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Mental Illness Quotes

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Mental Illness Quotes

“Admitting the need for help may also compound the survivor's sense of defeat. The therapists Inger Agger and Soren Jensen, who work with political refugees, describe the case of K, a torture survivor with severe post-traumatic symptoms who adamantly insisted that he had no psychological problems: "K...did not understand why he was to talk with a therapist. His problems were medical: the reason why he did not sleep at night was due to the pain in his legs and feet. He was asked by the therapist...about his political background, and K told him that he was a Marxist and that he had read about Freud and he did not believe in any of that stuff: how could his pain go away by talking to a therapist?”

HealingPsychologyPrideMental HealthMental IllnessDenialTherapyPtsdPsychoanalysisStigmaAbuse SurvivorsPsychotherapyPowerlessnessTraumatic ExperiencesMental DisorderFreudPost Traumatic Stress DisorderHealing From AbusePosttraumatic Stress DisorderSigmund FreudTorturedSelf StigmaTorture SurvivorsMale SurvivorPolitical Refugees
Book:Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
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“When I went to the medical profession complaining of fatigue and forgetfulness, they diagnosed me with Mental Illness, Sleep Apnea and Small Airways Disease. What I actually had was far larger and included Altitude Hypersensitivity, Circadian Rhythm Disorder and Urea Cycle Disorder, and all of them cause fatigue and forgetfulness!”

Mental IllnessFatigueForgetfulnessMedical ProfessionAltitude HypersensitivityDiagnosedSleep ApneaCircadian Rhythm DisorderUrea Cycle DisorderSmall Airways Disease
Author:Steven Magee
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“We all have scars; both inside and out. Use your experience to support those who are going down the same road of destruction you once went down. Know that your past is worth more than the pain you once carried, because it can now be used to comfort and give strength to another soul who is suffering. Cherish your trials and tribulations as gifts; embrace these opportunities to share the grace you have been given.”

Mental IllnessRecoveryScarsEmotional PainSelf HarmHealing InsightsSelf InjuryInner Pain
Author:Katie Maslin
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“What sticks with me now is that this man said he needed to get to a hospital. He probably needed to reach his destination more than anyone else on the bus, yet he lacked the capacity to ride without getting kicked off. Maybe he reached the hospital eventually, and maybe he was connected with social workers and housing specialists who will help him transform his life. But I fear he got on another bus, and another bus after that, without going anywhere at all.”

Mental IllnessBusHealthcareHospitalMentally IllGoing Nowhere
Author:Susan Nielsen
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“Debbie Nathan’s thesis is that Shirley Mason was a vulnerable hysteric and was manipulated by her therapist into iatrogenic DID and false memories of child abuse. Nathan says that this is generally true of DID, except for perhaps a small number of genuine cases. One problem with this thesis is that it is based on a stereotypically male chauvinist view of women as impressionable hysterics who do not know, and are not in control of, their own minds or histories; this demeaning view of women is presented as a feminist thesis.”

Mental IllnessDissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderMultiple PersonalitiesSybilSybil ExposedHysterical WomenSelf ContradictoryHysteric
Author:Colin A. Ross
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“The uncomfortable, as well as the miraculous, fact about the human mind is how it varies from individual to individual. The process of treatment can therefore be long and complicated. Finding the right balance of drugs, whether lithium salts, anti-psychotics, SSRIs or other kinds of treatment can be a very hit or miss heuristic process requiring great patience and classy, caring doctoring. Some patients would rather reject the chemical path and look for ways of using diet, exercise and talk-therapy. For some the condition is so bad that ECT is indicated. One of my best friends regularly goes to a clinic for doses of electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment looked on by many as a kind of horrific torture that isn’t even understood by those who administer it. This friend of mine is just about one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and she says, “I know. It ought to be wrong. But it works. It makes me feel better. I sometimes forget my own name, but it makes me happier. It’s the only thing that works.” For her. Lord knows, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t understand the brain or the mind anything like enough to presume to judge or know better than any other semi-informed individual, but if it works for her…. well then, it works for her. Which is not to say that it will work for you, for me or for others.”

