The experience of depression

Dooce has a great post up, giving snippets from a columnist who found out the hard way that clinical depression really exists and isn't all that much fun.

I hate being dependent on a drug. Hate it more than I can say. But if the alternative is a proud stoicism in the face of sorrow accompanied by prolonged and unspeakable despair — well, I’ll take dependency.

Dooce herself has struggled with depression since the birth of her child (and has been quite open with her readers along the way), so she's a pretty good person to trust in identifying useful depictions for those whose loved ones might be wrestling with a dark cloud. You don't have to live through Katrina to get there...