TEDxMet
Andrew Solomon: Depression, the secret we share
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"The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment." In a talk equal parts eloquent and devastating, writer Andrew Solomon takes you to the darkest corners of his mind during the years he battled depression. That led him to an eye-opening journey across the world to interview others with depression -- only to discover that, to his surprise, the more he talked, the more people wanted to tell their own stories.
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
"I felt a funeral in my brain,
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and mourners to and fro
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kept treading, treading till I felt
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that sense was breaking through.
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And when they all were seated,
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a service, like a drum,
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kept beating, beating, till I felt
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my mind was going numb.
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And then I heard them lift a box
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and creak across my soul
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with those same boots of lead again,
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then space began to toll,
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as if the heavens were a bell
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and being were an ear,
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and I, and silence, some strange race
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wrecked, solitary, here.
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Just then, a plank in reason broke,
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and I fell down and down
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and hit a world at every plunge,
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and finished knowing then."
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We know depression through metaphors.
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Emily Dickinson was able to convey it in language,
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Goya in an image.
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01:22
Half the purpose of art
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is to describe such iconic states.
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As for me, I had always thought myself tough,
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one of the people who could survive
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if I'd been sent to a concentration camp.
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In 1991, I had a series of losses.
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My mother died,
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a relationship I'd been in ended,
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I moved back to the United States
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from some years abroad,
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and I got through all of those experiences intact.
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But in 1994, three years later,
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I found myself losing interest in almost everything.
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I didn't want to do any of the things
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I had previously wanted to do,
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and I didn't know why.
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The opposite of depression
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is not happiness, but vitality,
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and it was vitality
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that seemed to seep away from me in that moment.
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Everything there was to do
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seemed like too much work.
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I would come home
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and I would see the red light
flashing on my answering machine,
flashing on my answering machine,
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and instead of being thrilled to hear from my friends,
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I would think,
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"What a lot of people that is to have to call back."
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Or I would decide I should have lunch,
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and then I would think, but
I'd have to get the food out
I'd have to get the food out
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and put it on a plate
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and cut it up and chew it and swallow it,
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and it felt to me like the Stations of the Cross.
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02:45
And one of the things that often gets lost
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in discussions of depression
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is that you know it's ridiculous.
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You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it.
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You know that most people manage
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to listen to their messages and eat lunch
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and organize themselves to take a shower
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and go out the front door
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and that it's not a big deal,
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and yet you are nonetheless in its grip
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03:06
and you are unable to figure out any way around it.
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And so I began to feel myself doing less
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and thinking less
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and feeling less.
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It was a kind of nullity.
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03:22
And then the anxiety set in.
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If you told me that I'd have to be
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depressed for the next month,
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I would say, "As long I know it'll be
over in November, I can do it."
over in November, I can do it."
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But if you said to me,
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"You have to have acute anxiety for the next month,"
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I would rather slit my wrist than go through it.
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It was the feeling all the time
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like that feeling you have if you're walking
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and you slip or trip
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and the ground is rushing up at you,
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but instead of lasting half a
second, the way that does,
second, the way that does,
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it lasted for six months.
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It's a sensation of being afraid all the time
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but not even knowing what it is that you're afraid of.
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And it was at that point that I began to think
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that it was just too painful to be alive,
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and that the only reason not to kill oneself
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was so as not to hurt other people.
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And finally one day, I woke up
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and I thought perhaps I'd had a stroke,
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because I lay in bed completely frozen,
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looking at the telephone, thinking,
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"Something is wrong and I should call for help,"
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and I couldn't reach out my arm
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and pick up the phone and dial.
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And finally, after four full hours
of my lying and staring at it,
of my lying and staring at it,
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the phone rang,
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and somehow I managed to pick it up,
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and it was my father,
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and I said, "I'm in serious trouble.
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We need to do something."
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The next day I started with the medications
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and the therapy.
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And I also started reckoning
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with this terrible question:
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If I'm not the tough person
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who could have made it
through a concentration camp,
through a concentration camp,
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then who am I?
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And if I have to take medication,
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is that medication making me more fully myself,
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or is it making me someone else?
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And how do I feel about it
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if it's making me someone else?
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I had two advantages as I went in to the fight.
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The first is that I knew that, objectively speaking,
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I had a nice life,
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and that if I could only get well,
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there was something at the other end
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that was worth living for.
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And the other was that I had
access to good treatment.
access to good treatment.
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But I nonetheless emerged and relapsed,
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and emerged and relapsed,
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and emerged and relapsed,
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and finally understood
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I would have to be on medication
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and in therapy forever.
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And I thought, "But is it a chemical problem
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or a psychological problem?
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And does it need a chemical cure
or a philosophical cure?"
or a philosophical cure?"
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And I couldn't figure out which it was.
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And then I understood that actually,
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we aren't advanced enough in either area
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for it to explain things fully.