Mental HealthMental IllnessHuman MindPsychiatryRespecting OthersBipolarHuman BrainMental Health StigmaMental DisorderBipolar DisorderLithiumJudgemental PeopleInformed ConsentInformed DecisionsPsychiatric DrugsEct
Author:Stephen Fry
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“Police intentionally murdering a mentally unstable person will always be unacceptable when there are numerous other non-lethal options available to them.”

MurderPoliceMental HealthAvailableMental IllnessMentalPersonPolice BrutalityPolicemenSheriffPolice OfficerUnstableAlwaysPolice CorruptionPolice StateMental DisorderOptionsThemPolicemanPolice ReformPolice ProceduralPolice ServiceMental DisordersOptionNumerousLethalUnacceptableIntentionallyOptions QuotesMurderingNon Lethal
Author:Steven Magee
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“Cheryl's growing awareness of her emotional difficulties was leading her to research multiple personality. As she had learned more about dissociation, she realised just how severe the abuse had been and how much she had been hurt. Her mind had dissociated to assure survival during the abuse by her father and it had been forced to dissociate by various researchers in government programmes.”

AbuseTraumaMental IllnessChild AbuseSexual AbuseDissociative Identity DisorderDissociationMultiple Personality DisorderGovernment AbuseDissociativeChild RapeSplit PersonalityMkultraMultiple PersonalityMk UltraGovernment Experiments
Book:Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country
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“To the men and women who changed Cheryl Hersha's life, she was a continuation of the research that had first been conducted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Dr. Morton Prince. He encountered a woman named Miss Beauchamp, a nursing student who was referred to the psychiatrist because of health problems. As he worked with her, Prince discovered that she had four separate personalities (dissociated ego states) that existed independently of one another within the same body. Though he tried, Dr. Prince never understood Miss Beauchamp, nor was he able to help her. When he died, his wife had the woman committed to an insane asylum for the rest of her life. However, Prince's careful documentation of Beauchamp's symptoms, actions and family history (extreme child abuse beginning before the age of seven) provided information needed to develop the techniques for contemporary, routinely successful treatment of what would be called Multiple Personality Disorder.”

AbuseMental HealthMental IllnessChild AbuseDissociative Identity Disorder19th CenturyNineteenth CenturyChild Sexual AbuseMind ControlMultiple Personality DisorderGovernment AbuseDissociativeSplit PersonalityMkultraExtreme AbuseMiss BeauchampMorton Prince
Book:Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed to Kill for Their Country
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“Mais quel crime ai-je donc commis ? Ai-je tué quelqu'un et ensuite perdu la mémoire ? Ai-je tué, volé ? Non, j’ai fait un choix. Il ne les concerne pas, ce n’est pas eux qui en souffrent, je suis inoffensive. Je les déteste ceux qui disent que je leur fais du mal en me laissant mourir. Ils ne peuvent pas savoir, je ne leur dirai pas, d'ailleurs ils ne m'aiment plus, ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on aime.”

DepressionMental IllnessHospitalAnorexia NervosaInstitutional Abuse
Book:Le Pavillon des enfants fous
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“One of the paradoxical and transformative aspects of implicit traumatic memory is that once it is accessed in a resourced way (through the felt sense), it, by its very nature, changes. Out of the shattered fragments of her deeply injured psyche, Jody discovered and nurtured a nascent, emergent self. From the ashes of the frantically activated, hypervigilant, frozen, traumatized girl of twenty-five years ago, Jody began to reorient to a new, less threatening world. Gradually she shaped into a more fluid, resilient, woman, coming to terms with the felt capacity to fiercely defend herself when necessary, and to surrender in quiet ecstasy.”

