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Kay Redfield Jamison

Kay Redfield Jamison Quotes

Psychologist

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Famous Kay Redfield Jamison Quotes

“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. It is an odd thing, owing life to pills, one's own quirks and tenacities, and this unique, strange, and ultimately profound relationship called psychotherapy”

NeedsHelpingProblemDealsStrangeAmountUniqueProfoundOddHelp MePillsTenacityPsychotherapyOwingManiaQuirksOdd Things
Book:Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression
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“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. 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.”

FeelsDesireSufferingPleasureBehaviorUniqueAdvantageBasesSuicideIllnessMoodRationalPsychologicalBipolarManicErodeWill To LiveRational ThoughtUnendurableManic Depression
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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“It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness”

KnowsSelfReasonEnoughPainMotivationDiesCoursesCausesDecisionBehindsEventsSuicideComplexesKillingIllnessCommittedMental IllnessComplexityFierceSevereTemptingPsychopathologyDestructiveness
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.”

PeopleIfsThinkingLastsYoungMinesEternalSuicideNotesPainfulMoodExperimentsSparesTormentHopelessnessSuicidalDomainSolaceParalyzedChemistSuicide Note
Book:Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
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“Looking at suicide—the sheer numbers, the pain leading up to it, and the suffering left behind—is harrowing. For every moment of exuberance in the science, or in the success of governments, there is a matching and terrible reality of the deaths themselves: the young deaths, the violent deaths, the unnecessary deaths”

MomentsRealityGovernmentPainYoungSufferingLeftNumbersBehindsTerribleSuicideViolentSheerUnnecessaryLeft BehindMatchingExuberanceViolent Death
Book:Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
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“I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist.”

WorldLongLife IsForceWatchesTakenToo MuchInvolvedElementsSeasonsNotionKillingComplicatedStormGravesDryAbandonedLong AgoDisturbingWristsUncontrollable
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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“I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse. Since almost everyone I knew was seeing a psychiatrist, and since I had an absolute belief that I should be able to handle my own problems, I naturally bought a horse.”

ShouldProblemAbleSchoolChoicesBeliefMy OwnSeeingNeededDecidedHorseAbsolutesMoodHandleBuyingGraduatesPsychiatristGraduate School
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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“We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.”

WayMindEnoughProblemPainForceDifficultSeaSadnessWallDrugLowsStonesLifetimeAlcoholInevitableDenialHeightInternalsBarriersOverwhelmingConstructsInclinationHarborsSanctuaryTurmoilMedicationSadness Of LifeDifficult ProblemsWork FamilyOverwhelming Force
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“I was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no subsitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not always boring. On the contrary. Volatility and passion, although often more romantic and enticing, are not intrinsically preferable to a steadiness of experience and feeling about another person.”

PeoplePersonsRealFeelingsPassionNormalLateChaosBoringContraryImprovementReal LifeLastingIntensityLasting LoveEnticingVolatilitySteadiness
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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“Who would not want an illness that has among its symptoms elevated and expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, abundance of energy, less need for sleep, intensified sexuality, and- most germane to our argument here-"sharpened and unusually creative thinking" and "increased productivity"?”

ThinkingWantNeedsSelfEnergySleepCreativeSelf EsteemArgumentIllnessSexualityProductivityMoodEsteemAbundanceSymptomsCreative Thinking
Book:Touched With Fire
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“I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel better or keep me alive? Well, there never was anything he could say, that's the funny thing. It was all the stupid, desperately optimistic, condescending things he didn't say that kept me alive; all the compassion and wamrth I felt from him that could not have been said; all the intelligence, competence, and time he put into it; and his granite belief that mine was a life worth living.”

ThinkingFeelsWellsHas BeensSaidEarthRememberBeliefFeltCompassionAliveStupidMinesMonthsOfficeHundredSittingOptimisticFeel BetterCompetenceFunny ThingsWorth LivingGrimLife Worth LivingCondescendingGraniteMake Me Feel Better
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is decimated, your mortification complete: mania is not a luxury one can easily afford. It is devastating to have the illness and aggravating to have to pay for medications, blood tests, and psychotherapy. They, at least, are partially deductible. 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.”

ReasonGivenLossPayBloodPlanetsFitDepressionConceptsTestsIllnessCreditMedicalLuxuryExcellentInternalsExpensesPaceRevenueMedicationPsychotherapyManicManiaMortificationAggravatingRotatingLithiumBlood Tests
Book:Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression
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“It was as if my father had given me, by way of temperament, an impossibly wild, dark, and unbroken horse. It was a horse without a name, and a horse with no experience of a bit between its teeth. My mother taught me to gentle it; gave me the discipline and love to break it; and- as Alexander had known so intuitively with Bucephalus- she understood, and taught me, that the beast was best handled by turning it toward the sun.”

IfsWayMotherFatherNamesGivenBitsDarkKnownBreakSunTaughtDisciplineDepressionUnderstoodAnd LoveHorseTeethGentleBeastTemperamentUnbroken
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“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....But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable....It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”

KindIdeasEndsFeelingsRealityPainMovingStarsLonelinessParticularInvolvedDepressionMadnessAngryTerrorConfusionClarityShootingFrightenedOverwhelmingGrainUncontrollableElationShooting Star
Author:Kay Redfield Jamison
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“When I am high I couldn't worry about money of I tried. So I don't. The money will come from from somewhere; I am entitled; God will provide. Credit cards are disastrous, personal checks worse. Unfortunately, for manics anyway, mania is a natural extension of the economy.”

NaturalWorryEconomyCreditGods WillChecksCardsEntitledExtensionsCredit CardBipolarManiaGod Will Provide
Book:An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
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