Best 923 quotes in «mental illness quotes» category

Our “increasing mental sickness” may find expression in neurotic symptoms. These symptoms are conspicuous and extremely distressing. But “let us beware,” says Dr. Fromm, “of defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting.” The really hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted, still cherish “the illusion of individuality,” but in fact they have been to a great extent deindividualized. Their conformity is developing into something like uniformity. But “uniformity and freedom are incompatible. Uniformity and mental health are incompatible too. . . . Man is not made to be an automaton, and if he becomes one, the basis for mental health is destroyed.

Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death there seems to fall the shadow of madness.

Owing to a poorly defined sense of self, people with BPD rely on others for their feelings of worth and emotional caretaking. So fearful are they of feeling alone that they may act in desperate ways that quite frequently bring about the very abandonment and rejection they're trying to avoid.

Panic attacks are a lot like being drunk in some ways, you lose self-control. You cry for seemingly no reason. You deal with the hangover long into the next day.

Parents, families, and caregivers are a “minority” group in the mental health system. This population is hungry for knowledge, direction, and peace of mind. The first step toward these things is embracing truth about our “fallen” mental health system

PART 2 I felt doomed to death, But in a flash, Before I could reduce my thoughts To an emotion, I felt a mass leave my body: Departing. Then my mind becomes anonymous As is each night. Just unfinished thoughts, and a deep sickness inside, As I was forced to swallow it, Something I've tried to bury deep inside my psyche to this day. (poem written by alter personality)

Pathological dissociation is characterized by profound, functional amnesias and significant alterations in identity; normal dissociation is expressed primarily in the form of intense absorption with internal stimuli (e.g., daydreams) or external stimuli (e.g., a fascinating book or television program).

People who fell in love at first sight, rushed home to their parents to tell them the good news and subsequently married were, [Patricia Highsmith] thought, retarded. Rather, a more honest appraisal of the nature of love positions it nearer to the horrors of mental illness. How else could you explain the fact that so many people were prepared to sacrifice the safety and cosiness of their lives for the thrill of a new romance?

People with OCD including myself, realize that their seemingly uncontrollable behavior is irrational, but they feel unable to stop it.

People with mental illnesses aren't wrapped up in themselves because they are intrinsically any more selfish than other people. Of course not. They are just feeling things that can't be ignored. Things that point the arrows inward.

Persons Are Turned against Themselves Evil also turns a person against herself so that self is used against self. The case of the woman who received a dismissal letter from her pastor comes to mind again. The psychological decompensation she suffered was successfully used by her husband to intercede with a psychiatrist of his choosing to commit her to the mental unit of a hospital for an extended involuntary stay, which further worsened her condition. Additional examples abound. Some patients report cults using induced hypnotic states to encourage a subject's dissociated hands and arms to do something hurtful to someone else. In such cases, the subject is encouraged to watch the hand that is hers but not hers (because it is dissociated from her). The end result is often extreme guilt. self-loathing, and distrust of one's self and motives.An incestuous parent may use a child's own natural bodily responses to repeated sexual stimulation to make the point that the child really "wants and enjoys“ what is being forced upon her.

Pictures ... flashed on her in sudden color, too much color, shocking color, the color that leaps out of black when lightning strikes at night.

Pierre Janet, a French professor of psychology who became prominent in the early twentieth century, attempted to fully chronicle late- Victorian hysteria in his landmark work The Major Symptoms of Hysteria. His catalogue of symptoms was staggering, and included somnambulism (not sleepwalking as we think of it today, but a sort of amnesiac condition in which the patient functioned in a trance state, or "second state," and later remembered nothing); trances or fits of sleep that could last for days, and in which the patient sometimes appeared to be dead; contractures or other disturbances in the motor functions of the limbs; paralysis of various parts of the body; unexplained loss of the use of a sense such as sight or hearing; loss of speech; and disruptions in eating that could entail eventual refusal of food altogether. Janet's profile was sufficiently descriptive of Mollie Fancher that he mentioned her by name as someone who "seems to have had all possible hysterical accidents and attacks." In the face of such strange and often intractable "attacks," many doctors who treated cases of hysteria in the 1800s developed an ill-concealed exasperation.