MindBodyFearHealingMental HealthMemoryTerrorTraumaMental IllnessTreatmentPtsdFrozenOverwhelmedFreezeTraumatizedHealing TraumaPosttraumatic Stress DisorderFrozen In TimeFight Flight
Author:Peter A. Levine
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“Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32)." World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20. PMCID: PMC1489832 Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness PATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON”

FearPrejudiceBlameMental HealthDiscriminationMental IllnessBiasStigmaStereotypesChildlikeMental Health StigmaMental DisorderMedia ManipulationMedia BiasSensationalismMedia DistortionStigmatizationStereotyped PrejudicesDangerousnessPsychiatric CommunityStereotypedMental Patient
Author:Patrick W. Corrigan
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“With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical – not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery]. - Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)”

SuicideMental IllnessInsanitySuicidalDissociative Identity DisorderMisconceptionStigmaStereotypesMultiple Personality DisorderSelf HarmMultiple PersonalitiesMental DisorderSelf InjuryMisrepresentationSplit PersonalitySuicidalityBilly MilliganThe Crowded Room
Author:Bethany Brand
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“As modern neurobiologists point out, the repetition of the traumatic experience in the flashbacks can be itself re-traumatizing; if not life-threatening, it is at least threatening to the chemical structure of the brain and can ultimately lead to deterioration. And this would also seem to explain the high suicide rate of survivor, for example, survivors of Vietnam.”

SuicideMental IllnessPtsdVietnam WarNeurobiologyPosttraumatic Stress DisorderFlashbacksSuicidalityVeterans AffairsVietnam VeteransRetraumatizationSuicide Rates
Book:Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History
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“Edwards knew that the constant spending and deliberate time-wasting was taking a toll. 'I know that if I get to the end of this year I'll have no dignity left at all,' he said. 'It's all gone. I live in a big fantasy world... It's sad.' He'd often end the day drinking even more to block out the world and allow him to get to sleep.”

SuicideMental IllnessAlcoholicSuicidalityFantasy WorldLoss Of DignityShopohlic
Book:A Version of Reason: In Search of Richey Edwards
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“Split is doing well at the box office around the world, but it misrepresents people with dissociative identity disorder (DID; previously called multiple personality disorder). The trailer is particularly gripping, luring in audiences by depicting a man with DID kidnapping and preparing to torture three teenage girls. Kevin (played by James McAvoy) juggles 24 personalities that are based on stereotypes: a cutesy 9-year-old infatuated with Kanye West, a flamboyant designer, and the “Beast,” a superhuman monster who sees the girls as “sacred food.” Kevin falsely represents people with DID through exaggerated symptoms, extreme violence, and unrealistic physical characteristics. The senior author, an expert in DID, has not seen any DID patient who is this violent in 25 years of clinical practice. Kevin’s ghastly personalities are so over-the-top that terrifying scenes are making audiences laugh.”

Mental IllnessDissociative Identity DisorderStereotypesMultiple PersonalitiesMental Health StigmaSerial KillersSplitDidmpdSplit MovieSplitmoviehurts
Author:Bethany L. Brand
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“Some mass murderers, so deeply depressed, become schizophrenic or psychotic. Others suffer with severe anxiety and personality disorders. These are not rational people at the time of the murders even when their behaviors are calculated and decisive. Many of them are not legally insane but suffer from severe psychological dysfunctioning as a result of both chronic and acute stress.”

Mental IllnessMurderersMass MurderCrime StatisticsEric W HickeyMass MurderersLegally Sane
Book:Serial Murderers and their Victims
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“The 16 characteristics of psychopaths: 1. Intelligent 2. Rational 3. Calm 4. Unreliable 5. Insincere 6. Without shame or remorse 7. Having poor judgment 8. Without capacity for love 9. Unemotional 10. Poor insight 11. Indifferent to the trust or kindness of others 12. Overreactive to alcohol 13. Suicidal 14. Impersonal sex life 15. Lacking long-term goals 16. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior”

Mental IllnessPsychiatryPsychopathPsychopathologyPsychopathic PersonalitiesPsychiatric CriteriaThe Mask Of Sanity
Book:The Mask of Sanity
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“In 1949, neurologist Egas Moniz (1874-1955) received a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ‘the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses’. Today, prefrontal leucotomy is derided as a barbaric treatment from a much darker age, and it is to be hoped that, one day, so too might antipsychotic drugs.”

