Edward St Aubyn Quotes

I'm certainly not a perfect mother, but I'm trying to be what my mother wasn't for me. My mother's battled depression, so I understand it now as a parent, some of the things that she must have been going through.

One said of suicide, As long as one has brains one should not blow them out. And another answered, But when one has ceased to have them, too often one cannot.

Parenthood involves massive sacrifice: money, attention, time and emotional energy.

I always said I was never gonna be an entertainer, Suicide was never supposed to be entertainment.

I think I'm a good dad. It's hard. Ultimately, it's our kids that have the final word. So we'll have to ask them.

I live for my children, so my number one rule is I won't go away from home for more than two weeks.

I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient.

I keep my children safe and protected from all my baggage. They get to have a normal childhood, and they're not affected by my life.

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it's too hard.

Your melancholy. Or depression. Along with nine-tenths of the afflictions I've studied, diagnosed, attempted to treat. Call them whatever you like, but they're just different names for loneliness. That's what lets the darkness in. That's what you have to fight.

(Cartoon caption:) I never really rallied after the birth of my first child.

I feel it's such a tragic thing [Kurt Cobain's suicide]. Here is a guy, a young guy, that had everything in his hands. He could have had a great life. He had a wife, he had a child, he had a fantastic career. He was important to a generation. And for him to do that - I didn't like that. I thought that was just wrong.

To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children. As a consequence of this sacrifice, conscientious parents develop a nobility of character.

You will not believe me, but I am proud of your strength. Sometimes. . . sometimes the only way I can care for my children is to keep my distance.

Depression is very bad illness. This will be the toughest fight of my life.

My God, I could raise a family of six children and hold down a full-time job with all the energy I expend on depression!

I was in danger of having my children taken away from me when I needed five weeks in psychiatric care ... There is the smiling depressive which is the biggest time bomb and when they go they usually go with a bang, which was me.

..Since depression is a genetic biological illness, like diabetes, or low thyroid, it wasn't lack of character, laziness, or something I could "snap out of"-it would be like trying to snap out of a toothache.

I have a plan-to go mad.

There's a fine line between helping others and being a people pleaser, and mistaking one for the other can be hugely detrimental. When we put others' needs before our own, we deplete our energy, which can lead to depression, physical illness, and overwhelm.

Change your thoughts, change your life. —LAO TZU When I was fighting depression, I remember hearing this expression and not understanding it at first. When I decided to implement it in my life, a whole new world opened up for me. Change the negative, self-loathing thoughts to positive, self-affirming ones. When you’re positive about yourself and everything around you, you begin to see the world in a different light. Your life today is what you make of it. Goal: Be mindful of the tone of your thoughts.

Books about suicide make lousy gifts.

Sylvia Plath. Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality.

Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.

Homosexuals die decades younger than heterosexuals, from a host of maladies. They suffer mental problems ranging from depression to psychosis, and have suicide rates many times that of heterosexuals.