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d70b496 One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. inspirational outsider self-discovery creative-process creativity mental-illness Friedrich Nietzsche
1212dd4 Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see. mental-illness John Green
ea44c2a There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality. mental-illness psychology Kay Redfield Jamison
1f39723 I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely. poverty rich poor mental-illness Charles Bukowski
eff8054 "I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In short, for myself, I am a hard act to follow." manic mania mental-illness psychology Kay Redfield Jamison
6bdf9c2 When you are mad, mad like this, you don't know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you. madness reality manic-depression mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
f23c604 The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely. philosophy mental-illness John Green
6d7db0e When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker ... but as survivors. Survivors who don't get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like. depression fear mental-health-stigma recovery-quotes stigma stigmatized shame recovery mental-illness mental-health survivors Jenny Lawson
96e5de4 There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn't. thoughts hope inner-thoughts brains mental-illness mental-health John Green
db9fa27 "Suicide is a form of murder-- premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes some getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. It's important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there's a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there's a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there's a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance. memoir mental-illness Susanna Kaysen
8d7f1bc Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is. When I was a child, I didn't understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn't comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite--I'd be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn't have access to the body's emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology. It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again. mental-illness David Levithan
17c984f Everyone wanted me to feed them that story--darkness to light, weakness to strength, broken to whole. I wanted it, too. mental-illness John Green
56dd826 Alcohol ruined me financially and morally, broke my heart and the hearts of too many others. Even though it did this to me and it almost killed me and I haven't touched a drop of it in seventeen years, sometimes I wonder if I could get away with drinking some now. I totally subscribe to the notion that alcoholism is a mental illness because thinking like that is clearly insane. money drinking heartbreak alcoholism insane mental-illness Craig Ferguson
422fa61 We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter madness writing loyalty mental-illness Allen Ginsberg
1b0e784 The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain. suicide pain suffering depression prevention awareness depressed mental-illness psychology mental-health William Styron
af99b00 It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. mental-illness Sam Harris
96a0ad7 Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees. men relationships women men-and-women mental-illness Nelson DeMille
3db534b You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere, and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth. And as you grew up, you sought love, anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend's parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them. They sustained you. For all these years, you've lived under the illusion that somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That is what has gotten you by. love inspirational childhood-trauma bpd mental-illness Rachel Reiland
933305d But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so. humor manic mania mental-illness psychology Kay Redfield Jamison
92b6aca To think too much is a disease. overthinking mental-illness Fyodor Dostoyevsky
e784018 It has been said of dreams that they are a 'controlled psychosis,' or, put another way, a psychosis is a dream breaking through during waking hours. reality mental-illness Philip K. Dick
72a6ec1 God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again. sleep murder humanity darkness god god-s-creation hannibal never-ending psychopath the-silence-of-the-lambs doomed cycle doom serial-killer serial-killers crying punishment prison insanity horror mental-illness hell Thomas Harris
960e208 I get absolutely shitfaced. I am shitfaced and hyper and ten years old. I am having the time of my life. memoir bipolar-disorder mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
aeee01f Because I'm not, in fact, depressed, Prozac makes me manic and numb - one of the reasons I slice my arm in the first place is that I'm coked to the gills on something utterly wrong for what I have. marya-hornbacher mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
668bfa5 I am not the heroine of this story. And I'm not trying to be cute. It's the truth. I'm diagnosed borderline and seriously fucked-up. I hold grudges. I bottle my hate until it ferments into poison, and then I get high off the fumes. I'm completely dysfunctional and that's the way I like it, so don't expect a character arc where I finally find Redemption, Growth, and Change, or learn How to Forgive Myself and Others. antiheroine fourth-wall mental-illness Leah Raeder
cbdfd02 "I saw a meme the other day with a picture of Marilyn Manson and Robin Williams. It said about the former, this isn't the face of depression, and about the latter, this is. This really struck a chord and it's been on my mind since then. As someone who has continuously dipped in and out of chronic depression and anxiety for close to three decades now, and I've never previously spoken about the subject, I finally thought it was time I did. These days it's trendy for people to think they're cool and understanding about mental illness, posting memes and such to indicate so. But the reality is far different to that. It seems most people think if they publicly display such understanding then perhaps a friend will come to them, open up, and calmly discuss their problems. This will not happen. For someone in that seemingly hopeless void of depression and anxiety the last thing they are likely to do is acknowledge it, let alone talk about it. Even if broached by a friend they will probably deny there is a problem and feel even more distanced from the rest of the world. So nobody can do anything to help, right? No. If right now you suspect one of your friends is suffering like this then you're probably right. If right now you think that none of your friends are suffering like this then you're probably wrong. By all means make your public affirmations of understanding, but at least take on board that an attempt to connect on this subject by someone you care about could well be cryptic and indirect. depression anxiety-quotes depression-recovery depression-quotes mental-illness mental-health R.D. Ronald