People can't listen until they're ready. I sure couldn't. I was, like, deaf to everyone except the thoughts. They were the boss of me.

People may be constrained in two basic ways: physically, by confining them in jails, mental hospitals, and so forth; and symbolically, by confining them in occupations, social roles, and so forth. Actually, confinement of the second type is more common and pervasive in the day-to-day conduct of society’s business; as a rule, only when the symbolic, or socially informal, confinement of conduct fails or proves inadequate, is recourse taken to physical, or socially formal, confinement…. When people perform their social roles properly – in other words, when social expectations are adequately met – their behavior is considered normal. Though obvious, this deserves emphasis: a waiter must wait on tables; a secretary must type; a father must earn a living; a mother must cook and sew and take care of her children. Classic systems of psychiatric nosology had nothing to say about these people, so long as they remained neatly imprisoned in their respective social cells; or, as we say about the Negroes, so long as they “knew their place.” But when such persons broke out of “jail” and asserted their liberty, they became of interest to the psychiatrist.

People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience… but we’d be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives… because we didn’t like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution?

People who live with mental illnesses are among the most stigmatized groups in society. Fighting the stigma caused by mental disorders: past perspectives, present activities, and future directions. World Psychiatry. Oct 2008; 7(3): 185–188. PMCID: PMC2559930

People would be so much more at ease if they acted on impulse rather than reason. That’s why drugs are so effective in curing mental illness—because they impair our judgment. Don’t try to think too much.

Plato believed that insanity was essential to our nature and assumed that it held esoteric knowledge about who we are.

Preaching a man a sermon with a broken head and telling him to be right with God is equal to telling a man with a broken leg to get up and run a race.

Prideful fool. It hurt his feelings that he couldn’t make my crazy go away. You know how men are. Always trying to fix things can’t be fixed.

Prior to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder had been referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder. The renaming of this diagnosis has caused quite a bit of confusion among professionals and those who live with DID. Because dissociation describes the process by which DID begins to develop, rather than the actual outcome of this process (the formation of various personalities), this new term may be a bit unclear. We know that the diagnosis is DID and that DID is what people say we have. We’d just like to point out that words sometimes do not describe what we live with. For people like us, DID is just a step on the way to where we live—a place with many of us inside! We just want people who have little ones and bigger ones living inside to know that the title Dissociative Identity Disorder sounds like something other than how we see ourselves—we think it is about us having different personalities. Regardless of the term, it is clear that, in general, the different personalities develop as a reaction to severe trauma. When the person dissociates, they leave their body to get away from the pain or trauma. When this defense is not strong enough to protect the person, different personalities emerge to handle the experience. These personalities allow the child to survive: when the child is being harmed or experiencing traumatic episodes, the other personalities take the pain and/ or watch the bad things. This allows these children to return to their body after the bad things have happened without any awareness of what has occurred. They do this to create different ways to make sense of the harm inflicted upon them; it is their survival mechanism.

Psychosis can happen out of the blue, to anyone, and no one knows why. Not even the best doctors on the planet. And that’s why Mom is always so afraid. If we don’t know what made me sick in the first place, how can anyone guarantee I won’t flip out again?

Psychological trauma is an affliction of the powerless. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When the force is that of other human beings, we speak of atrocities. Traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning.… Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life.… They confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the responses of catastrophe.

Profound melancholia is a day-in, day-out, night-in, night-out, almost arterial level of agony.

PTSD in its rawest form is a death sentence which causes many veterans and others to execute themselves in hope to be free.

Public stigma Stereotype Negative belief about a group (e.g., dangerousness, incompetence, character weakness) Prejudice Agreement with belief and/or negative emotional reaction (e.g., anger, fear) Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., avoidance, withhold employment and housing opportunities, withhold help) Self-stigma Stereotype Negative belief about the self (e.g., character weakness, incompetence) Prejudice Agreement with belief, negative emotional reaction (e.g., low self-esteem, low self-efficacy) Discrimination Behavior response to prejudice (e.g., fails to pursue work and housing opportunities) Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. Feb 2002; 1(1): 16–20. PMCID: PMC1489832

Rather than being medicalized or romanticized, mental disorders, or mental dis-eases, should be understood as nothing less or more than what they are, an expression of our deepest human nature. By recognizing their traits in ourselves and reflecting upon them, we may be able both to contain them and to put them to good use. This is, no doubt, the highest form of genius.

