Embracing Depression Essay -- Personal Narrative, essay about myself

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde Perhaps I feel compelled to write on the subject of depression because it is a selfish disease. It seeps into every crevice of one's life; it refuses to be ignored, to be relegated to some obscure corner of the mind. Perhaps I'm writing about it because of what I have learned about my relationship with the disease. Perhaps the time has come when I'm ready to stop cursing the depression and start embracing it. What I'm about to say is terribly unfashionable, and I hope that you will forgive any offense that it may cause. In all truthfulness, I'm glad that I have lived with depression as a companion. This statement does not imply that I have relished the grief and guilt the disease has borne. It does not mean that I have enjoyed the fits of despair, the self-imposed isolation, or the shared sorrow of my frie... ...effe, Ray Charles, Francis Ford Coppola, John Kenneth Galbraith, Soren Kierkegaard - I can't help but wonder if their accomplishments were not just in spite of, but partially because of, their illness. Oscar Wilde once wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." I have reached a point in my life where I can concur with that sentiment. At last, I have realized that lying in the mud enhances the times when I've set my heart with the stars.