Quote

In my mind, depression is, like all non-communicable diseases, a physiologically expressed condition which is profoundly influenced by our social and cultural environments. Depression is a global crisis not only because it is common and universal, but because the vast majority of affected people suffer in silence or receive inappropriate care.

There seem to be many causes of depression. One cause is profound loss, grief. Economic hardship we know is linked to depression. We don't have a full picture.

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.

Depression is a devastating illness, causing great suffering in the afflicted and anxiety to their nearest and dearest: it can hit at any age.

The reason most of the children are having problems in any inner-city neighborhood is because they don't see enough positive role models in their own environment.

I was always depressed growing up. There wasn't a reason for it, I just was. I was sad and morose. I cried a lot, I wrote a lot, and I read a lot; and that was how I dealt with it.

In the end, I do not think we will find the neat boundary between 'normal sadness' and 'clinical depression,' if only because mood is an innate human characteristic, like weight or the length of our hair. However, to reject the very notion of depression as an illness on account of these difficulties is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Depression has been called the world's number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you.

I believe that everyone experiences depression to some degree at some time in their lives. And there are probably millions of people who live with a low level of sadness and heaviness day in and day out.