Breakdowns Summary

Solomon did not experience depression until it seemed all of his problems in life had been solved: he had a good job, his family life and social life were in order and he had no obvious problems. It seemed it was not until he had no excuses for the depression that it finally hit. He had not had a hard life up to that point; if he had, he would have understood his depression very differently.

When depression begins, there is a tendency to look for the cause of it. Through his childhood and college years, Solomon was sometimes hit with sudden feelings of intense anxiety, a mix of sadness and fear that always hit him when he left home. He had a small breakdown during a trip to Europe where he found himself extremely sleepless and anxious for no apparent reason and...