Good News for Us Crazy People

NIMH has found a drug that alleviates symptoms of depression within hours, not weeks. Anyone who's ever been severely, severely depressed knows that this can make all the difference in the world. Weeks of waiting for the traditional drugs to work are weeks in which your mind has lots of time to roam over the "it's never going to work for me, I'll feel like this forever" territory. That territory is a treacherous land leading, inevitably, to thoughts of death.

What NIMH has found doesn't look like something we'll be shooting any old person up with anytime soon, but I for one will sleep better knowing that if I go to that bad land again, there may well be a way out fast enough to compete with the obvious and permanent one I'd rather never have to take.