The harrowing episodes I experienced during my period of grave depression eight years ago were so numerous that I could not possibly have recorded them all in Darkness Visible. But if I were revising the book, I would include my memory of an excruciating evening a week or so before my suicidal impulses overwhelmed me and I committed myself to a hospital. My wife and I had been invited to dinner with half a dozen friends at a fine Italian restaurant in New York. I very much feared the hour. The majority of people suffering from depression go through their worst pain in the morning. As the hours wear on there is some alleviation, and, with effort, they are often able to cope. With me this situation was reversed. Beginning in midafternoon the anxiety and gloom would slowly accelerate, until by dinnertime I felt virtually suffocated by psychic discomfort. Of course, that evening I could have stayed at home. Anyone suffering the equivalent pain of almost any other disease would surely remain in bed, or at least sequestered from social life.