4bafa79 It took me far too long to realize that lost years and relationships cannot be recovered. That damage done to oneself and others cannot always be put right again. manic-depression mental-illness mental-health Kay Redfield Jamison
2ef88c0 my brain had begun to endure its familiar siege: panic and dislocation, and a sense that my thought processes were being engulfed by a toxic and unnameable tide that obliterated any enjoyable response to the living world. depression dislocation toxic panic depressed mental-illness William Styron
a2f6e86 Well,' said Can o' Beans, a bit hesitantly,' imprecise speech is one of the major causes of mental illness in human beings.' Huh?' Quite so. The inability to correctly perceive reality is often responsible for humans' insane behavior. And every time they substitute an all-purpose, sloppy slang word for the words that would accurately describe an emotion or a situation, it lowers their reality orientations, pushes them farther from shore, out onto the foggy waters of alienation and confusion.' The manner in which the other were regarding him/her made Can O' Beans feel compelled to continue. 'The word neat, for example, has precise connotations. Neat means tidy, orderly, well-groomed. It's a valuable tool for describing the appearance of a room, a hairdo, or a manuscript. When it's generically and inappropriately applied, though, as it is in the slang aspect, it only obscures the true nature of the thing or feeling that it's supposed to be representing. It's turned into a sponge word. You can wring meanings out of it by the bucketful--and never know which one is right. When a person says a movie is 'neat,' does he mean that it's funny or tragic or thrilling or romantic, does he mean that the cinematography is beautiful, the acting heartfelt, the script intelligent, the direction deft, or the leading lady has cleavage to die for? Slang possesses an economy, an immediacy that's attractive, all right, but it devalues experience by standardizing and fuzzing it. It hangs between humanity and the real world like a . . . a veil. Slang just makes people more stupid, that's all, and stupidity eventually makes them crazy. I'd hate to ever see that kind of craziness rub off onto objects. word-choice slang language mental-illness Tom Robbins
22f490f Her parents, she said, has put a pinball machine inside her head when she was five years old. The red balls told her when she should laugh, the blue ones when she should be silent and keep away from other people; the green balls told her that she should start multiplying by three. Every few days a silver ball would make its way through the pins of the machine. At this point her head turned and she stared at me; I assumed she was checking to see if I was still listening. I was, of course. How could one not? The whole thing was bizarre but riveting. I asked her, What does the silver ball mean? She looked at me intently, and then everything went dead in her eyes. She stared off into space, caught up in some internal world. I never found out what the silver ball meant. depression manic psychopathology manic-depression bipolar-disorder mania mental-disorder mental-illness psychology Kay Redfield Jamison
4bb34b0 Are you crazy? It's a common phrase, I know. But it means something particular to me: the tunnels, the security screens, the plastic forks, the shimmering, ever-shifting borderline that like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. I do not want to cross it again. girl-interrupted insanity mental-illness Susanna Kaysen
0b9eb35 But new love only lasts so long, and then you crash back into the real people you are, and from as high as we were, it's a very long fall, and we hit the ground with a thud. love falling crashing new-love mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
fcceca9 Falling in love happens so suddenly that it seems, all at once, that you have always been in love. madness love falling sudden mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
16cdc3d it has to be emphasized that if the pain were readily describable most of the countless sufferers from this ancient affliction would have been able to confidently depict for their friends and loved ones (even their physicians) some of the actual dimensions of their torment, and perhaps elicit a comprehension that has been generally lacking; such incomprehension has usually been due not to a failure of sympathy but to the basic inability of healthy people to imagine a form of torment so alien to everyday experience. understanding sympathy pain depression sufferer torment health depressed mental-illness William Styron
db3b234 How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat? mind hate courage fear hope men-s-heart self-loathing fright mystery fight mental-illness torture Joseph Conrad
69ea5d1 If you expand the boundaries of mental illness, which is clealry what has happened in this country during the past twenty-five years, and you treat the people so diagnosed with psychiatric medications, do you run the risk of turning an anger-ridden teenager into a lifelong mental patient? (p. 30) mental-illness Robert Whitaker
40b5f0c Doctors kept stressing that mental disease was the same as physical disease. Telling someone who was clinically depressed, for example, to shake it off and get out of the house was tantamount to telling a man with two broken legs to sprint across the room. That was all well and good in theory, but in practice, the stigma continued. Maybe, to be more charitable, it was because you could hide a mental disease. mental-illness Harlan Coben
