I Am By Temperament An Optimist, And

I Don't Think Grief Of Grief In A Medical Way At All. I Think That I And Many Of My Colleagues, Are Very Concerned When Grief Becomes Pathological, That There Is No Question That Grief Can Trigger Depression In Vulnerable People And There Is No Question That Depression Can Make Grief Worse.

Looking At Suicide—the Sheer Numbers, The Pain Leading Up To It, And The Suffering Left Behind—is Harrowing. For Every Moment Of Exuberance In The Science, Or In The Success Of Governments, There Is A Matching And Terrible Reality Of The Deaths Themselves: The Young Deaths, The Violent Deaths, The Unnecessary Deaths

I Have Often Asked Myself Whether, Given The Choice, I Would Choose To Have Manic-depressive Illness. If Lithium Were Not Available To Me, Or Didn't Work For Me, The Answer Would Be A Simple No... And It Would Be An Answer Laced With Terror. But Lithium Does Work For Me, And Therefore I Can Afford To Pose The Question. Strangely Enough, I Think I Would Choose To Have It. It's Complicated.

I Am A Huge Advocate Of Prescription Drugs Given Wisely And For The Right Reasons And The Right Diagnosis And Also Psychotherapy.

People Talk About Grief As If It's Kind Of An Unremittingly Awful Thing, And It Is. It Is Painful, But It's A Very, Very Interesting Sort Of Thing To Go Through And It Really Helps You Out.