Mark Rice Oxley writes, in the UK Guardian this month, that you can recover from depression, he says that he’s made it and that you can make it too.

In the article (link above) Mark Rice-Oxley says “I wouldn’t wish this illness on my worst enemy; it’s the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. But, in a strange way, I am glad of the lessons it taught me.”

Tim Cantopher, a psychiatrist and author of Depressive Illness: Curse of the Strong is quoted as agreeing, he says, “A lot of patients are grateful. They say that without the illness they wouldn’t have been able to make the changes they made to become happy.”

I had a conversation with a dear friend on the weekend and she said something similar after coming through a debilitating depression over a year ago. She says she wouldn’t change a minute of her experience for all it has helped her know about herself, for all she is still discovering and appreciating about her life.

Mark Rice-Oxley quotes four things as helping “meditation, love, time and therapy.” Even if she were to put them in a different order, I think my friend would attribute her well-being to same four things.

Depression is a horrible affliction and it’s possible to live through it, not easy but possible.