Book detail: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This memoir offers an intimate look into the life of a distinguished psychiatrist as they navigate the complexities of bipolar disorder. The author candidly shares their struggles, insights, and triumphs, providing a unique perspective on mental health and the human condition.
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“Far too many doctors-many of them excellent physicians-commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than the general population, they also have a greater access to very effective means of suicide.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. ... You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're 'not at all like yourself but will be soon,' but you know you won't.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“There is an assumption, in attaching Puritan concepts such as 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' to the awful, final act of suicide, that those who 'fail' at killing themselves not only are weak, but incompetent, incapable even of getting their dying quite right.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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 sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“As best I could make out, having never heard the term until I arrived in California, being a WASP meant being mossbacked, lockjawed, rigid, humorless, cold, charmless, insipid, less than penetratingly bright, but otherwise---and inexplicably---to be envied.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I was bitterly resentful, but somehow greatly relieved. And I respected him enormously for his clarity of thought, his obvious caring, and his unwillingness to equivocate in delivering bad news.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“The assumption that rigidly rejecting words and phrases that have existed for centuries will have much impact on public attitudes is rather dubious.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“One of the advantages of science is that one's work, ultimately, is either replicated or it is not.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“The ancient dialogue between reason and the senses is almost always more interestingly and passionately resolved in favor of the senses.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I look back over my shoulder and feel the presence of an intense young girl and then a volatile and disturbed young woman, both with high dreams and restless, romantic aspirations”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“We all move uneasily within our restraints.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I am tired of hiding, tired of misspent and knotted energies, tired of the hypocrisy, and tired of acting as though I have something to hide.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“The complexities of what we are given in life are vast and beyond comprehension.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I am reminded of the importance of small kindnesses.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Others would say to me, 'It is only temporary, it will pass, you will get over it,' but of course they had no idea how I felt, although they were certain that they did. Over and over and over I would say to myself, If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Without science, there would be no such hope.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“St. Andrews provided a gentle forgetfulness over the preceding painful years of my life. It remains a haunting and lovely time to me, a marrow experience. For one who during her undergraduate years was trying to escape an inexplicable weariness and despair, St. Andrews was an amulet against all manner of longing and loss, a year of gravely held but joyous remembrances.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“An ardent temperament makes one very vulnerable to dreamkillers.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“... somewhere in my heart, however, I continued to believe that intense and lasting love was possible only in a climate of somewhat tumultuous passions. This, I felt, consigned me to being with a man whose temperament was largely similar to my own. I was late to understand that chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life. Normal people are not aways boring. On the contrary. It has been with pleasure, and not inconsiderable pain, that I have learned about the possibilities of love - its steadiness and its growth...”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“People say, when I complain of being less lively, less energetic, less high - spirited, "Well, now you're just like the rest of us," meaning, among other things to be reassuring. But I compare myself with my former self, not with the others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been mildly 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.
And I miss Saturn very much." An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison page 92, paragraph 1 sentence 2 -4 and paragraph 2”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“I occasionally laugh and tell him that his imperturbability is worth three hundred milligrams of lithium a day to me, and it is probably true.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“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.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
“Violence, especially if you are a woman, is not something spoken about with ease.”
Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness