“We are not easy to help. Nor are we easy to be around. Nobody with a serious illness is easy to be around. Although not obviously physically disabled, we struggle to get things done. Our energy levels are dangerously low. Sometimes, we find it hard to talk. We get angry and frustrated. We fall into despair. We cry, for no apparent reason. Sometimes we find it difficult to eat, or to sleep. Often, we have to go to bed in the afternoon or all day.So do most people with a serious illness. We are no different.”

“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.”