“There’s no crispness to the morning. The smell of coffee serves only as a reminder that another long dreary day has begun. There’s no real feeling, no joy, not even much anger, only emptiness. It’s difficult to remember feeling any different and getting more difficult to go on feeling this way. Sitting in a dark corner with eyes closed imagining nothingness until there is nothing would be easier. Instead here’s the day to face, the responsibilities, the people, the emptiness, but the energy that once fortified the day is no more.

Concentration has become a bad joke. Even love is now only a faint echo of itself. A leaden haze obscures the day and folds into a dark tunnel with no hint of light at the end. Where is hope? There is none. Where is happiness? Gone as if it had never been, replaced by tears that must be hidden. Where is relief? Perhaps in death.”

Excerpt from the book “Understanding depression”- Patricia Ainsworth, M.D.