The experience of darkness and hope
http://talentdevelop.com/articlelive/articles/674/1/The-experience-of-darkness-and-hope/Page1.html
Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomon studied at Yale University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1985, and then at Jesus College Cambridge, where he received the top first-class degree in English in his year, the only foreign student ever to be so-honored, as well as the University writing prize. He is the author of several books, including The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, for which he won a Lambda Literary Award and a National Book Award in 2001, and was a finalist for a 2002 Pulitzer Prize. He is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
By Andrew Solomon
Published on 06/18/2008
Depression is an illness of loneliness. And the primary experience is
the feeling of being isolated, of being alone, of being cut off from
everyone and everything. ///
These experiences of darkness make the light more beautiful, that the
pain of being acutely depressed allows you to experience an
unbelievable happiness in every day when you aren't depressed and a
sense that each of those days is a gift.
So that's the real message of hope, is that you can get better.