be1fc82 A disruption of the circadian cycle--the metabolic and glandular rhythms that are central to our workaday life--seems to be involved in many, if not most, cases of depression; this is why brutal insomnia so often occurs and is most likely why each day's pattern of distress exhibits fairly predictable alternating periods of intensity and relief. depression insomnia rhythm intensity health depressed relief mental-illness psychology mental-health William Styron
b9fa660 ...men aren't in touch with their emotions, and don't share enough [?] mental-illness Meg Cabot
6efdc87 What I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam. mental-illness Sylvia Plath
754fb05 He had the feeling that there was something physically behind his eyes, blocking the light. mental-illness mental-health Jeffrey Eugenides
5e799b7 DID is about survival! As more people begin to appreciate this concept, individuals with DID will start to feel less as though they have to hide in shame. DID develops as a response to extreme trauma that occurs at an early age and usually over an extended period of time. multiplicity mpd goal response survival shame mental-illness multiple-personality-disorder trauma mental-health Deborah Bray Haddock
eb84991 depression in its major stages possesses no quickly available remedy: failure of alleviation is one of the most distressing factors of the disorder as it reveals itself to the victim, and one that helps situate it squarely in the category of grave diseases. depression grave-disease remedy distress victim help disease depressed mental-illness William Styron
5a81150 As an undergraduate student in psychology, I was taught that multiple personalities were a very rare and bizarre disorder. That is all that I was taught on ... It soon became apparent that what I had been taught was simply not true. Not only was I meeting people with multiplicity; these individuals entering my life were normal human beings with much to offer. They were simply people who had endured more than their share of pain in this life and were struggling to make sense of it. pain undergraduate multiplicity psychiatric mpd mental student normal mental-illness dissociative-identity-disorder multiple-personality-disorder trauma psychology mental-health Deborah Bray Haddock
4a2fe29 Nobody complains about all the fog. I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That's what McMurphy can't understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at. safety mental-illness Ken Kesey
644b052 I would always be like this, always have this within me. There was no beating it. I would never slay the dragon, because the dragon was also me. My self and the disease were knotted together for life. john-green turtles-all-the-way-down mental-illness John Green
de1c914 "You're innocent until proven guilty," Mandy exclaimed, unable to hide her gleeful smile. She missed the way people used to have normal conversations, used to be more caring for each other than themselves, back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, she realized, neighbors kept to themselves, their kids kept to themselves, nobody talked to each other anymore. They went to work, went shopping and shut themselves up at home in front of glowing computer screens and cellphones... but maybe the nostalgic, better times in her life would stay buried, maybe the world would never be what it was. In the 21st century music was bad, movies were bad, society was failing and there were very few intelligent people left who missed the way things used to be... maybe though, Mandy could change things. Thinking back to the old home movies in her basement, she recalled what Alecto had told her. "We wanted more than anything else in the world to be normal, but we failed." The 1960's and 1970's were very strange times, but Mandy missed it all, she missed the days when Super-8 was the popular film type, when music had lyrics that made you think, when movies had powerful meanings instead of bad comedy and when people would just walk to a friend's house for the afternoon instead of texting in bed all day. She missed soda fountains and department stores and non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, she wished cellphones, bad pop music and LED lights didn't exist... she hated how everything had a diagnosis or pill now, how people who didn't fit in with modern, lazy society were just prescribed medications without a second thought... she hated how old, reliable cars were replaced with cheap hybrid vehicles... she hated how everything could be done online, so that people could just ignore each other... the world was becoming much more convenient, but at the same time, less human, and her teenage life was considered nostalgic history now. Hanging her head low, avoiding the slightly confused stare of the cab driver through the rear view mirror, she started crying uncontrollably, her tears soaking the collar of her coat as the sun blared through the windows in a warm light." earth grief loss death convenient old-school reporter taxi retro cape-breton nova-scotia stuck moving digital medications leaving-home environment canada cars stop crying gone misery trapped lonely sad crazy insane dying mental-illness nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
c291a41 Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins susanna-kaysen mental-illness mental-health Susanna Kaysen
7c65ea1 He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy laughter mental-illness mental-health Ken Kesey
1424e74 "Am I cured?" "No. You're someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness." "Is wanting to be different a serious illness?" "It is if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. It's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests, he did not create a single leaf the same as another. But you think it's insane to be different, and that's why you chose to live in Villete, because everyone is different here, and so you appear to be the same as everyone else. Do you understand?" Mari nodded. "People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different, and then the organism starts to produce Vitriol, or bitterness, as this poison is more commonly known." insanity mental-illness Paulo Coelho
ad497ac At the lip of a cliff, I look out over Lake Superior, through the bare branches of birches and the snow-covered branches of aspens and pines. A hard wind blows snow up out of a cavern and over my face. I know this place, I know its seasons - I have hiked these mountains in the summer and walked these winding pathways in the explosion of colour that is a northern fall. And now, the temperature drops well below zero and the deadly cold lake rages below, I feel the stirrings of faith that here, in this place, in my heart, spring will come again. But first the winter must be waited out. And that waiting has worth. spirituality alcoholic anorexia eating-disorder bulimia recovery mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
