william styron's darkness visible: a memior of madness depicts the onset of his depression, his battle with it, eventual hospilitazation, and emergence on the other side. in so few words, i have never encountered such an accurate and articulate experience of the disease, and it should be read by everyone regardless of their emotional state. i wish i could quote the entire book - it's very short - but below are quotations (hopefully with enough context within them) that struck me the most.

this is to stay more specifically that instead of pleasure — certainly instead of pleasure I should be having in this sumptuous showcase of bright genius — i was feeling in my mind a sensation close to, but indescribably different from, actual pain -- p. 16

but until that day when a swiftly acting agent is developed, one's faith in a pharmacological cure for major depression must remain provisional -- p. 55

a phenomeon that a number of people have noted while in deep depression is the sense of being accompanied by a second self — a wraithlike observer who, not sharing the dementia of his double, is able to watch with dispassionate curiosity as his companion struggles against the oncoming disaster, or decides to embrace it -- p. 64

... the death or disappearance of a parent, especially a mother, before or during puberty — appears repeatedly in the literature of depression as a trauma sometimes likely to create nearly irreparable emotional havoc -- p. 79

but one need not sound the false or inspirational note to stress the truth that depression is not the soul's annihilation -- p. 84