Response to article on depression in the Irish Times 27/08/13

The following article was printed in the Irish Times on 27/08/13: http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/heads-up-depression-has-opened-my-heart-and-given-me-courage-1.1506338

Here is my response:

78 Lower Salthill,

Galway,

27/08/13

Dear Editor,

Congratulations to Declan Breen Phoenix for being able to see the silver lining in his cloud; "Heads Up: Depression has opened my heart and given me courage," Irish Times 27/08/13.

Unfortunately there aren't many people who would say "I wouldn’t swap it for the world," as Declan says when talking about suffering from depression.

As a former sufferer of depression I have told people that I'd take cancer any day rather than go back to the dark suicidal place of severe depression which I lived with for a number of years before I got the correct psychotherapeutic help which the psychiatric services which I was dealing with at the time refused to give me,

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Roddy