0223ad6 So ask me if I am alright. 'I'm fine; I'm always fine.' You see this look in my eyes. 'No, I'm fine. I am always fine.' There is a corpse behind my smile. 'Listen, I am fine. Always, always fine as fine can be.' 'Are you okay?' 'I am more than okay. I am more than fine. I am wonderful! depression friends suicidal-thoughts medicine recovery mental-illness Emma Rose Kraus
5078848 "When we asked him to sum up his impression of the girls' emotional state at that point, he said, "Buffeted but not broken." suicide the-virgin-suicides mental-illness Jeffrey Eugenides
ffe2069 That is what madness is, isn't it? All the wheels fly off the bus and things don't make sense any more. Or rather, they do, but it's not a kind of sense anyone else can understand. madness mental-illness Audrey Niffenegger
ad4f7c8 Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness. loneliness hate mortality immortality friends love lifeboat stranded desperate blame society enemies guilt mental-illness Joseph Conrad
34c1630 "As a therapist, I have many avenues in which to learn about DID, but I hear exactly the opposite from clients and others who are struggling to understand their own existence. When I talk to them about the need to let supportive people into their lives, I always get a variation of the same answer. "It is not safe. They won't understand." My goal here is to provide a small piece of that gigantic puzzle of understanding. If this book helps someone with DID start a conversation with a supportive friend or family member, understanding will be increased." understanding pain multiplicity psychiatric unsafe mpd piece safe goal support puzzle normal safety mental-illness multiple-personality-disorder trauma psychology mental-health Deborah Bray Haddock
c0ce2aa "I resolved to come right to the point. "Hello," I said as coldly as possible, "we've got to talk." "Yes, Bob," he said quietly, "what's on your mind?" I shut my eyes for a moment, letting the raging frustration well up inside, then stared angrily at the psychiatrist. "Look, I've been religious about this recovery business. I go to AA meetings daily and to your sessions twice a week. I know it's good that I've stopped drinking. But every other aspect of my life feels the same as it did before. No, it's worse. I hate my life. I hate myself." Suddenly I felt a slight warmth in my face, blinked my eyes a bit, and then stared at him. "Bob, I'm afraid our time's up," Smith said in a matter-of-fact style. "Time's up?" I exclaimed. "I just got here." "No." He shook his head, glancing at his clock. "It's been fifty minutes. You don't remember anything?" "I remember everything. I was just telling you that these sessions don't seem to be working for me." Smith paused to choose his words very carefully. "Do you know a very angry boy named 'Tommy'?" "No," I said in bewilderment, "except for my cousin Tommy whom I haven't seen in twenty years..." "No." He stopped me short. "This Tommy's not your cousin. I spent this last fifty minutes talking with another Tommy. He's full of anger. And he's inside of you." "You're kidding?" "No, I'm not. Look. I want to take a little time to think over what happened today. And don't worry about this. I'll set up an emergency session with you tomorrow. We'll deal with it then." Robert This is Robert speaking. Today I'm the only personality who is strongly visible inside and outside. My own term for such an MPD role is dominant personality. Fifteen years ago, I rarely appeared on the outside, though I had considerable influence on the inside; back then, I was what one might call a "recessive personality." My passage from "recessive" to "dominant" is a key part of our story; be patient, you'll learn lots more about me later on. Indeed, since you will meet all eleven personalities who once roamed about, it gets a bit complex in the first half of this book; but don't worry, you don't have to remember them all, and it gets sorted out in the last half of the book. You may be wondering -- if not "Robert," who, then, was the dominant MPD personality back in the 1980s and earlier? His name was "Bob," and his dominance amounted to a long reign, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Since "Robert B. Oxnam" was born in 1942, you can see that "Bob" was in command from early to middle adulthood. Although he was the dominant MPD personality for thirty years, Bob did not have a clue that he was afflicted by multiple personality disorder until 1990, the very last year of his dominance. That was the fateful moment when Bob first heard that he had an "angry boy named Tommy" inside of him. How, you might ask, can someone have MPD for half a lifetime without knowing it? And even if he didn't know it, didn't others around him spot it? To outsiders, this is one of the most perplexing aspects of MPD. Multiple personality is an extreme disorder, and yet it can go undetected for decades, by the patient, by family and close friends, even by trained therapists. Part of the explanation is the very nature of the disorder itself: MPD thrives on secrecy because the dissociative individual is repressing a terrible inner secret. The MPD individual becomes so skilled in hiding from himself that he becomes a specialist, often unknowingly, in hiding from others. Part of the explanation is rooted in outside observers: MPD often manifests itself in other behaviors, frequently addiction and emotional outbursts, which are wrongly seen as the "real problem." The fact of the matter is that Bob did not see himself as the dominant personality inside Robert B. Oxnam. Instead, he saw himself as a whole person. In his mind, Bob was merely a nickname for Bob Oxnam, Robert Oxnam, Dr. Robert B. Oxnam, PhD." alters mpd multiple-personality psychiatrist split-personality multiple-personalities survivor alcoholism therapy mental-illness dissociative-identity-disorder psychology mental-health Robert B. Oxnam
f8a91e2 She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me in the eyes of my more astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic. mourning grief depression family friendship professional the-past melancholy reflection regret remember dead sad lost mental-illness Dennis Lehane