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The chemical cure and the psychological cure
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both have a role to play,
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and I also figured out that depression was something
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that was braided so deep into us
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that there was no separating it
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from our character and personality.
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I want to say that the treatments we have
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for depression are appalling.
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They're not very effective.
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They're extremely costly.
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They come with innumerable side effects.
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They're a disaster.
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But I am so grateful that I live now
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and not 50 years ago,
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when there would have been almost nothing
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to be done.
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I hope that 50 years hence,
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people will hear about my treatments
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and be appalled that anyone endured
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such primitive science.
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Depression is the flaw in love.
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If you were married to someone and thought,
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"Well, if my wife dies, I'll find another one,"
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it wouldn't be love as we know it.
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There's no such thing as love
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without the anticipation of loss,
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and that specter of despair
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can be the engine of intimacy.
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There are three things people tend to confuse:
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depression, grief and sadness.
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Grief is explicitly reactive.
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If you have a loss and you feel incredibly unhappy,
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and then, six months later,
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you are still deeply sad, but
you're functioning a little better,
you're functioning a little better,
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it's probably grief,
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and it will probably ultimately resolve itself
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in some measure.
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If you experience a catastrophic loss,
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and you feel terrible,
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and six months later you can barely function at all,
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then it's probably a depression that was triggered
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by the catastrophic circumstances.
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The trajectory tells us a great deal.
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People think of depression as being just sadness.
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It's much, much too much sadness,
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much too much grief
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at far too slight a cause.
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As I set out to understand depression,
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and to interview people who had experienced it,
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I found that there were people who seemed
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on the surface to have what sounded like
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relatively mild depression
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who were nonetheless utterly disabled by it.
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And there were other people who had what sounded
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as they described it
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like terribly severe depression
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who nonetheless had good lives in the interstices
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between their depressive episodes.
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And I set out to find out what it is
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that causes some people
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to be more resilient than other people.
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What are the mechanisms
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that allow people to survive?
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And I went out and I interviewed person after person
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who was suffering with depression.
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One of the first people I interviewed
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described depression
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as a slower way of being dead,
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and that was a good thing for me to hear early on
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because it reminded me
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that that slow way of being dead
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can lead to actual deadness,
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that this is a serious business.
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It's the leading disability worldwide,
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and people die of it every day.
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One of the people I talked to
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when I was trying to understand this
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was a beloved friend
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who I had known for many years,
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and who had had a psychotic episode
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in her freshman year of college,
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and then plummeted into a horrific depression.
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She had bipolar illness,
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or manic depression, as it was then known.
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And then she did very well
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for many years on lithium,
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and then eventually,
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she was taken off her lithium
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to see how she would do without it,
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and she had another psychosis,
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and then plunged into the worst depression
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that I had ever seen
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in which she sat in her parents' apartment,
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more or less catatonic, essentially without moving,
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day after day after day.
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And when I interviewed her about
that experience some years later --
that experience some years later --
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she's a poet and psychotherapist
named Maggie Robbins —
named Maggie Robbins —
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when I interviewed her, she said,
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"I was singing 'Where Have All The Flowers Gone'
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over and over to occupy my mind.
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I was singing to blot out the
things my mind was saying,
things my mind was saying,
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which were, 'You are nothing. You are nobody.
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You don't even deserve to live.'
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And that was when I really started thinking
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about killing myself."
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You don't think in depression
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that you've put on a gray veil
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and are seeing the world through the haze
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of a bad mood.
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You think that the veil has been taken away,
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the veil of happiness,
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and that now you're seeing truly.
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It's easier to help schizophrenics who perceive
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that there's something foreign inside of them
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that needs to be exorcised,
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but it's difficult with depressives,
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because we believe we are seeing the truth.
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But the truth lies.
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I became obsessed with that sentence:
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"But the truth lies."
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And I discovered, as I talked to depressive people,
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that they have many delusional perceptions.
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People will say, "No one loves me."
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And you say, "I love you,
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your wife loves you, your mother loves you."
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You can answer that one pretty readily,
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at least for most people.
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But people who are depressed will also say,
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"No matter what we do,
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we're all just going to die in the end."
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Or they'll say, "There can be no true communion
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between two human beings.
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Each of us is trapped in his own body."
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To which you have to say,
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"That's true,
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but I think we should focus right now
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on what to have for breakfast."
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(Laughter)
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A lot of the time,
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what they are expressing is not illness, but insight,
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and one comes to think what's really extraordinary
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is that most of us know about
those existential questions
those existential questions
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and they don't distract us very much.
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There was a study I particularly liked
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in which a group of depressed
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and a group of non-depressed people
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were asked to play a video game for an hour,
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and at the end of the hour,
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they were asked how many little monsters
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they thought they had killed.
