“But when I cannot make myself believe in a warmth that I cannot feel, maybe I will think of my grandfather’s feet or Goya’s monsters, and I will forgive myself.” At The Not Me, Francesca Milliken muses on depression, fear, and memories of her grandfather.

Libba Bray on depression: “Believe me, these people do not want to die. They only want the pain to end. The pain is all-consuming. It is a pit-bull whose jaws will not let you go, and the more you struggle against it, the tighter the bite gets, the greater the pain becomes.”

“That’s what sickness does to a family. It makes it doubt the legs on which it stands. It makes it doubt the heart that makes it beat. It makes us doubt our mom. And it’s terrible.” Mandi at Cellulite Looks Better Tan describes the painful cycle of caring for a parent with dementia.

Writes Sam Dylan Finch: “When celebrities have very public ‘breakdowns,’ we find them entertaining, sensational, intriguing. When celebrities die from these illnesses, however, we grieve for them…and profess our sympathy for their struggle.”

The blogger at Break Boundaries recalls her experience with a Somalian refugee: “Refuge is defined as a place of protection from danger, a shelter and a place of safety. I can’t say that Nadif felt any safer or protected from danger here in America.”

“I’d describe a PhD as taking something you love and systematically sucking all of the joy out of it, leaving you a hollow shell forcing yourself to go through the motions.” Zoe Stavri explains why quitting her PhD was the best decision she ever made.