877df25 I've always told people that for each person there is a sentence--a series of words--which has the power to destroy him. When Fat told me about Leon Stone I realized (this came years after the first realization) that another sentence exists, another series of words, which will heal the person. If you're lucky you will get the second; but you can be certain of getting the first: that is the way it works. words-have-power mental-illness Philip K. Dick
c10cfb7 "You can talk about depression as a "chemical imbalance" all you want, but it presents itself as an external antagonist - a "demon," a "beast," or a "black dog," as Samuel Johnson called it. It could pounce at any time, even in the most innocuous setting." mental-illness Barbara Ehrenreich
2bd1ee6 Once a restless or frayed mood has turned to anger, or violence, or psychosis, Richard, like most, finds it very difficult to see it as illness, rather than being willful, angry, irrational or simply tiresome. mental-illness mental-health Kay Redfield Jamison
798e95d Deception' is the word I most associate with anorexia and the treachery which comes from falsehood. The illness appears inviting. It would seem to offer something to those unwary or unlucky enough to suffer from it - friendship, a get-out, or a haven - when, in fact, it is a trap. illness escape false-friend haveb anorexia-nervosa falsehood treachery deception trap self-deception anorexia eating-disorder mental-illness Carol Lee
6fa9af7 Dissociation is characterized by a disruption of usually integrated functions of memory, consciousness, identity, or perception of the environment. identity mental-disorder mental-illness memory psychiatry psychology American Psychiatric Association
4c978c8 His body had become a companion which seemed always about to leave him: it had its own pains which moved him to pity, and its own particular movements which he tried hard to follow. He had learned from it how to keep his eyes down on the road, so that he could see no one, and how important it was never to look back - although there were times when memories of an earlier life filled him with grief and he lay face down upon the grass until the sweet rank odour of the earth brought him to his senses. But slowly he forgot where it was he had come from, and what it was he was escaping. homeless-people vagrant homelessness mental-illness Peter Ackroyd
15a7f67 ...all I could think about was how both sets of parents had needed to make their decision, on whether to medicate their child, in a scientific vacuum. (p. 35) parents mental-illness Robert Whitaker
0d4db86 "All of us must do our best to live gracefully in the present moment. I now see depression as akin to being tied to a chair with restraints on my wrists. It took me a long time to realize that I only magnify my distress by struggling for freedom. My pain diminished when I gave up trying to escape completely from it. However, don't interpret my current approach to depression as utterly fatalistic. I do whatever I can to dull depression's pain, while premising my life on its continuing presence. The theologian and philosopher Thomas Moore puts it well with his distinction between cure and care. While cure implies the eradication of trouble, care "appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life." mental-illness David A. Karp
73d75a6 When both she and I had to deal with our respective demons, my sister saw the darkness as being within and part of herself, the family and the world. I, instead, saw it as a stranger; however lodged within my mind and soul the darkness became, it almost always seemed an outside force that was at war with my natural self. depression kay-redfield-jamison anxiety mental-illness Kay Redfield Jamison
cd84a24 Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid? mental-illness-discrimination mental-illness-stigma mental-disorder mental-illness schizophrenia Kelley Armstrong
6759640 I've been alive a long time, long enough to know that the more baggage you carry in life, the more unstable you'll be, until eventually you get sick of carrying it, and then you just fall down. mourning grief life baggage unstable mourn fall mental-illness Rebecca McNutt
f6365f4 ...his condition in Roanoke is a strong testament that lassitude, indifference and the peculiarities of his thought were primarily the consequences of his illness and not of the early attempts to treat it. The popular view that anti-psychotics were chemical straight jackets that suppressed clear thinking and voluntary activity seems not to be borne out in Nash's case. If anything, the only periods when he was relatively free of hallucinations, delusions and the erosion of will were the periods following either insulin treatment or the use of anti psychotics. In other words, rather than reducing Nash to a zombie, medication seemed to reduce zombie like behavior. mental-illness mental-health Sylvia Nasar
7b4c1ce After college, I went through my own shit and decided that all physical suffering in the world couldn't compare to mental anguish. And when I got myself, I decided to help other people. mental-illness psychiatry Ned Vizzini
1adb6c9 People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience... but we'd be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives... because we didn't like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution? earth people human death hope life hippie litter plants smog environmentalism garbage environment canada pollution animals help scary water dangerous mental-illness evil Rebecca McNutt
d8de119 lsh`wr b'nk Tby`y l'y ftr@ Twyl@ mmtd@ y`Tyk amlan ytDH -tqryban bthbt- 'nh mktwb@ `l~ lm! manic-depression mental-illness mental-health Kay Redfield Jamison
4c309f3 God only knew what ran underneath the fierce self-discipline and emotional control that had come with my upbringing. But the cracks were there, I knew it, and they frightened me. depression kay-redfield-jamison anxiety mental-illness Kay Redfield Jamison
2af0867 Profound melancholia is a day-in, day-out, night-in, night-out, almost arterial level of agony. mental-illness melancholia Kay Redfield Jamison
f2dbbae her eyes are unfathomable to me, hostile, even, as if she had removed herself to a place where I cannot reach her - somewhere I cannot know. emotional-barriers emotional-disengagement miles-away emotional-distance emotional-pain eating-disorder mental-illness Carol Lee
5bcaa2d We are lunatics from the hospital up the highway, psycho-ceramics, the cracked pots of mankind. mental-illness Ken Kesey