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The depressive group was usually accurate
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to within about 10 percent,
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and the non-depressed people
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guessed between 15 and 20 times as many
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little monsters — (Laughter) —
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as they had actually killed.
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A lot of people said, when I chose
to write about my depression,
to write about my depression,
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that it must be very difficult
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to be out of that closet, to have people know.
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They said, "Do people talk to you differently?"
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And I said, "Yes, people talk to me differently.
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They talk to me differently insofar
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as they start telling me about their experience,
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or their sister's experience,
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or their friend's experience.
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Things are different because now I know
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2292
12:30
that depression is the family secret
300
738781
2681
12:33
that everyone has.
301
741462
2077
12:35
I went a few years ago to a conference,
302
743539
3628
12:39
and on Friday of the three-day conference,
303
747167
2653
12:41
one of the participants took me aside, and she said,
304
749820
2891
12:44
"I suffer from depression and
305
752711
3405
12:48
I'm a little embarrassed about it,
306
756116
2769
12:50
but I've been taking this medication,
307
758885
2103
12:52
and I just wanted to ask you what you think?"
308
760988
2948
12:55
And so I did my best to give
her such advice as I could.
her such advice as I could.
309
763936
2834
12:58
And then she said, "You know,
310
766770
1720
13:00
my husband would never understand this.
311
768490
2791
13:03
He's really the kind of guy to whom
this wouldn't make any sense,
this wouldn't make any sense,
312
771281
2573
13:05
so I just, you know, it's just between us."
313
773854
2867
13:08
And I said, "Yes, that's fine."
314
776721
1786
13:10
On Sunday of the same conference,
315
778507
2109
13:12
her husband took me aside,
316
780616
3044
13:15
and he said, "My wife wouldn't think
317
783660
1694
13:17
that I was really much of a guy if she knew this,
318
785354
2435
13:19
but I've been dealing with this depression
319
787789
2466
13:22
and I'm taking some medication,
320
790255
1354
13:23
and I wondered what you think?"
321
791609
2505
13:26
They were hiding
322
794114
1423
13:27
the same medication in two different places
323
795537
2215
13:29
in the same bedroom.
324
797752
2645
13:32
And I said that I thought
325
800397
2021
13:34
communication within the marriage
326
802418
1684
13:36
might be triggering some of their problems.
327
804102
2014
13:38
(Laughter)
328
806116
4191
13:42
But I was also struck
329
810307
1655
13:43
by the burdensome nature
330
811962
1806
13:45
of such mutual secrecy.
331
813768
2373
13:48
Depression is so exhausting.
332
816141
1885
13:50
It takes up so much of your time and energy,
333
818026
2768
13:52
and silence about it,
334
820794
1504
13:54
it really does make the depression worse.
335
822298
2731
13:57
And then I began thinking about all the ways
336
825029
1733
13:58
people make themselves better.
337
826762
1966
14:00
I'd started off as a medical conservative.
338
828728
2439
14:03
I thought there were a few
kinds of therapy that worked,
kinds of therapy that worked,
339
831167
2372
14:05
it was clear what they were --
340
833539
1809
14:07
there was medication,
341
835348
1644
14:08
there were certain psychotherapies,
342
836992
1476
14:10
there was possibly electroconvulsive treatment,
343
838468
2445
14:12
and that everything else was nonsense.
344
840913
2675
14:15
But then I discovered something.
345
843588
1832
14:17
If you have brain cancer,
346
845420
1752
14:19
and you say that standing on your head
347
847172
1472
14:20
for 20 minutes every morning makes you feel better,
348
848644
2995
14:23
it may make you feel better,
349
851639
1514
14:25
but you still have brain cancer,
350
853153
1588
14:26
and you'll still probably die from it.
351
854741
2289
14:29
But if you say that you have depression,
352
857030
2512
14:31
and standing on your head for 20 minutes every day
353
859542
2105
14:33
makes you feel better, then it's worked,
354
861647
2484
14:36
because depression is an illness of how you feel,
355
864131
2360
14:38
and if you feel better,
356
866491
1609
14:40
then you are effectively not depressed anymore.
357
868100
2830
14:42
So I became much more tolerant
358
870930
2033
14:44
of the vast world of alternative treatments.
359
872963
2925
14:47
And I get letters, I get hundreds of letters
360
875888
2384
14:50
from people writing to tell me
about what's worked for them.
about what's worked for them.
361
878272
2516
14:52
Someone was asking me backstage today
362
880788
2201
14:54
about meditation.
363
882989
1463
14:56
My favorite of the letters that I got
364
884452
2465
14:58
was the one that came from a woman
365
886917
1474
15:00
who wrote and said that she had tried therapy,
366
888391
2207
15:02
she had tried medication,
she had tried pretty much everything,
she had tried pretty much everything,
367
890598
2387
15:04
and she had found a solution
and hoped I would tell the world,
and hoped I would tell the world,
368
892985
2837
15:07
and that was making little things from yarn.
