Andrew To

Andrew To
Andrew Tois a member of the Wong Tai Sin District Council, Hong Kong. Of Hakka ancestry, he is the former chairman of League of Social Democrats from 2010 to 2011, succeeding Wong Yuk-man. His wife, Jackie Hung, was a leader of Civil Human Rights Front and Justice and Peace Commission of the Hong Kong Catholic Diocese...
fall thinking circles
There is a false moral imperative that seems to be all-around us that treatment of depression, the medications and so on, are an artifice, and that it's not natural. And I think that's very misguided. It would be natural for people's teeth to fall out, but there is nobody militating against toothpaste, at least not in my circles.
depression strong memories
Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.
thinking people assuming
I think a lot of the time people assume that their values are universal. And they don't understand which aspects of their values are actually universal and which aspects are very specific.
doors lunch people
One of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression is that you know it's ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it. You know that most people manage to listen to their messages, and eat lunch, and organise themselves to take a shower and go out the front door, and that it's not a big deal. And yet you are nonetheless in its grip and you are unable to figure out any way around it.
pain believe bears
We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful.
strong believe life-is-good
I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.
law people resilience
When a church manipulates the law to say, "These people are lesser," it takes a lot of resilience to hold your head up and say, "I am not lesser!" Some people can do it and some cannot; and some of those people who cannot will be destroyed.
joy ordinary ecstasy
I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.
opposites vitality moments
The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment.
narrative triumph events
Fold the worst events of your life into a narrative of triumph.
gay happy-life perception
What has become clear to me is that it is not the inherent nature of being gay that causes such a reduced life; it is, rather, the social circumstances around being gay: the perceptions of it and the cultural norms that it is said to violate. As some of those norms have changed, I have been able to be gay, to have a marriage, to have a family, and to have - if there is wood to knock on - a fortunate and happy life.
love-you people sense-of-humor
A sense of humor is the best indicator that you will recover; it is often the best indicator that people will love you. Sustain that and you have hope.
taken thinking veils
You don't think in depression that you've put on a gray veil and are seeing the world through the haze of a bad mood. You think that the veil has been taken away, the veil of happiness, and that now you're seeing truly.
inspiration milk cows
Change is like a charging cow. Don't ignore it - milk it