Regret is a painful thing. Few people understand that there are three important things that leave us and can never return. Words. Time. Opportunity. These are things we can never get back.

Reason to live, they repeat like a pop song, The bones of a beloved emperor, and I, the motionless chariot trying to drag them home with forced hope.

Recovery doesn't mean putting your life on hold. Recovery means holding on so you can live your best life.

Recovery is not so much a dream at it is a plan.

Repression. Her therapist, Dr. Solomon, loved the word. He'd say it slowly, letting it roll off his tongue. Sometimes he'd add a chin stroke for good measure. He always looked pleased when he did this, like he'd discovered the Caramilk secret or something.

Remember no one really cares what you look like. They care what they look like. You are the only person in the world to have worried about your face.

Sadness wasn't a disease you could catch, as far as I know, but from what I seen, people treated it like it was.

Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33): - fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities; - authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others; - benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for." 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

Rikki looked over at me. “Why now?" she asked, looking back at Arly. “Why is this happening now?" "Hard to say." Arly [therapist] replied. "DID usually gets diagnosed in adulthood. Something happens that triggers the alters to come out. When Cam's father died and he came in to help his brother run the family business he was in close contact with his mother again. Maybe it was seeing Kyle around the same age when some of the abuse happened. Cam was sick for a long time and finally got better. Maybe he wasn't strong enough until now to handle this. It's probably a combination of things. But it sure looks like some of the abuse Cam experienced involved his mother. And sexual abuse by the mother is considered to he one of the most traumatic forms of abuse. In some ways it's the ultimate betrayal.

Running away from home. Or running away from myself within my home.

Sadly, psychiatric training still includes far too little on the very serious psychiatric sequelae of childhood trauma, especially CSA [child sexual abuse]. There is inadequate recognition within mental health services of the prevalence and importance of Dissociative Disorders, sufferers of which are frequently misdiagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), or, in the cases of DID, schizophrenia. This is to some extent understandable as some of the features of DID appear superficially to mimic those of schizophrenia and/or Borderline Personality Disorder.

Sanity is over-rated. It lacks color.

Sanity is a less severe form of insanity.

Sanity is socially and politically determined and when politics change, the definition of who is well and unwell, who is sane and who is sick, tends to change with it. The traits of good mental health, of the supposedly well-balanced individual, are often suspiciously similar to those of the compliant citizen, the obedient worker, the dutiful woman - whatever those traits might be, depending on the mood of the world and the whims of the powerful. Those who oppose the existing order can count on being labelled as deranged, as irrational, especially if they make the mistake of showing emotion in a power regime that considers all emotions weakness, all feelings laughable - except the rage of the ‘white working class’, as long as this is properly harnessed in the service of vested interests.

Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid?

Police intentionally murdering a mentally unstable person will always be unacceptable when there are numerous other non-lethal options available to them.

See, I have dated death and decided he was not the man for me.

Seeing Salix in front of that orchestra had inspired me. She had felt all the hard feelings, but she had done the hard thing anyway. She just did it. She was prepared to handle whatever happened. Or maybe not prepared, but at least willing to do it and hope for the best, Feel the fear. Do it anyway.

Self-stigma refers to the state in which a person with mental illness has come to internalize the negative attitudes about mental illness and turns them against him- or herself.

Severe mental illness has been likened to drug addiction, prostitution, and criminality (37,38). Unlike physical disabilities, persons with mental illness are perceived by the public to be in control of their disabilities and responsible for causing them (34,36). Furthermore, research respondents are less likely to pity persons with mental illness, instead reacting to psychiatric disability with anger and believing that help is not deserved (35,36,39). Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry. Feb 2002; 1(1): 16–20. PMCID: PMC1489832 PATRICK W. CORRIGAN and AMY C. WATSON

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). Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33): - fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities; - authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others; - benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for. - Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36).

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