369
895822
3812
15:11
(Laughter)
370
899634
2999
15:14
She sent me some of them. (Laughter)
371
902633
3524
15:18
And I'm not wearing them right now.
372
906157
3688
15:21
I suggested to her that she also should look up
373
909845
2515
15:24
obsessive compulsive disorder in the DSM.
374
912360
4048
15:28
And yet, when I went to look
at alternative treatments,
at alternative treatments,
375
916408
3128
15:31
I also gained perspective on other treatments.
376
919536
2908
15:34
I went through a tribal exorcism in Senegal
377
922444
2903
15:37
that involved a great deal of ram's blood
378
925347
2013
15:39
and that I'm not going to detail right now,
379
927360
2062
15:41
but a few years afterwards I was in Rwanda
380
929422
2000
15:43
working on a different project,
381
931422
1758
15:45
and I happened to describe
my experience to someone,
my experience to someone,
382
933180
2796
15:47
and he said, "Well, you know,
383
935976
1760
15:49
that's West Africa, and we're in East Africa,
384
937736
1820
15:51
and our rituals are in some ways very different,
385
939556
1834
15:53
but we do have some rituals that have something
386
941390
2013
15:55
in common with what you're describing."
387
943403
1987
15:57
And I said, "Oh." And he said, "Yes," he said,
388
945390
1663
15:59
"but we've had a lot of trouble with
Western mental health workers,
Western mental health workers,
389
947053
2642
16:01
especially the ones who came
right after the genocide."
right after the genocide."
390
949695
2757
16:04
And I said, "What kind of trouble did you have?"
391
952452
2327
16:06
And he said, "Well,
392
954779
1546
16:08
they would do this bizarre thing.
393
956325
2664
16:10
They didn't take people out in the sunshine
394
958989
1885
16:12
where you begin to feel better.
395
960874
1700
16:14
They didn't include drumming or music
to get people's blood going.
to get people's blood going.
396
962574
3094
16:17
They didn't involve the whole community.
397
965668
1842
16:19
They didn't externalize the depression
398
967510
1775
16:21
as an invasive spirit.
399
969285
1433
16:22
Instead what they did was they took people
400
970718
2631
16:25
one at a time into dingy little rooms
401
973349
2628
16:27
and had them talk for an hour
402
975977
1343
16:29
about bad things that had happened to them."
403
977320
2230
16:31
(Laughter) (Applause)
404
979550
5460
16:37
He said, "We had to ask them to leave the country."
405
985010
2362
16:39
(Laughter)
406
987372
3057
16:42
Now at the other end of alternative treatments,
407
990429
2444
16:44
let me tell you about Frank Russakoff.
408
992873
2035
16:46
Frank Russakoff had the worst depression
409
994908
3053
16:49
perhaps that I've ever seen in a man.
410
997961
2915
16:52
He was constantly depressed.
411
1000876
1993
16:54
He was, when I met him, at a point at which
412
1002869
2141
16:57
every month he would have electroshock treatment.
413
1005010
3158
17:00
Then he would feel sort of disoriented for a week.
414
1008168
2575
17:02
Then he would feel okay for a week.
415
1010743
1803
17:04
Then he would have a week of going downhill.
416
1012546
1700
17:06
And then he would have another
electroshock treatment.
electroshock treatment.
417
1014246
2685
17:08
And he said to me when I met him,
418
1016931
1415
17:10
"It's unbearable to go through my weeks this way.
419
1018346
2552
17:12
I can't go on this way,
420
1020898
1507
17:14
and I've figured out how I'm going to end it
421
1022405
2264
17:16
if I don't get better.
422
1024669
1557
17:18
But," he said to me, "I heard about a protocol
423
1026226
2708
17:20
at Mass General for a procedure called
424
1028934
2223
17:23
a cingulotomy, which is a brain surgery,
425
1031157
2026
17:25
and I think I'm going to give that a try."
426
1033183
2571
17:27
And I remember being amazed at that point
427
1035754
1954
17:29
to think that someone
428
1037708
1300
17:31
who clearly had so many bad experiences
429
1039008
3221
17:34
with so many different treatments
430
1042229
1859
17:36
still had buried in him somewhere enough optimism
431
1044088
3122
17:39
to reach out for one more.
432
1047210
2550
17:41
And he had the cingulotomy,
433
1049760
2180
17:43
and it was incredibly successful.
434
1051940
2041
17:45
He's now a friend of mine.
435
1053981
1493
17:47
He has a lovely wife and two beautiful children.