FutureMental HealthMental IllnessPsychiatryMental DisordersLobotomyAntipsychotic DrugsAntipsychotic MedicationAntipsychotics
Book:The Meaning of Madness
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“Dropping in and out of your own life (for psychotic breaks, or treatment in a hospital) isn’t like getting off a train at one stop and later getting back on at another. Even if you can get back on (and the odds are not in your favor), you’re lonely there. The people you boarded with originally are far, far ahead of you, and now you’re stuck playing catch-up.”

LifeRelationshipsDepressionAnxietyMental IllnessTreatmentEating DisorderMental Disorder
Book:The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
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“I know cigarettes are killing me from the inside, but so are my illnesses. And after years of juggling meds—five, six, maybe more—my psychiatrist and I have finally, I think, landed on a combination that holds me together. I’m not claiming the pills are weak, or that they should perform miracles and pull every last demon out of my head in an instant. Healing isn’t a switch. It’s slow. It drags. But even with the medication steadying me, there are still nights when anxiety claws at my ribs, when depression sinks its teeth into my spine, when I feel misplaced in my own life. So I smoke. Because for a moment—just a thin, burning moment—it quiets the storm. Maybe smoking is the small tax I pay to keep myself from collapsing, from snapping, from tipping into madness. The price is bearable. Losing my mind wouldn’t be.”

Mental HealthMental IllnessSmokingSchizophreniaMadness And SanityMedicinesRelief From Pain
Author:Mohit Yenugwar
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“It's a book that is set over 160 year ago. A lot has changed. A lot hasn't. We are only just beginning to appreciate exactly how a person's powerlessness may lead to struggles with their mental health. With our understanding, statics showing higher rates of mental illness in women, people of color and other disenfranchised groups become translated into truth. NOT a biological deficiency as doctors first thought. But a cultural creation that, if wanted to, we could do something about.”

