I don't feel sad about taking a shower. 00:25:07.324 --> 00:25:09.927 I feel more, in fact, I think, 00:25:09.951 --> 00:25:12.357 because I can feel sadness without nullity. 00:25:12.704 --> 00:25:16.910 I feel sad about professional disappointments, 00:25:16.934 --> 00:25:19.218 about damaged relationships, 00:25:19.242 --> 00:25:20.759 about global warming. 00:25:21.114 --> 00:25:23.815 Those are the things that I feel sad about now. 00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:26.549 And I said to myself, well, what is the conclusion? 00:25:26.573 --> 00:25:29.110 How did those people who have better lives 00:25:29.134 --> 00:25:31.664 even with bigger depression manage to get through? 00:25:31.964 --> 00:25:34.115 What is the mechanism of resilience? NOTE Paragraph 00:25:34.583 --> 00:25:36.545 And what I came up with over time 00:25:36.569 --> 00:25:39.395 was that the people who deny their experience, 00:25:39.419 --> 00:25:41.435 and say, "I was depressed a long time ago, 00:25:41.459 --> 00:25:43.230 I never want to think about it again, 00:25:43.254 --> 00:25:44.548 I'm not going to look at it 00:25:44.572 --> 00:25:46.595 and I'm just going to get on with my life," 00:25:46.619 --> 00:25:51.217 ironically, those are the people who are most enslaved by what they have. 00:25:51.241 --> 00:25:53.439 Shutting out the depression strengthens it. 00:25:53.780 --> 00:25:56.470 While you hide from it, it grows. 00:25:57.185 --> 00:25:59.723 And the people who do better 00:25:59.747 --> 00:26:04.300 are the ones who are able to tolerate the fact that they have this condition. 00:26:04.324 --> 00:26:08.196 Those who can tolerate their depression are the ones who achieve resilience. NOTE Paragraph 00:26:08.516 --> 00:26:10.128 So Frank Russakoff said to me, 00:26:10.152 --> 00:26:13.874 "If I had a do-over, I suppose I wouldn't do it this way, 00:26:13.898 --> 00:26:17.366 but in a strange way, I'm grateful for what I've experienced. 00:26:17.390 --> 00:26:20.714 I'm glad to have been in the hospital 40 times. 00:26:21.023 --> 00:26:23.634 It taught me so much about love, 00:26:23.658 --> 00:26:26.579 and my relationship with my parents and my doctors 00:26:26.603 --> 00:26:30.149 has been so precious to me, and will be always." NOTE Paragraph 00:26:30.772 --> 00:26:32.674 And Maggie Robbins said, 00:26:32.698 --> 00:26:35.663 "I used to volunteer in an AIDS clinic, 00:26:35.687 --> 00:26:38.677 and I would just talk and talk and talk, 00:26:38.701 --> 00:26:42.734 and the people I was dealing with weren't very responsive, and I thought, 00:26:42.758 --> 00:26:45.254 'That's not very friendly or helpful of them.'" NOTE Paragraph 00:26:45.278 --> 00:26:46.518 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:26:46.542 --> 00:26:48.160 "And then I realized, 00:26:48.184 --> 00:26:50.327 I realized that they weren't going to do more 00:26:50.351 --> 00:26:52.834 than make those first few minutes of small talk. 00:26:52.858 --> 00:26:54.897 It was simply going to be an occasion 00:26:54.921 --> 00:26:57.870 where I didn't have AIDS and I wasn't dying, 00:26:57.894 --> 00:27:00.772 but could tolerate the fact that they did 00:27:00.796 --> 00:27:02.011 and they were. 00:27:02.503 --> 00:27:05.646 Our needs are our greatest assets. 00:27:06.202 --> 00:27:10.367 It turns out I've learned to give all the things I need." NOTE Paragraph 00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:16.021 Valuing one's depression does not prevent a relapse, 00:27:16.045 --> 00:27:18.682 but it may make the prospect of relapse 00:27:18.706 --> 00:27:22.219 and even relapse itself easier to tolerate. 00:27:23.004 --> 00:27:26.662 The question is not so much of finding great meaning 00:27:26.686 --> 00:27:29.257 and deciding your depression has been very meaningful. 00:27:29.281 --> 00:27:33.272 It's of seeking that meaning and thinking, when it comes again, 00:27:33.296 --> 00:27:36.613 "This will be hellish, but I will learn something from it." 00:27:37.487 --> 00:27:39.727 I have learned in my own depression 00:27:39.751 --> 00:27:41.949 how big an emotion can be, 00:27:41.973 --> 00:27:45.033 how it can be more real than facts, 00:27:45.057 --> 00:27:47.786 and I have found that that experience 00:27:47.810 --> 00:27:50.678 has allowed me to experience positive emotion 00:27:50.702 --> 00:27:53.601 in a more intense and more focused way. 00:27:54.222 --> 00:27:57.805 The opposite of depression is not happiness, 00:27:57.829 --> 00:27:59.139 but vitality, 00:27:59.163 --> 00:28:02.118 and these days, my life is vital, 00:28:02.142 --> 00:28:04.434 even on the days when I'm sad. 00:28:04.823 --> 00:28:07.938 I felt that funeral in my brain, 00:28:07.962 --> 00:28:12.502 and I sat next to the colossus at the edge of the world, 00:28:12.526 --> 00:28:16.413 and I have discovered something inside of myself 00:28:16.437 --> 00:28:18.501 that I would have to call a soul 00:28:18.525 --> 00:28:22.038 that I had never formulated until that day 20 years ago 00:28:22.062 --> 00:28:25.363 when hell came to pay me a surprise visit. NOTE Paragraph 00:28:26.841 --> 00:28:30.654 I think that while I hated being depressed 00:28:30.678 --> 00:28:33.180 and would hate to be depressed again, 00:28:33.204 --> 00:28:35.267 I've found a way to love my depression. 00:28:35.894 --> 00:28:40.077 I love it because it has forced me to find and cling to joy. 00:28:40.681 --> 00:28:44.270 I love it because each day I decide, 00:28:44.294 --> 00:28:45.683 sometimes gamely, 00:28:45.707 --> 00:28:48.252 and sometimes against the moment's reason, 00:28:48.276 --> 00:28:50.415 to cleave to the reasons for living. 00:28:50.978 --> 00:28:54.655 And that, I think, is a highly privileged rapture. NOTE Paragraph 00:28:55.076 --> 00:28:56.332 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:28:56.356 --> 00:29:00.357 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:29:00.381 --> 00:29:01.532 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:29:01.556 --> 00:29:03.928 (Applause)