436
1055474
3492
17:50
He wrote me a letter the Christmas after the surgery,
437
1058966
2949
17:53
and he said,
438
1061915
1189
17:55
"My father sent me two presents this year,
439
1063104
2407
17:57
First, a motorized C.D. rack from The Sharper Image
440
1065511
2602
18:00
that I didn't really need,
441
1068113
1421
18:01
but I knew he was giving it to me to celebrate
442
1069534
2097
18:03
the fact that I'm living on my own
443
1071631
1728
18:05
and have a job I seem to love.
444
1073359
2047
18:07
And the other present
445
1075406
1561
18:08
was a photo of my grandmother,
446
1076967
1576
18:10
who committed suicide.
447
1078543
2252
18:12
As I unwrapped it, I began to cry,
448
1080795
2935
18:15
and my mother came over and said,
449
1083730
1880
18:17
'Are you crying because of the
relatives you never knew?'
relatives you never knew?'
450
1085610
3315
18:20
And I said, 'She had the same disease I have.'
451
1088925
4088
18:25
I'm crying now as I write to you.
452
1093013
2581
18:27
It's not that I'm so sad, but I get overwhelmed,
453
1095594
3595
18:31
I think, because I could have killed myself,
454
1099189
2221
18:33
but my parents kept me going,
455
1101410
1703
18:35
and so did the doctors,
456
1103113
1749
18:36
and I had the surgery.
457
1104862
1854
18:38
I'm alive and grateful.
458
1106716
2815
18:41
We live in the right time,
459
1109531
2260
18:43
even if it doesn't always feel like it."
460
1111791
3879
18:47
I was struck by the fact that depression
461
1115670
1897
18:49
is broadly perceived to be
462
1117567
1725
18:51
a modern, Western, middle-class thing,
463
1119292
3537
18:54
and I went to look at how it operated
464
1122829
2152
18:56
in a variety of other contexts,
465
1124981
2003
18:58
and one of the things I was most interested in
466
1126984
2119
19:01
was depression among the indigent.
467
1129103
1790
19:02
And so I went out to try to look at
468
1130893
1781
19:04
what was being done for
poor people with depression.
poor people with depression.
469
1132674
2580
19:07
And what I discovered is that poor people
470
1135254
2158
19:09
are mostly not being treated for depression.
471
1137412
2557
19:11
Depression is the result of a genetic vulnerability,
472
1139969
2919
19:14
which is presumably evenly
distributed in the population,
distributed in the population,
473
1142888
3158
19:18
and triggering circumstances,
474
1146046
1953
19:19
which are likely to be more severe
475
1147999
1903
19:21
for people who are impoverished.
476
1149902
1875
19:23
And yet it turns out that if you have
477
1151777
2427
19:26
a really lovely life but feel miserable all the time,
478
1154204
2140
19:28
you think, "Why do I feel like this?
479
1156344
2000
19:30
I must have depression."
480
1158344
1669
19:32
And you set out to find treatment for it.
481
1160013
1923
19:33
But if you have a perfectly awful life,
482
1161936
2093
19:36
and you feel miserable all the time,
483
1164029
1867
19:37
the way you feel is commensurate with your life,
484
1165896
2826
19:40
and it doesn't occur to you to think,
485
1168722
1724
19:42
"Maybe this is treatable."
486
1170446
1783
19:44
And so we have an epidemic in this country
487
1172229
3136
19:47
of depression among impoverished people
488
1175365
2913
19:50
that's not being picked up
and that's not being treated
and that's not being treated
489
1178278
2512
19:52
and that's not being addressed,
490
1180790
2056
19:54
and it's a tragedy of a grand order.
491
1182846
2200
19:57
And so I found an academic
492
1185046
1488
19:58
who was doing a research project
493
1186534
1817
20:00
in slums outside of D.C.,
494
1188351
1741
20:02
where she picked up women who had
come in for other health problems
come in for other health problems
495
1190092
2997
20:05
and diagnosed them with depression,
496
1193089
1779
20:06
and then provided six months
of the experimental protocol.
of the experimental protocol.
497
1194868
3266
20:10
One of them, Lolly, came in,
498
1198134
2329
20:12
and this is what she said the day she came in.
499
1200463
2297
20:14
She said, and she was a woman, by the way,
500
1202760
3395
20:18
who had seven children. She said,
501
1206155
2092
20:20
"I used to have a job but I had to give it up because
502
1208247
2651
20:22
I couldn't go out of the house.
503
1210898
2060
20:24
I have nothing to say to my children.
504
1212958
2228
20:27
In the morning, I can't wait for them to leave,
505
1215186
2767
20:29
and then I climb in bed and
pull the covers over my head,
pull the covers over my head,
506
1217953
2990
20:32
and three o'clock when they come home,
507
1220943
1646
20:34
it just comes so fast."
508
1222589
1801
20:36
She said, "I've been taking a lot of Tylenol,
509
1224390
2240
20:38
anything I can take so that I can sleep more.
