Quotes About Mental health

The idea began to sink in, more than it ever had, that I might be crazy, in the traditional sense of the word. That I might be, forever and ever amen, a Crazy Person. That's what we'd suspected all along, what I'd been working so hard to disprove, what might be true. I preferred, by far, being dead.

The madness is there, and will always be there. But it will keep sleeping, as long as I don't wake it up.

And then the horror sets in. All that time I wasn't crazy; I was, in fact, crazy. It's hopeless. I'm hopeless. Bipolar disorder. Manic depression. I'm sick. It's true. It isn't going to go away. All my life, I've thought that if I just worked hard enough, it would. I've always thought that if I just pulled myself together, I'd be a good person, a calm person, a person like everyone

The last place I want to be is the hospital, but I'm not stupid. I know when it's time to go in. I am so terrified of myself and of the vast, frightening world, that the psych ward, with its safe locked doors, sounds like a relief.

Here's the hell of it: madness doesn't announce itself. There isn't time to prepare for its coming. It shows up without calling and sits in your kitchen ashing in your plant. You ask how long it plans to stay; it shrugs its shoulders, gets up, and starts digging through the fridge.

warned me that the tenuous balance that exists in my brain is easily set off kilter, but like everything else he said

I have a word. Now it will be better. Now it has a name, and if it has a name, it's a real thing, not merely my imagination gone wild. If it has a name, if it isn't merely an utter failure on my part, if it's a disease, bipolar disorder, then it has an answer. Then it has a cure.

crazymeds.org—a private website run by someone with a mental illness, this site is incredibly helpful. It provides ongoing reviews of a large number of meds, which are written by people who actually take them.

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.

Soon madness has worn you down. It's easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says you're worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.

It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no 'cure'. A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.

My god! people say. You have so much self-control! And later: My god. You're so, so sick. When people say this, they turn their heads, you've won your little game. You have proven your thesis that no-body-loves-me-every-body-hates-me, guess-I'll-just-eat-worms. You get to sink back into your hospital bed, shrieking with righteous indignation. See? you get to say. I knew you'd give up on me. I knew you'd leave.

The anoretic operates under the astounding illusion that she can escape the flesh, and, by association, the realm of emotions.

The great omission in American life is solitude. . . that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incinerator of the spirit.

The first thing the therapist asked me was, 'Are you here because you're depressed?' I said, 'Not at all--I'm here because I'm Southern.'" Anne Herndon

Clearly, being anxious is a full-time and rather exhausting occupation.

The most serious cause of illness that we may face as we proceed to the twenty-first century is increasing human isolation.

To those of you who are depressed, I would like to say: How did you fall into depression? Why are you still in that condition? You yourself know the answer. Right. Because you can think of nothing but yourself, and you direct all the energy you have toward yourself.

Lying just for the fun of it is either art or pathology.

Para empezar, dice que una de las cosas cruciales para las personas afectadas por la depresión es evaluar de manera constante tanto a sí mismas como su condición mental. Algo que el estoicismo enseña a cualquier persona es a evaluar sus propias reacciones y a reflexionar críticamente sobre cómo percibe e interpreta el mundo.

Soy inventor-depresivo. –¿Es decir…? –Invento cosas, pero si no funcionan tiendo a deprimirme. Así que, si sacamos la media, puede decirse que soy inventor-depresivo. –Hay que inventar más para deprimirse menos, querido amigo… –Si pudiera, inventaría todo el tiempo.

A veces nos derrumbamos hasta tal punto que la idea de la felicidad nos asusta. Los ojos del corazón se acostumbran a la oscuridad e incluso la luz más suave se vuelve cegadora.

Uno nods, looks out over his high school football field again. He knows deep down he would never kill himself. He likes being alive. Even if he knows the things that happen to him aren't always good. It doesn't matter. He wants to be alive. And not only that, he wants to see who he is. Like somebody from the outside can.

Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known... then went crazy as a loon.