Quote

Depression is a horrible, potentially life-threatening illness - but the lives it threatens are almost always those of the people who suffer from it.

Depression is a physical illness.

Depression can kill you. It can also be a spiritually enriching experience. It's really an important part of my theology now and my spirituality that life is not perfect, and I grew up wanting it to be and thinking that if it wasn't, I could make it that way, and I had to acknowledge that I had all kinds of flaws and sadnesses and problems.

That is the real problem of depression - a condition which will affect an estimated one in five of the population at some point in their lives. It is completely unimaginable until you have been through it.

I have had issues with depression all my life, and it's probably true to say there was a tendency towards it even when I was very young, during my schooldays. There was often - and this is quite common with comics - a sense of not feeling as if I belonged anywhere.

I had a lot of depression as a kid.

Depressives have led countries, won wars, flown rockets to the moon, made great music. Don't let depression stop you employing someone, and never let it cause you to judge them. Depression is not a person. Like any other illness, it is something that happens to a person. It shouldn't define them.

I think people who suffer from depression, unless it's post-traumatic, are probably going to struggle with it for their whole life.

One in six people suffer depression or a chronic anxiety disorder. These are not the worried well but those in severe mental pain with conditions crippling enough to prevent them living normal lives.