Quotes About Illness

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. In order to contend with it, I first had to know it in all of its moods and infinite disguises, understand its real and imagined powers.

An understanding at an abstract level does not necessarily translate into an understanding at a day-to-day level. I have become fundamentally and deeply skeptical that anyone who does not have this illness can truly understand it. And, ultimately, it is probably unreasonable to expect the kind of acceptance of it that one so desperately desires.

The endless questioning finally ended. My psychiatrist looked at me, there was no uncertainty in his voice. "Manic-depressive illness." I admired his bluntness. I wished him locusts on his lands and a pox upon his house. Silent, unbelievable rage. I smiled pleasantly. He smiled back. The war had just begun.

This polarization of two clinical states flies in the face of everything that we know about the cauldronous, fluctuating nature of manic-depressive illness; it ignores the question of whether mania is, ultimately, simply an extreme form of depression; and it minimizes the importance of mixed manic-and-depressive states, conditions that are common, extremely important clinically, and lie at the heart of many of the critical theoretical issues underlying this particular disease.

Manic-depressive illness, often seasonal, is recurrent by nature; left untreated, individuals with this disease can expect to experience many, and generally worsening, episodes of depression and mania. It is important to note, however, that most individuals who have manic-depressive illness are normal most of the time; that is, they maintain their reason and their ability to function personally and professionally.

It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.

I wish I could go out and walk and run and skateboard and swim in lakes. But I can't because my mother has Courage. So instead I get to stay in bed and be sick. I'm glad about this. I really am.

It was his reaction when I mention I was from Hailsham. He'd just come through his third donation, it hadn't gone well, and he must have known he wan't going to make it. He could hardly breathe, but he looked towards me and said: Hailsham. I bet that was a beautiful place.

In the meantime, my father's condition had grown neither better nor worse. As I understood, he was asleep for much of the time, and indeed, I found him so on the few occasions I had a spare moment to ascend to that little attic room. I did not then have a chance actually to converse with him until that second evening after the return of his illness.

The king's visit to Coligny's sickbed

Your aunt Rose is dying," Petranilla said as soon as he was close. "May God bless her soul. Mother Cecilia told me." "You look shocked—but you know how ill she is." "It's not Aunt Rose. I've had other bad news." He swallowed. "I can't go to Oxford.

Addison's disease and colitis. Twice a day the doctors shot him up with a

Randle McMurphy) Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power.

One side of the room younger patients, known as Acutes because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed

younger patients, known as 'Acutes' because the doctors figure them still sick enough to be fixed...

If we can use our problems and illnesses as opportunities to think about how we can change our lives, we have power.

What I think is critically important is that there are lots of studies on how prayer effects people that are ill, lots of studies, and I know in my life my prayers have been answered.

To have a curable illness and to leave it untreated except for prayer is like sticking your hand in a fire and asking God to remove the flame.

You can have a disordered relationship with food, but to have an eating disorder is indicative of a mental illness, which I think needs treatment and recognition in a different way.

To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.

No, autosuggestion would explain that, he recalled, as well as reports that, in certain instances, the mentally ill seemed able to unconsciously direct their bodies to emit a variety of odors.

This night methinks is but the daylight sick.

If we don't understand how seriously ill we are, we don't pursue the remedy with the required diligence. If we are slightly ill, we take an aspirin. If we are dying, we passionately pursue a cure. The cure is not forced on us; it is offered to us.4

Never forget that it is not a pneumonia, but a pneumonic man who is your patient.