252559d "One of them hasn't got a uniform on or plainclothes either like the rest. He has on the white coat that is my nightmare and my horror. And in the crotch of one arm he is upending two long poles intertwined with canvas. The long-drawn-out death within life. The burial-alive of the mind, covering it over with fresh graveyard earth each time it tries to struggle through to the light. In this kind of death you never finish dying. ("New York Blues")" insanity mental-illness Cornell Woolrich
083faff Insanity? The mental processes of a man with whom one disagrees, are always wrong. Where is the line between wrong mind and sane mind? It is inconceivable that any sane man can radically disagree with one's most sane conclusions. thought-control insanity mental-illness Jack London
8d798b8 "I look back on my life the way one watches a badly scripted action flick, sitting at the edge of the seat, bursting out, "No, no, don't open that door! The bad guy is in there and he'll grab you and put his hand over your mouth and tie you up and then you'll miss the train and everything will fall apart!" Except there is no bad guy in this tale. The person who jumped through the door and grabbed me and tied me up was, unfortunately, me. My double image, the evil skinny chick who hisses, Don't eat. I'm not going to let you eat. I'll let you go as soon as you're thin, I swear I will. Everything will be okay when you're thin." depression eating-disorders bulimia mental-illness Marya Hornbacher
5ef67af Kaysen elaborates through parts of the book on her thoughts about how mental illness is treated. She explains that families who are willing to pay the rather high costs of hospitalization do so to prove their own sanity. Once one member of the family is hospitalized, it becomes easier for the rest of the family to distance themselves from the problem and to create a clear boundary between the sane and the insane. Recognizing a family member or friend as insane makes others around them, says Kaysen, compare themselves to that individual. Hospitalization allows for distance from this questioning of self that makes us so uncomfortable. Her view that mental illness often includes the entire family means the hospitalized family member becomes an excuse for other family members not to look at their own problems. This explains the willingness to pay the high financial costs of hospitalization. sanity family financial hospitalization-as-treatment hospitalization wikipedia mental-illness Susanna Kaysen
5dc8a7b "Every day it's something worse being predicted. Mearth says that sooner or later copyright on books will be all in the past because they'll all be available electronically. She says that electric cars will replace gasoline-powered cars. She says that something called drones will be used to watch the entire country, she talks a lot about something called nanotechnology, and 3-dimensional printing and cellular phones being implanted into peoples' minds and all available careers being replaced by robots and human cloning and overpopulation and film becoming obsolete, cellular phones making regular telephones obsolete and LED lighting replacing everything and eventually she says that the planet will collapse and become an apathetic wreck," Alecto replied rapidly, his run-on sentence sounding sinister and dangerous. "Mearth says that eventually people will be able to see inside the minds of everyone." led-lights microchips retro nanotechnology telephone digital obsolete sinister minds film technology mental-illness memory nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
d1563b4 Some people spend their whole lives in a fantasy world, and that's not a good thing! good world imagination fantasy fantasy-world recluse mental-illness psychology Rebecca McNutt
d2c5631 kn `l~W 'n 'Hwl 'n 'wfq byn fkrty `n nfsy knsn@ ttklm bhdw wmnDbT@ tmm, nsn@ `l~ l'ql Hss@ `mwm l'mzj@ wmsh`r lakhryn.. wbyn mr'@ skhT@ wmjnwn@ tmm wfqd@ lkl mnfdh lsyTr@ `l~ lnfs wltfkyr l`qlny depression manic-depression mania mental-illness psychology Kay Redfield Jamison
d18b11c But if love is not the cure, it certainly can act as a very strong medicine. depression love mania mental-illness mental-health Kay Redfield Jamison
27272f1 Locking away appetite, anger, the fullness of life, anorexia helps cover up whatever struggles inside. With its controlling bouts of bingeing and starvation, of trance and half-life, it becomes a shield to fend off despair and longing and what most of use would see as ordinary responsible behavior. binge-eating unhealthy-coping eating-disorder mental-illness Carol Lee
c42ff60 While she is still hospitalised, I take Emma out for strengthening walks, for her muscles and been under-used for a long time. She is sometimes breathless, I notice with concern, and there are other changes in her, either through a nerve her therapy touches, or through her illness, or both, which make her, quite often, disagreeable to be with. anorexic eating-disorder-recovery anorexia mental-illness Carol Lee
d3d6599 When the madness came, he would be like a man staggering along the rim of the abyss - which was his rage - and when the edge gave way or he missed his step, he might clutch at anyone within reach and drag that person with him over the precipice. relationships emotions mental-illness Geraldine Brooks
c4aecc8 I was always a good girl. I was a straight-A student, top of my class. I did as I was told. I was polite to my elders. I was good to my siblings. I went to church. It was very easy to hide how very bad I was becoming from my family, from everyone. Being good is the best way to be bad. mental-illness mental-health Roxane Gay
db92101 If a heart could fail in its pumping, a lung in its breathing, then why not a brain in its thinking, rendering the world forever askew, like a television with bad reception? And couldn't a brain fail as arbitrarily as any one of these other parts, without regard to the blessing and cosseting that, everyone was so eager to remind you, disentitled you from unhappiness? self-mutilation mental-illness Caroline Kettlewell
1d3f037 I thought of my mother and her wise advice. She'd always been there for me. Even when I was at my worst. She made me want to be a better son. family stronger mental-illness Mary Alice Monroe
0eaec6c There was nothing Mandy had wanted more than to give her full attention to the world of Personifications and ignore those who ignored her in society. She'd wanted to talk out loud to Alecto, to have conversations in front of other ordinary people. Unfortunately, to do that in front of ordinary people would only prove her insanity, and although Mandy was naive at times, she wasn't stupid. friendship personification ordinary conversation friend talk insanity insane mental-illness psychology Rebecca McNutt
