Quotes from Kay Redfield Jamison

Psychologists, for reasons of clinical necessity or vagaries of temperament, have chosen to dissect and catalog the morbid emotions - depression, anger, anxiety - and to leave largely unexamined the more vital, positive ones.

A possible link between 'madness' and genius is one of the oldest and most persistent of cultural notions.

There are a lot of studies that suggest a higher rate of creativity in bipolars than the general population.

No pill can help me deal with the problem of not wanting to take pills; likewise, no amount of psychotherapy alone can prevent my manias and depressions. I need both.

From a public health point of view, still the overwhelming problem is that people are not treated enough for depression; depression remains under treated.

The quickness and flexibility of a well mind, a belief or hope that things will eventually sort themselves out-these are the resources lost to a person when the brain is ill.

Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.

Time does not heal, It makes a half-stitched scar That can be broken and again you feel Grief as total as in its first hour. -Elizabeth Jennings

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.

One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest.

Time will pass; these mood will pass; and I will, eventually, be myself again. But then, at some unknown time, the electrifying carnival will come back into my mind.

Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.

There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won't happen.

I had a terrible temper, after all, and though it rarely erupted, when it did it frightened me and anyone near its epicenter. It was the only crack, but a disturbing one, in the otherwise vacuum-sealed casing of my behavior.

Suicide Note: The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss. -Langston Hughes

Look to the living, love them, and hold on.

I realized that it was not that I didn't want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn't know why I wanted to go on

I had been simply treating water, settling on surviving and avoiding pain rather than being actively involved in seeking out life.

The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness. It has been a fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and companion; I have found it to be seductively complicated, a distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous.

the intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness if my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe once i was better, that the illness was one i should willingly give up....moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable reactions to what life has dealt....even though the depressions that inevitably followed nearly cost me my life.

The ancient dialogue between reason and the senses is almost always more interestingly and passionately resolved in favor of the senses.

Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable, reactions to what life has dealt.

You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're 'not at all like yourself but you will be soon,' but you know you won't.

I am reminded of the importance of small kindnesses.