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Mental Illness Quotes

Browse 1580 quotes about Mental Illness.

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Mental Illness Quotes

“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.”

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Book:Wishful Drinking
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“We created a coterie of lunatics. All supporting one another. It felt good and meaningful. But you see, having such friends is both a blessing and a curse. While it is good as a support system, we are prone to inductive effects. Ever seen people yawning one after another? We automatically mimic what the other person is doing. It’s like the transference of an electric charge. No wonder why people say, ‘stay away from negative people.”

Life LessonsFriendshipFriendsDepressionMental HealthMental IllnessNegativityMental Health AwarenessNegative People
Book:The World's Most Frustrated Man
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“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”

CuttingHeartbreakMental IllnessPtsdOverwhelmedEmotional PainAnorexiaEating DisorderSelf HarmTraumatizedRecklessnessSelf InjuryCoping MechanismsSex AddictionStarveCutTraumatic StressSelf Destructive BehaviorAnorexia NervosaEmotional RegulationEmotional ReleaseCutterIntolerableGut WrenchingAffect RegulationEating Disorder CausesEmotionally Numb
Author:Bessel A. van der Kolk
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“You can’t be friends with someone you have feelings for. It’ll just be a constant reminder of what you can’t have. It’s like putting boiling water in an ice cold glass. It’s gonna bust and make a mess.”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“The words ‘I love you’ are worthless when you don’t know who the 'I' is in that statement.”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“I’d have to prove to everyone, including Ellia, that I was more than some guy she used to know, that what we shared had and still mattered. She may have forgotten the promise we made on the beach, but I hadn’t, and it was up to me to backup those words with action. Memories and ghosts were for the dead. Living things moved, and I was never one to stand still." ~Liam”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“It’s like returning to a familiar room and noticing objects had been moved while you were gone—a chair here, a picture frame there. Items that were once brand new were suddenly broken in and worn from age. It was all very subtle, but enough to suspect paranormal activity or a cruel practical joke. When no one else saw what you saw, the freak factor really kicked in, because you were singled out and left questioning reality." ~Ellia”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“She was my go-to person. I’d tell her everything. Now, all of those late-night phone calls, all the sleepovers at her house because I couldn’t deal with stuff at home, all the crying on her shoulder. It’s all gone. It’s like if she doesn’t know, then it didn’t happen, and if it didn’t happen then what exactly am I holding on to?” ~Stacey”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“Hope can be foolish or misguided, but there was no such thing as false hope. Hope was always true even when there was no evidence to support its claim.” - Liam”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“Love is not for thrill-seekers, dreamers, or children with short attention spans. And you, son, fit into all three of those categories.”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“Who cares about fault? As my dad would say, ‘Blame is like your rear-end and reflection. Seeing either always leaves you looking back.’ I’m more worried about what’s in front of me. And right now . . . the view is all messed up.” ~ Ellia”

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Book:Keep Me In Mind
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“Half of the time, the Holy Ghost tries to warn us about certain people that come into our life. The other half of the time he tries to tell us that the sick feeling we get in a situation is not the other person’s fault, rather it is our own hang-ups. A life filled with bias, hatred, judgment, insecurity, fear, delusion and self-righteousness can cloud the soul of anyone you meet. Our job is never to assume,instead it is to listen, communicate, ask questions then ask more, until we know the true depth of someone’s spirit.”

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Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“I have spent years ... clinging to the understanding that I was a defective biological unit .... This may truly be a valuable perspective for those who observe mental illness, but for me, as a subject, this tree bore only dry and tasteless fruit ... I have a chemical imbalance; I really didn't feel those things. I have a chemical imbalance; I didn't really experience those things. I have a chemical imbalance; I didn't really think those things ... Here is an insight! The entire human drama of love, suffering, ecstasy, and joy, just chemistry.”

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Author:D.A. Granger
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“Not wanting the girls to endure the shame of a crazy mother, I spent my days acting as normal as possible. I walked through life, an actor in a Leave it to Beaver episode, determined to disguise all clues of my real condition until... well, until I could find an appropriate moment to do away with myself." [...] "Yet even as my depression spiraled into ever more precarious territory, I retained an uncanny ability to disguise my true mental condition from everyone except Tom. He was my sole source of strength and he never stopped encouraging me.”