3fff438 "Geraldine keeps her eyes trained on him as she slowly reaches into her purse, wrapping her fingers around her gun. "...Callo, I'm so sorry that your life ended up this way," she sighs as she gets out of her side of the car, her feet burning from the cold as her high heels sink into the fallen snow. "Aren't you scared?" "I'm you, Geraldine... I fell into the same trap as you, anyway," Callo answers. His large eyes are shining with tears, but he doesn't seem afraid in the least. "...The dead don't feel anything, you know... not even guilt or regret. So, what is there to be afraid of?" depression emotion fear death friendship apology forlornness usurer high-heels forlorn purse revolver lonliness friend trap gun tears regret kill depressed dead guilt die eyes dying mental-illness Rebecca McNutt
4d0571b They've still got their problems, just like all of us. They're still sick men in lots of ways. But at least there's that: they are sick men now. No more rabbits, Mack. Maybe they can be well men someday. I can't say. strength rabbits mental-illness Ken Kesey
c271223 She fails to see who I am, even, for her eyes do not, will not, take me in. Instead they transmit a powerful message. She is like a billboard flashing, starkly: 'Keep Out'. emotional-distance ignoring-people withdrawn isolation mental-disorder mental-illness Carol Lee
7ac37b3 As a child I had been quiet and invisible when troubled; as an adult, I had hidden my mental illness behind an elaborate construction of laughter and work and dissembling. dissembling troubles masks mental-illness Kay Redfield Jamison
475d6fa Being loud after drinking wine doesn't help. Being silent after drinking wine doesn't help. Nothing really ever gets solved either way. violence arguing dysfunction alcoholism-addiction-recovery fighting child drunk wine mental-illness Mariel Hemingway
b89021a Many wish to believe that the odd is not so odd, the bizarre not so bizarre, and there is little changing of minds once they are set. There are only so many ways to understand the strange and disordered. The Greeks imagined gods to explain what they themselves could not. It is human nature to invent reasons for why the mind shatters, hope plummets, or the will to live dies. Scientific explanations are complicated and, for many, less humanly satisfying than visionary or religious ones. They are also less interesting than explanations based on planetary misalignment, toxins, or childhoods gone awry. There is a disturbing gap between what scientists and doctors know about mental illness and what most people believe. science pseudoscience mental-illness Kay Redfield Jamison
3ac696e The fading relevance of the nature-nurture argument has recently been revived by the rise of evolutionary psychology. A more sophisticated understanding of Darwinian evolution (survival of the fittest) has led to theories about the possible evolutionary value of some psychiatric disorders. A simplistic view would predict that all mental illnesses with a genetic component should lower survival and ought to die out. 'Inclusive fitness', however, assesses the evolutionary value of a characteristic not simply on whether it helps that individual to survive but whether it makes it more likely that their offspring will survive. Richard Dawkins's 1976 book The Selfish Gene gives convincing explanations of the evolutionary advantages of group support and altruism when individuals sacrifice themselves for others. A range of speculative hypotheses have since been proposed for the evolutionary advantage of various behaviour differences and mental illnesses. Many of these draw on ethological games-theory (i.e. the benefits of any behaviour can only be understood in the context of the behaviour of other members of the group). So depression might be seen as a safe response to 'defeat' in a hierarchical group because it makes the individual withdraw from conflict while they recover. Mania, conversely, with its expansiveness and increased sexual activity, is proposed as a response to success in a hierarchical tussle promoting the propagation of that individual's genes. Changes in behaviour that look like depression and hypomania can be clearly seen in primates as they move up and down the pecking order that dominates their lives. The habitual isolation and limited need for social contact of individuals with schizophrenia has been rather imaginatively proposed as adaptive to remote habitats with low food supplies (and also a protection against the risk of infectious diseases and epidemics). Evolutionary psychology will undoubtedly increasingly influence psychiatric thinking - many of our disorders fit poorly into a classical 'medical model'. Already it has helped establish a less either-or approach to the discussion. It is, however, a highly controversial area - not so much around mental disorders but in relation to social behaviour and particularly to gender specific behaviour. Here it is often interpreted as excusing a very male-orientated, exploitative worldview. Luckily that is someone else's battle. mind depression evolutionary-psychology the-selfish-gene mania mental-illness psychiatry Tom Burns
72c09d1 Even in my blackest depressions, I never regretted having been born. It is true that I had wanted to die, but that is peculiarly different from regretting having been born. suicide suicidal-thoughts mental-illness Kay Redfield Jamison
7344765 My grandfather often felt frustrated or baffled by my grandmother's illness, but when it came to the origins of the Skinless Horse he thought he understood. The Skinless Horse was a creature sworn to pursue my grandmother no matter where she went on the face of the globe, whispering to her in the foulest terms of her crimes and the blackness of her soul. There was a voice like that in everyone's head, he figured; in my grandmother's case it was just a matter of degree. You could almost see the Skinless Horse as a clever adapation, a strategy for survival evolved by a proven survivor. If you kept the voice inside your head, the way most people did, there could really be only one way to silence it. He admired the defiance, the refusal to surrender, involuntary but implicit in the act of moving that reproachful whisperer to a shadowy corner of a room, an iron furnace in a cellar, the branches of a grand old tree. strength moonglow survival mental-illness Michael Chabon
