forces that seems alien but is in fact one's deepest self. It
means waiting, watching, listening, suffering, and gathering
whatever self-knowledge one can-and then making choices
based on that knowledge, no matter how difficult. One
begins the slow walk back to health by choosing each day
things that enliven one's selfhood and resisting things that
do not.
The knowledge I am talking about is not intellectual and
analytical but integrative and of the heart, and the choices
that lead to wholeness are not pragmatic and calculated,
intended to achieve some goal, but simply and profoundly
expressive of personal truth. It is a demanding path, for
which no school prepares us. I know: I had to walk that path
a second time because what I learned about myself the first
time frightened me. I rejected my own knowing and refused
to make the choices it required, and the price was a second
sojourn in hell.
FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
It is odd that some of my most vivid memories of depression
involve the people who came to look in on me, since in the
middle of the experience I was barely able to notice who
was or was not there. Depression is the ultimate state of
disconnection-it deprives one of the relatedness that is the
lifeline of every living being.
I do not like to speak ungratefully of my visitors. They all
meant well, and they were among the few who did not avoid
me altogether. But despite their good intentions, most of