ActingEmotionDespairDepressionMental HealthMental IllnessPretendingDisguiseHopelessnessDissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderDaughtersDepressiveMpdSuicidalitySevere DepressionSuicidehopeless
Book:Wholeness: My Healing Journey from Ritual Abuse
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“And when I realized you had secrets too, I was glad. I thought we could be honest with each other. That we could finally rid ourselves of all the clutter from our past. Not our possessions, but the stuff we carry around inside our heads. Because that's what I've realized, living in One Folgate Street. You can make your surroundings as polished and empty as you like. But it doesn't really matter if you're still messed up inside. And that's all anyone's looking for really, isn't it? Someone to take care of the mess inside our heads?”

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Book:The Girl Before
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“Sometimes I fear that the drug-free Flynn – searingly manic, then catastrophically depressed – is who he really is. But because in that form he is not acceptable to conventional society, he has to be drugged so that his emotions are tempered and his behaviour controlled. Perhaps we are blindly living in an Orwellian society where individualism is feared and the biggest pressure is the one to conform. Perhaps Flynn is sane and the rest of the world is mad. The thoughts go round and round in my head.”

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Book:A Voice in the Distance
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“I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.”

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Author:Dave Matthes
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“I'm often asked why I got out when so many didn't. I've mentioned the high school teacher who stopped me in the hall for my assistance in a school performance. Before that man, whose name is Stan Asher, no one had ever looked at me or spoken to me as though I had value. For me, that's the key. Otherwise, I probably would have gone on believing that I was intrinsically bad, with nothing to offer. I believe that many in that house were never offered a positive image of themselves.”

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Book:Upstairs In The Crazy House: The Life Of A Psychiatric Survivor
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“There was an inevitability about our kind of illness, a knowledge that lurking over the next hill was our private monster, which would grab us, shake us up and eventually deposit us in a hospital bed, doped to the gills with anti-psychotic medication, not remembering much of anything and not caring that we couldn't.”

PovertyMental IllnessPsychiatric Survivor
Book:Upstairs In The Crazy House: The Life Of A Psychiatric Survivor
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“I joined with task forces and coalitions, replete with professionals and para-professionals, working in the system. Often, too often, I was the only ex-patient at the table. I was continually surprised by the degree of resistance to the notion that we -- those directly affected -- should have more of a say in how we are housed and treated. The provincial civil service also was reluctant to hear and change what needed to be changed; many times I heard how Rome wasn't built in a day, and that the wheels of government grind slowly. I found *I* was considered the problem, not the issues I was bringing to light. I went through periods of intense frustration, all to aware that patience is fine when you're reasonably fed, clothed and housed, when there is purpose and meaning to your life. Meanwhile, our people were forced to endure, to try to survive in intolerable circumstances through long years of committees and endless debate and red tape.”

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Book:Upstairs In The Crazy House: The Life Of A Psychiatric Survivor
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“Many of the people who regularly feed and cultivate relationships with pigeons are themselves on the fringes of society. They are disconnected from other people due to poverty, limited language skills, or mental illness, but they form deep emotional connections with the birds.”

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Book:Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness
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“One in two recently evicted mothers reports multiple symptoms of clinical depression, double the rate of similar mothers who were not forced from their homes. Even after years pass, evicted mothers are less happy, energetic, and optimistic than their peers. When several patients committed suicide in the days leading up to their eviction, a group of psychiatrists published a letter in Psychiatric Services, identifying eviction as a “significant precursor of suicide.” The letter emphasized that none of the patients were facing homelessness, leading the psychiatrists to attribute the suicides to eviction itself. “Eviction must be considered a traumatic rejection,” they wrote, “a denial of one’s most basic human needs, and an exquisitely shameful experience.” Suicides attributed to evictions and foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010, years when housing costs soared.”

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Book:Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
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“News came of Beni Beni, the madman of Wimbe, who'd always made us laugh in better times. He'd run up to merchants in the trading center with his raving eyes and snatch cakes and Fantas from their stalls. No one ever took them away because his hands were always so filthy. The mad people had always depended on others to care for them, but now there were none. Beni Beni died at the church.”

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Book:The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
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“As I grew into womanhood my confusion at the world became more apparent. I was taking comfort in behaviours that were familiar, not bathing, wearing multiple layers of clothes and, like my mother, I was bingeing on food. Of course I was still very much a lonely unsupported child myself when I got pregnant - one who had never been nurtured or mothered and as such I struggled with the responsibilities of parenthood.”

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Book:Full Circle
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“I found it hard to write the bits where the things that were at first surprising or even shocking became normal incrementally until I couldn't see that they were anything but normal, because everything else had shifted just one centimetre here and one centimetre there, moving at the speed fingernails grow, until finally everything just clicked into exactly the wrong place.”

Mental IllnessWrongSympathyOlivia SudjicUnreliable NarratorSkewed
Book:Sympathy
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