Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self — to the mediating intellect — as to ve… - William Styron

It was not really alarming at first, since the change was subtle, but I did notice that my surroundings took on a different tone at certain times: the shadows of nightfall seemed more somber, my mornings were less buoyant, walks in the woods became less zestful, and there was a moment during my working hours in the late afternoon when a kind of panic and anxiety overtook me, just for a few minutes, accompanied by a visceral queasiness.

Numberless factors shape one's needs and longings.

In Paris on a chilling evening late in October of 1985 I first became fully aware that the struggle with the disorder in my mind — a struggle which had engaged me for several months — might have a fatal outcome.