Appendix (4): Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression

Good Mood

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Good Mood:
The New Psychology
of Overcoming Depression

Chapter 2

cont.

Personal Accounts of Depression

Now here are some autobiographical descriptions of depressive states and personalities. If you have become frustrated by people who have never been depressed pooh-poohing the pain you are suffering - which often happens - show them these descriptions.

Perhaps the most famous depression is that of Hamlet: Oh...that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! Oh, God! God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of the world!

The Psalms contain some of the most affecting cries of pain that have been written. Consider Psalm 22, lines 2 and 3:

My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me, And art far from my help at the words of my cry? O my God, I call by day, but Thou answerest not; And at night, and there is no surcease for me.

Psalm 22, lines 7 and 8:

But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head:

Psalm 22, lines 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19.

I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is become like wax; It is melted in mine inmost parts. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my throat; And Thou layest me in the dust of death. For dogs have encompassed me; A company of evil-doers have enclosed me; Like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet. I may count all my bones; They look and gloat over me. They part my garments among them, And for my vesture do they cast lots.

Psalm 102, lines 4, 5, and 6:

For my days are consumed like smoke, And my bones are burned as a hearth. My heart is smitten like grass, and withered; For I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my sighing My bones cleave to my flesh.

And Psalm 13, lines 2, 3, and 4:

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How long, O Lord, wilt Thou forget me for ever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart by day? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Behold Thou, and answer me, O Lord my God; Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Bertrand Russell described his youthful depression:

I was not born happy. As a child, my favorite hymn was: "Weary of earth and laden with my sin." At the age of five, I reflected that, if I should live to be seventy, I had only endured so far, a fourteenth part of my whole life, and I felt the long-spread-out boredom ahead of me to be almost unendurable. In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.8

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