0d985f6 Everything in life, except her kids, made her impatient. She had tried to do a million things. She'd wanted to be a documentary filmmaker and then a painter and then a tiny-ceramic-figure maker. None of it panned out. She'd be full of enthusiasm at first, full of big ideas and energy and drive, but it would all gradually evaporate and disappear. She could never maintain the momentum or the concentration or the confidence she needed to get anything done. mental-illness Miriam Toews
a1de62c "(Cont.. Pagina 46) O seu rosto negro, bonito, cintilava ali na minha frente. Fiquei boquiaberto, tentando pensar em alguma maneira de responder. Ficamos juntos, enlacados daquela maneira durante alguns segundos; entao o som da fabrica saltou num arranco, e alguma coisa comecou a puxa-la para tras, afastando-a de mim. Um cordao em algum lugar que eu nao via se havia prendido naquela saia vermelha florida e a puxava para tras. As unhas dela foram arranhando as minhas maos e, tao logo ela desfez o contato comigo, seu rosto saiu novamente de foco, tornou-se suave e escorregadio como chocolate derretendo-se atras daquela neblina de algodao que soprava. Ela riu e girou depressa, deixando que eu visse a perna amarela, quando a saia subiu. Lancou-me uma piscadela de olho por sobre o ombro enquanto corria para sua maquina, onde uma pilha de fibra deslizava da mesa para o chao; ela apanhou tudo e saiu correndo sem barulho pela fileira de maquinas para enfiar as fibra num funil de enchimento; depois, desapareceu no meu angulo de visao virando num canto. (Pagina 47) "Todos aqueles fusos bobinando e rodando, e lancadeiras saltando por todo lado, e carreteis fustigando o ar com fios, paredes caiadas e maquinas cinza-aco e mocas com saias floridas saltitando para a frente e para tras e a coisa toda tecida como uma tela, com linhas brancas corredicas que prendiam a fabrica, mantendo-a unida - aquilo tudo me marcou e de vez em quando alguma coisa na enfermaria o traz de volta a minha mente Sim. Isto e o que sei.. A enfermaria e uma fabrica da Liga. Serve para reparar os enganos cometidos nas vizinhancas, nas escolas e nas igrejas, isso e o que o hospital e. Quando um produto acaba, volta para a sociedade la fora - todo reparado e bom como se fosse novo, as vezes melhor do que se fosse novo, traz alegria ao coracao da Chefona; algo que entrou deformado, todo diferente, agora e um componente em funcionamento e bem-ajustado, um credito para todo esquema e uma maravilha para ser observado. Observe-o se esgueirando pela terra com um sorriso, encaixando-se em alguma vizinhancazinha, onde estao escavando valas agora mesmo, por toda a rua, para colocar encanamento para a agua da cidade. Ele esta contente com isso. Ele finalmente esta ajustado ao meio-ambiente..." perspectiva ponto-de-vista prensas-sobre-a-vida rotina sociedade routine society vida mental-illness Ken Kesey
8e944df It was the very image of innocence. I wanted to remember this moment always, to look at it when I needed something good to hold on to. family stronger mental-illness Mary Alice Monroe
dfaed6e The reasons for Emma's illness and for her decision to allow life in, rather than die, are intertwined and involve the beginnings of her feelings of belonging, of safety and of competence to be in the world. eating-disorder-causes eating-disorder-recovery eating-disorder mental-illness Carol Lee
e2d6e3b I think maybe they come out into the grounds in nightwear. But no, in typical anorexic stype they have read the fashion magazines literally. This is their version of thin girls in strappy clothes. The girl in the petticoat talks to me, as Emma has done on occsasion, in a rather grand style, as if she is a 'lady' of some substance and I a visiting guest. Do they chat much about clothes? I ask Emma in the car. She shakes her head. So, does she, Emma, see the difference between underwear or nightwear and 'going out' clothes? 'Yes,' she says, her voices strained again. 'But it's one of the things you don't know properly when you're ill and confused. You see these pictures and the people in the magazines are real for you. reality fashion-magazine anorexia-nervosa anorexic mental-illness Carol Lee
65ee9e7 "Ha um morcego de papel da festa das bruxas pendurado num cordao acima de sua cabeca; ele levanta o braco e da um piparote no morcego, que comeca a girar. - Dia de outono bem agradavel - continua ele. Fala um pouco do jeito como papai costumava falar, voz alta, selvagem mesmo, mas nao se parece com papai; papai era um indio puro de Columbia - um chefe - e duro e brilhante como uma coronha de arma. Esse cara e ruivo, com longas costeletas vermelhas, e um emaranhado de cachos saindo por baixo do bone, esta precisando de dar um corte no cabelo ha muito tempo, e e tao robusto quanto papai era alto, queixo, ombros e peitos largos, um largo sorriso diabolico, muito branco e e duro de uma maneira diferente do que papai era, mais ou menos do jeito que uma bola de beisebol e dura sob o couro gasto. Uma cicatriz lhe atravessa o nariz e uma das macas do rosto, o luga em que alguem o acertou numa briga, e os pontos ainda estao no corte. Ele fica de pe ali, esperando, e, quando ninguem toma a iniciativa de lhe responder alguma coisa, comeca a rir. Ninguem e capaz de dizer exatamente por que ele ri; nao ha nada de engracado acontecendo. Mas nao e da maneira como aquele Relacoes Publicas ri, e um riso livre e alto que sai da sua larga boca e se espalha em ondas cada vez maiores ate ir de encontro as paredes por toda a ala. Nao como aquele riso do gordo Relacoes Publicas . Este som e verdadeiro. Eu me dou conta de repente de que e a primeira gargalhada que ouco ha anos. Ele fica de pe, olhando para nos, balancando-se para tras nas botas , e ri e ri. Cruza os dedos sobre a barriga sem tirar os polegares dos bolsos. Vejo como suas maos sao grandes e grossas. Todo mundo na ala, pacientes, pessoal e o resto, esta pasmo e abobalhado diante dele e da sua risada. Nao ha qualquer movimento para faze-lo parar, nenhuma iniciativa para dizer alguma coisa. Ele entao interrompe a risada, por algum tempo, e vem andando, entrando na enfermaria. Mesmo quando nao esta rindo, aquele ressoar do seu riso paira a sua volta, da mesma maneira com o som paira em torno de um grande sino que acabou de ser tocado - esta em seus olhos, na maneira como sorri, na maneira como fala. [1] - Meu nome e McMurphy, companheiros, R. P. McMurphy, e sou um jogador idiota. - Ele pisca o olho e canta um pedacinho de uma cancao : - .... " e sempre eu ponho ... meu dinheiro ... na mesa " - e ri de novo." humorous humor laughs mental-illness Ken Kesey
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