“It is two years since I emerged from depression and I no longer want myself dead. I want myself alive. I am no longer my own enemy. Depression is the enemy. The monster lives at my gate. My hope is that, with sufficient effort and luck, I can keep it there.”

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

“Try never to abandon hope for if you do, hope will surely try to abandon you.”

“When you have spent long years in the dark, there is joy in seeing the light and pleasure, above all, in the ordinary.”

“Letting go is not getting rid of. Letting go is letting be.”

“Only by acceptance of the past will you alter its meaning.”

“Believe nothing. Try everything.”

“If our minds can hold us back, then they can push us forwards too.”

“I believe, completely, that life is about connection; that nothing else truly matters.”

“I often find myself grateful for the comfort of strangers; a man who gave up his seat for me on the bus, a woman who helped me out with a heavy shopping bag. Remembering small acts of kindness puts the world in a finer, sweeter order.”

“The terrible truth about depression, and the part of its nature that terrifies me the most, is that it appears to operate beyond reason; feelings happen to you for no apparent cause. Or rather, there is usually an initial cause, a 'trigger'as they say in therapeutic circles, but in severe depression the feelings of sadness, grief, loneliness and despair continue long after the situation has resolved itself. It is as if depression has a life of its own, which is perhaps why so many sufferers refer to it as a living thing, as some sort of demon or beast.”