If “I believe you” are the three most powerful words you can say to someone with an invisible illness, four of the hardest or most painful words to absorb—whether they are said directly or communicated indirectly through insensitive behavior—are “I don’t believe you.” And yet, people who live with depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders...

I met with a new doctor yesterday. I’ve been interviewing them like babysitters lately. “Do you believe there is such a thing as a mood disorder?” I asked him. “Yes,” he replied. “At least in language there is.” “When and why did you decide to break from conventional medicine and practice a more holistic approach?...

For a good year or so of my life, I wanted to be Gretchen Rubin, the bestselling author of The Happiness Project. I had coffee with her a few months before our books came out (both were published the first week of January, 2010). Hers became an instant New York Times bestseller. She appeared on...

My mom called me her “flapper” when I was a baby. Whenever I got excited, I would flap my arms, like I was young chick taking off for flight … in front of a hawk. I still do that, to some extent, but I manage to keep the arm movements to a minimum extension. I...

Someone recently asked me to write on what I wish people knew about depression, in light of Robin William’s suicide. Here’s my response. I wish people knew that depression is complex, that it is a physiological condition with psychological and spiritual components, and therefore can’t be forced into any neat and tidy box, that healing...