You Are Not Alone: Words of Experience and Hope for the Journey Through Depression

I have clinical depression and for years I struggled to understand what I was feeling and then how to describe it to others. I felt so alone. This book was a God send for me! It made me realize that others struggle with the same problems that I do - it was confirmation that I was not crazy. I shared the book with my family to help them understand what I was feeling but could not express.

While depression has a cluster of common symptoms and emotions, each person's experience of is unique. This book consists of many verbal snapshots, by people of all ages. It contains the voices not just of those who suffer directly from depression, but of those who suffer with the sufferers. If you are depressed, or if you love someone who is depressed, you will find in this book words which articulate your emotions. Finding those words will reassure you that "you are not alone," and will help you towards health.

Undoubtedly, it is a great suffering to be depressed. For the people who love and care a depressed person, however, there is no less suffering. Instead of giving me the academical definition of depression, the book simply helps me to understand better how a person in depression feels and understands the world. I feel more empathetic to the people in depression. It is a book not only helps a depressed person to walk out of his depression but also his family and friends to love him even more.

Not one page of "cheer up", "you're fine" or "just think positively". Depression is icy, lonely, cold and empty. This book helped me to see that although my iceberg was drifitng there were others not far away. The most profound impact was that I now had words to put to the feelings that didn't sound crazy and something to share with people who loved me to help them understand.

After struggling with depression for most of my life, I discovered this book at precisely the right time. Basically, it's an oral history of "normal" people who suffer from terrible depression. It made me realize that the worst thing about depression is that you feel so alone when you are depressed and, worse, you feel slightly crazy when you finally snap out of it and look back. This book makes you realize that the experience is more universal than you think and that there are a lot of talented, achieving people who struggle with depression and that you are, indeed, not alone.