Mental IllnessPowerlessnessDisenfranchisedBiological Deficiency
Book:The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
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“I resolved to come right to the point. "Hello," I said as coldly as possible, "we've got to talk." "Yes, Bob," he said quietly, "what's on your mind?" I shut my eyes for a moment, letting the raging frustration well up inside, then stared angrily at the psychiatrist. "Look, I've been religious about this recovery business. I go to AA meetings daily and to your sessions twice a week. I know it's good that I've stopped drinking. But every other aspect of my life feels the same as it did before. No, it's worse. I hate my life. I hate myself." Suddenly I felt a slight warmth in my face, blinked my eyes a bit, and then stared at him. "Bob, I'm afraid our time's up," Smith said in a matter-of-fact style. "Time's up?" I exclaimed. "I just got here." "No." He shook his head, glancing at his clock. "It's been fifty minutes. You don't remember anything?" "I remember everything. I was just telling you that these sessions don't seem to be working for me." Smith paused to choose his words very carefully. "Do you know a very angry boy named 'Tommy'?" "No," I said in bewilderment, "except for my cousin Tommy whom I haven't seen in twenty years..." "No." He stopped me short. "This Tommy's not your cousin. I spent this last fifty minutes talking with another Tommy. He's full of anger. And he's inside of you." "You're kidding?" "No, I'm not. Look. I want to take a little time to think over what happened today. And don't worry about this. I'll set up an emergency session with you tomorrow. We'll deal with it then." Robert This is Robert speaking. Today I'm the only personality who is strongly visible inside and outside. My own term for such an MPD role is dominant personality. Fifteen years ago, I rarely appeared on the outside, though I had considerable influence on the inside; back then, I was what one might call a "recessive personality." My passage from "recessive" to "dominant" is a key part of our story; be patient, you'll learn lots more about me later on. Indeed, since you will meet all eleven personalities who once roamed about, it gets a bit complex in the first half of this book; but don't worry, you don't have to remember them all, and it gets sorted out in the last half of the book. You may be wondering -- if not "Robert," who, then, was the dominant MPD personality back in the 1980s and earlier? His name was "Bob," and his dominance amounted to a long reign, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Since "Robert B. Oxnam" was born in 1942, you can see that "Bob" was in command from early to middle adulthood. Although he was the dominant MPD personality for thirty years, Bob did not have a clue that he was afflicted by multiple personality disorder until 1990, the very last year of his dominance. That was the fateful moment when Bob first heard that he had an "angry boy named Tommy" inside of him. How, you might ask, can someone have MPD for half a lifetime without knowing it? And even if he didn't know it, didn't others around him spot it? To outsiders, this is one of the most perplexing aspects of MPD. Multiple personality is an extreme disorder, and yet it can go undetected for decades, by the patient, by family and close friends, even by trained therapists. Part of the explanation is the very nature of the disorder itself: MPD thrives on secrecy because the dissociative individual is repressing a terrible inner secret. The MPD individual becomes so skilled in hiding from himself that he becomes a specialist, often unknowingly, in hiding from others. Part of the explanation is rooted in outside observers: MPD often manifests itself in other behaviors, frequently addiction and emotional outbursts, which are wrongly seen as the "real problem." The fact of the matter is that Bob did not see himself as the dominant personality inside Robert B. Oxnam. Instead, he saw himself as a whole person. In his mind, Bob was merely a nickname for Bob Oxnam, Robert Oxnam, Dr. Robert B. Oxnam, PhD.”

PsychologyMental HealthMental IllnessTherapySurvivorAlcoholismDissociative Identity DisorderPsychiatristMultiple PersonalitiesSplit PersonalityAlcoholicMpdAltersMultiple Personality
Book:A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder
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“The Goth boy stares at me, and I give him a what-are-you-looking-at stare right back. “I’m dead,” he says in a dull monotone. “Pardon me?” Adriana asks, but he keeps staring at me. “You’re dead, too. Look at your veins. They’re blue.” He points at my forearms where dark veins run their lengths. “You’re rotting like me.” I glance to Adriana, hands clasped and praying that she won’t leave me here. Adriana’s stopped crying now and squints at the boy before standing to pull closed the curtain that rings my cot. “Crazy,” she says with an uncertain smile. “You’re not rotting.” . . . ninety-nine, one hundred . “No,” I reply. “But I will if you leave me here.”

PsychologyMental HealthMental IllnessWolvesRottingCountPsychiatric Hospital
Book:Counting Wolves
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“~~You are not alone~~ No, really. Literally. Maybe you have always known (or suspected) this. Maybe this news is shocking, baffling, dismaying, even unbelievable to you. Despite what you might believe or may have been told about yourself, you are not just 'moody'. Nor are you crazy or defective or possessed. You have what is commonly called 'multiple personalities'.”

CrazyMental HealthMental IllnessPossessedDissociative Identity DisorderMultiple Personality DisorderDefectiveMultiple PersonalitiesSelf Stigma
Book:Got Parts?: an Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder
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“Soon I find myself squatting on the floor. I am still striking my face; not with my fists this time, but with wide-open hands. I am slapping myself. The sounds I make when my palms meet my cheeks are like an unrelenting round of applause. I am clapping myself. Or clapping for myself. I start to giggle. All the voices are receding now. I am no longer filled with rage or disappointment. I clap and clap and simply cannot stop.”

FictionMental IllnessShort StoriesSingaporeCyril Wong
Book:Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me and Other Stories
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