510
1226630
2759
20:41
My husband has been telling me I'm stupid, I'm ugly.
511
1229389
3770
20:45
I wish I could stop the pain."
512
1233159
3505
20:48
Well, she was brought into
this experimental protocol,
this experimental protocol,
513
1236664
2640
20:51
and when I interviewed her six months later,
514
1239304
2308
20:53
she had taken a job working in childcare
515
1241612
4407
20:58
for the U.S. Navy, she had left the abusive husband,
516
1246019
3805
21:01
and she said to me,
517
1249824
2082
21:03
"My kids are so much happier now."
518
1251906
2369
21:06
She said, "There's one room in my new place
519
1254275
1977
21:08
for the boys and one room for the girls,
520
1256252
2608
21:10
but at night, they're just all up on my bed,
521
1258860
2539
21:13
and we're doing homework
all together and everything.
all together and everything.
522
1261399
2612
21:16
One of them wants to be a preacher,
523
1264011
1673
21:17
one of them wants to be a firefighter,
524
1265684
1700
21:19
and one of the girls says she's going to be a lawyer.
525
1267384
2966
21:22
They don't cry like they used to,
526
1270350
2005
21:24
and they don't fight like they did.
527
1272355
2558
21:26
That's all I need now is my kids.
528
1274913
3780
21:30
Things keep on changing,
529
1278693
1912
21:32
the way I dress, the way I feel, the way I act.
530
1280605
5193
21:37
I can go outside not being afraid anymore,
531
1285798
3687
21:41
and I don't think those bad feelings are coming back,
532
1289485
3409
21:44
and if it weren't for Dr. Miranda and that,
533
1292894
3035
21:47
I would still be at home with
the covers pulled over my head,
the covers pulled over my head,
534
1295929
3617
21:51
if I were still alive at all.
535
1299546
2349
21:53
I asked the Lord to send me an angel,
536
1301895
3732
21:57
and he heard my prayers."
537
1305627
4330
22:01
I was really moved by these experiences,
538
1309959
3353
22:05
and I decided that I wanted to write about them
539
1313312
2539
22:07
not only in a book I was working on,
540
1315851
1379
22:09
but also in an article,
541
1317230
1311
22:10
and so I got a commission from
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
542
1318541
2321
22:12
to write about depression among the indigent.
543
1320862
2016
22:14
And I turned in my story,
544
1322878
1616
22:16
and my editor called me and said,
545
1324494
1596
22:18
"We really can't publish this."
546
1326090
1710
22:19
And I said, "Why not?"
547
1327800
1750
22:21
And she said, "It just is too far-fetched.
548
1329550
2305
22:23
These people who are sort of at
the very bottom rung of society
the very bottom rung of society
549
1331855
3778
22:27
and then they get a few months of treatment
550
1335633
1704
22:29
and they're virtually ready to run Morgan Stanley?
551
1337337
2632
22:31
It's just too implausible."
552
1339969
1854
22:33
She said, I've never even heard of anything like it."
553
1341823
2205
22:36
And I said, "The fact that you've never heard of it
554
1344028
2534
22:38
is an indication that it is news."
555
1346562
3000
22:41
(Laughter) (Applause)
556
1349562
6134
22:49
"And you are a news magazine."
557
1357317
2494
22:51
So after a certain amount of negotiation,
558
1359811
1982
22:53
they agreed to it.
559
1361793
1241
22:55
But I think a lot of what they said
560
1363034
1615
22:56
was connected in some strange way
561
1364649
2295
22:58
to this distaste that people still have
562
1366944
2142
23:01
for the idea of treatment,
563
1369086
1463
23:02
the notion that somehow if we went out
564
1370549
1882
23:04
and treated a lot of people in indigent communities,
565
1372431
2696
23:07
that would be an exploitative thing to do,
566
1375127
1898
23:09
because we would be changing them.
567
1377025
1642
23:10
There is this false moral imperative
568
1378667
2033
23:12
that seems to be all around us
569
1380700
1789
23:14
that treatment of depression,
570
1382489
2354
23:16
the medications and so on, are an artifice,
571
1384843
2299
23:19
and that it's not natural.
572
1387142
2172
23:21
And I think that's very misguided.
573
1389314
2849
23:24
It would be natural for people's teeth to fall out,
574
1392163
3532
23:27
but there is nobody militating against toothpaste,
575
1395695
3330
23:31
at least not in my circles.
576
1399025
2128
23:33
And people then say, "Well, but isn't depression
577
1401153
2502
23:35
part of what people are supposed to experience?
578
1403655
2185
23:37
Didn't we evolve to have depression?
579
1405840
1741
23:39
Isn't it part of your personality?"
580
1407581
1907
23:41
To which I would say, mood is adaptive.
