Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Sometimes....

Another writer says it so much better than you could say it yourself.

"I hit walls of past pleasure all the time, and for me past pleasure is much harder to process than past pain. To think of a terrible time that has gone: well, I know that post-traumatic stress is an acute affliction, but for me the traumas of the past are mercifully far away. The pleasures of the past, however, are tough. The memory of the good times with people who are no longer alive or who are no longer the people they were: that is where I find the worst current pain. Don't make me remember I say to the detritus of past pleasures. Depression can as easily be the consequence of too much that was joyful as of too much that was horrible. There is such a thing as post-joy stress too. The worst of depression lies in a present moment that cannot escape the past it idealizes or deplores."

-- Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

No comments: