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Zusatztext "Important...Kathy Cronkite's passionate! informative book manages to dispel the myths surrounding depression without ever seeming didactic." -- Los Angeles Times "Riveting...[an] uplifting! strongly researched but accessible book." -- Kirkus Reviews "Cronkite has embarked on a worthy mission! and for some her book may be the first step toward recovery." -- People Informationen zum Autor Kathy Cronkite was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in New York City. She is the author of On the Edge of Darkness: Conversations on Conquering Depression and On the Edge of the Spotlight: Celebrities' Children Speak Out About Their Lives . Klappentext "I was ashamed. It was a confession of weakness. For years, depression meant the crazy house. As I look back at it, [my shame] just seems damned foolishness, which is one reason I talk about it now." --Mike Wallace "Toward the end I couldn't get up. I just physically couldn't." --Kitty Dukakis They have made the impossible climb into the spotlight and attained their brightest dreams. But for Mike Wallace, Kitty Dukakis, William Styron, Joan Rivers, and countless other people struggling against the debilitating effects of depression, life's most challenging battle is waged not in the public eye, but in the darkest recesses of the mind. In her brilliant new work, Kathy Cronkite gives voice to dozens of celebrated professionals who have endured--and conquered--the hopelessness of chronic depression. Most of all, this courageous book brings a ray of hope to the 24 million Americans who live in the shadows of this misunderstood disease, yet bravely seek a path toward the light. You will learn: What to do when the sadness won't go away. Why women are most vulnerable to unipolar disorder. How substance abuse can mask the symptoms of depression. The latest therapeutic options for children who are affected by their own--or a parent's--illness. Which effective new treatments can lift the burden of depression--for up to 90 percent of people who suffer from it! Leseprobe The Dog and I For Sir Winston Churchill, depression was a "black dog" that tormented him throughout his life. His wife said that after the failure of the Dardanelles Expedition in 1915, he "was filled with such a black depression that I felt he would never recover." I didn't need a failure as large as the Dardanelles Expedition. For me, tenth grade was bad enough. I didn't know about the dog back then, but he was there, crouching in the shadows. I missed classes because I would break down crying on the back stairs and be unable to stop. I cut myself with razor blades, not in an attempt to die, but in an effort to release some of the emotional pain by focusing it in physical pain. I withdrew from my friends. I took drugs in an effort to feel okay at least some of the time. I felt like a failure. Yet, here is what was written in my yearbook: It's always such a joy to see your smiling face in the halls . . . Though I don't know you very well, I'd love to have a cheerful friend like you . . . We sure had fun this year, didn't we? My pain was mine alone; my mask of normalcy, almost seamless. And although I have only dim recollections of my earlier childhood, I wonder if the dog was there even then. My report card always seemed to read "She does fine work when she applies herself." "A grade A student when she wants to be." Was I in fact a lazy, self-indulgent pupil? Or was I even then only periodically capable of doing the work, at other times fighting internal demons? I see snapshots from my later life with depression: As a college student, putting a DO NOT DISTURB sign on my dorm room door and not emerging for days at a time; as a young woman, struggling to establish a life on my own, a thousand...