581
1409488
2746
23:44
Being able to have sadness and fear
582
1412234
3329
23:47
and joy and pleasure
583
1415563
1842
23:49
and all of the other moods that we have,
584
1417405
1803
23:51
that's incredibly valuable.
585
1419208
2064
23:53
And major depression is something that happens
586
1421272
3047
23:56
when that system gets broken.
587
1424319
2012
23:58
It's maladaptive.
588
1426331
1717
24:00
People will come to me and say,
589
1428048
1572
24:01
"I think, though, if I just stick it out for another year,
590
1429620
2768
24:04
I think I can just get through this."
591
1432388
2076
24:06
And I always say to them, "You may get through it,
592
1434464
2303
24:08
but you'll never be 37 again.
593
1436767
2709
24:11
Life is short, and that's a whole year
594
1439476
2550
24:14
you're talking about giving up.
595
1442026
1956
24:15
Think it through."
596
1443982
1538
24:17
It's a strange poverty of the English language,
597
1445520
2846
24:20
and indeed of many other languages,
598
1448366
2108
24:22
that we use this same word, depression,
599
1450474
2218
24:24
to describe how a kid feels
600
1452692
1805
24:26
when it rains on his birthday,
601
1454497
1712
24:28
and to describe how somebody feels
602
1456209
2528
24:30
the minute before they commit suicide.
603
1458737
2454
24:33
People say to me, "Well, is it
continuous with normal sadness?"
continuous with normal sadness?"
604
1461191
3105
24:36
And I say, in a way it's continuous
with normal sadness.
with normal sadness.
605
1464296
3144
24:39
There is a certain amount of continuity,
606
1467440
2200
24:41
but it's the same way there's continuity
607
1469640
1957
24:43
between having an iron fence outside your house
608
1471597
1987
24:45
that gets a little rust spot
609
1473584
1677
24:47
that you have to sand off and do a little repainting,
610
1475261
2746
24:50
and what happens if you leave
the house for 100 years
the house for 100 years
611
1478007
2647
24:52
and it rusts through until it's only a pile
612
1480654
2898
24:55
of orange dust.
613
1483552
1234
24:56
And it's that orange dust spot,
614
1484786
2173
24:58
that orange dust problem,
615
1486959
1789
25:00
that's the one we're setting out to address.
616
1488748
2989
25:03
So now people say,
617
1491737
2240
25:05
"You take these happy pills, and do you feel happy?"
618
1493977
2731
25:08
And I don't.
619
1496708
1886
25:10
But I don't feel sad about having to eat lunch,
620
1498594
2822
25:13
and I don't feel sad about my answering machine,
621
1501416
2836
25:16
and I don't feel sad about taking a shower.
622
1504252
2845
25:19
I feel more, in fact, I think,
623
1507097
2854
25:21
because I can feel sadness without nullity.
624
1509951
2430
25:24
I feel sad about professional disappointments,
625
1512381
4347
25:28
about damaged relationships,
626
1516728
2347
25:31
about global warming.
627
1519075
2039
25:33
Those are the things that I feel sad about now.
628
1521114
2725
25:35
And I said to myself, well, what is the conclusion?
629
1523839
2734
25:38
How did those people who have better lives
630
1526573
2561
25:41
even with bigger depression manage to get through?
631
1529134
2554
25:43
What is the mechanism of resilience?
632
1531688
2797
25:46
And what I came up with over time
633
1534485
2084
25:48
was that the people who deny their experience,
634
1536569
2916
25:51
the ones who say, "I was depressed a long time ago
635
1539485
2032
25:53
and I never want to think about it again
636
1541517
1737
25:55
and I'm not going to look at it
637
1543254
1242
25:56
and I'm just going to get on with my life,"
638
1544496
1890
25:58
ironically, those are the people
639
1546386
1959
26:00
who are most enslaved by what they have.
640
1548345
2698
26:03
Shutting out the depression strengthens it.
641
1551043
2564
26:05
While you hide from it, it grows.
642
1553607
3280
26:08
And the people who do better
643
1556887
2860
26:11
are the ones who are able to tolerate the fact
644
1559747
2599
26:14
that they have this condition.
645
1562346
1622
26:15
Those who can tolerate their depression
646
1563968
2470
26:18
are the ones who achieve resilience.
647
1566438
1782
26:20
So Frank Russakoff said to me,
648
1568220
1783
26:22
"If I had it again to do over,
649
1570003
1516
26:23
I suppose I wouldn't do it this way,
650
1571519
2137
26:25
but in a strange way, I'm grateful
651
1573656
1964
26:27
for what I've experienced.
652
1575620
1503
26:29
I'm glad to have been in the hospital 40 times.
653
1577123
3817
26:32
It taught me so much about love,
654
1580940
2603
26:35
and my relationship with my parents and my doctors
655
1583543
2840
26:38
has been so precious to me, and will be always."
