Marcus

“I see no value in my having been depressed…It is a dreadful scourge that has caused me terrible pain…it is a disease no question of that and one, which like all the others, demands to be understood and relieved. Yes, of course I have learned who my true friends are and who can stay by me in my worst times….it does help to know that there are others and that slowly people…are beginning to learn something about it. But it has been around an awfully long time, a lot of people are suffering and it is about bloody time we took it seriously.”
― Anthony Clare, Depression and How to Survive It

“In other words, we humans are smart enough to make ourselves sick with thoughts, emotions, and memories—and we Westernized humans live long enough for the consequences to eventually haunt us big-time.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Stress and Your Body

“Then there are humans. We activate the stress-response if being chased by a predator. But, critically, we can activate that same response if we merely think we’re about to be knocked out of balance—we have an anticipatory stress-response. If it is justified, that is a great thing. But if there is no actual physical stressor impending, and we do that regularly, we have entered the realm of anxiety, neurosis, hostility, and paranoia. Zebras do not worry about global warming, but we do. We activate the identical stress-response as do zebras and lions, but we can do so because of chronic psychological stress. And if that occurs often enough, our disease risk increases, because that is not what the stress-response evolved for.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Stress and Your Body

“Moments happen or don’t happen, people’s lives are altered and sometimes destroyed by them, and what can one say? What can one do? Apparently nothing.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Anéantir