The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon

"Self-medication with illicit drugs is frequently counterproductive: while licit anti-depressant meds start off with side effects and build up to desirable effects, the substances of abuse usually start with desirable effects and build up to side effects."
Andrew Solomon

"Regular use of cocaine or amphetamines may do permanent damage to the dopamine systems if the brain, giving one a permanent psychological depressed baseline."
Andrew Solomon

"Opiates... are to the mind what the fetal position is to the body."
Andrew Solomon

"On ecstasy: The drug essentially causes an explosion of serotonin and dopamine, releasing big stores of these substances and then damaging the cells where they were stored. Furthermore, it prevents the synthesis of serotonin."
Andrew Solomon

It was Henry Maudsley who first described a melancholy that recognizes but cannot resolve itself. "It is not unnatural to weep"; Maudsley commented. "But it is not natural to burst into tears because a fly settles on the forehead,"... It is as if a veil were let down between him and objects. And truly no thicker veil could well be interposed between him and them than that of paralyzed interest. His state is to himself bewildering and inexplicable..." There is no real derangement of the mind; there is only a profound path of mind paralyzing its functions. "Nevertheless, they are attended with worse suffering than actual madness is, because the mind being whole enough feel and perceive an its object state, they are more likely to end in suicide."