656
1586383
4389
26:42
And Maggie Robbins said,
657
1590772
1926
26:44
"I used to volunteer in an AIDS clinic,
658
1592698
2989
26:47
and I would just talk and talk and talk,
659
1595687
3014
26:50
and the people I was dealing with
660
1598701
1813
26:52
weren't very responsive, and I thought,
661
1600514
2067
26:54
'That's not very friendly or helpful of them.'
662
1602581
3961
26:58
And then I realized,
663
1606542
1642
27:00
I realized that they weren't going to do more
664
1608184
2127
27:02
than make those first few minutes of small talk.
665
1610311
2387
27:04
It was simply going to be an occasion
666
1612698
2057
27:06
where I didn't have AIDS and I wasn't dying,
667
1614755
2878
27:09
but could tolerate the fact that they did
668
1617633
2973
27:12
and they were.
669
1620606
1787
27:14
Our needs are our greatest assets.
670
1622393
3603
27:17
It turns out I've learned to give
671
1625996
2139
27:20
all the things I need."
672
1628135
4025
27:24
Valuing one's depression
673
1632160
1691
27:25
does not prevent a relapse,
674
1633851
2194
27:28
but it may make the prospect of relapse
675
1636045
2661
27:30
and even relapse itself easier to tolerate.
676
1638706
4218
27:34
The question is not so much
677
1642924
2045
27:36
of finding great meaning and deciding
678
1644969
2175
27:39
your depression has been very meaningful.
679
1647144
2027
27:41
It's of seeking that meaning
680
1649171
2171
27:43
and thinking, when it comes again,
681
1651342
1804
27:45
"This will be hellish,
682
1653146
1640
27:46
but I will learn something from it."
683
1654786
2701
27:49
I have learned in my own depression
684
1657487
2264
27:51
how big an emotion can be,
685
1659751
2013
27:53
how it can be more real than facts,
686
1661764
3097
27:56
and I have found that that experience
687
1664861
2949
27:59
has allowed me to experience positive emotion
688
1667810
2892
28:02
in a more intense and more focused way.
689
1670702
3520
28:06
The opposite of depression is not happiness,
690
1674222
3487
28:09
but vitality,
691
1677709
1454
28:11
and these days, my life is vital,
692
1679163
2741
28:13
even on the days when I'm sad.
693
1681904
2745
28:16
I felt that funeral in my brain,
694
1684649
3313
28:19
and I sat next to the colossus
695
1687962
2024
28:21
at the edge of the world,
696
1689986
2247
28:24
and I have discovered
697
1692233
2089
28:26
something inside of myself
698
1694322
1851
28:28
that I would have to call a soul
699
1696173
2133
28:30
that I had never formulated
until that day 20 years ago
until that day 20 years ago
700
1698306
3756
28:34
when hell came to pay me a surprise visit.
701
1702062
4518
28:38
I think that while I hated being depressed
702
1706580
4098
28:42
and would hate to be depressed again,
703
1710678
2334
28:45
I've found a way to love my depression.
704
1713012
2744
28:47
I love it because it has forced me
705
1715756
2025
28:49
to find and cling to joy.
706
1717781
2769
28:52
I love it because each day I decide,
707
1720550
3488
28:56
sometimes gamely,
708
1724038
1540
28:57
and sometimes against the moment's reason,
709
1725578
2698
29:00
to cleave to the reasons for living.
710
1728276
2578
29:02
And that, I think, is a highly privileged rapture.
711
1730854
4123
29:06
Thank you.
712
1734977
3983
29:10
(Applause)
713
1738960
3136
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Andrew Solomon - WriterAndrew Solomon writes about politics, culture and psychology.
Why you should listen
Andrew Solomon is a writer, lecturer and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University. He is president of PEN American Center. He writes regularly for The New Yorker and the New York Times.
Solomon's newest book, Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change, Seven Continents, Twenty-Five Years was published in April, 2016. His previous book, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity won the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction, the Wellcome Prize and 22 other national awards. It tells the stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children but also find profound meaning in doing so. It was a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback editions. Solomon's previous book, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize and was included in The Times of London's list of one hundred best books of the decade. It has been published in twenty-four languages. Solomon is also the author of the novel A Stone Boat and of The Irony Tower: Soviet Artists in a Time of Glasnost.
Solomon is an activist in LGBT rights, mental health, education and the arts. He is a member of the boards of directors of the National LGBTQ Force and Trans Youth Family Allies. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Columbia University Medical Center, serves on the National Advisory Board of the Depression Center at the University of Michigan, is a director of Columbia Psychiatry and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. Solomon also serves on the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yaddo and The Alex Fund, which supports the education of Romani children. He is also a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University and a member of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Solomon lives with his husband and son in New York and London and is a dual national. He also has a daughter with a college friend; mother and daughter live in Texas but visit often.
Andrew Solomon | Speaker | TED.com