Best 1014 quotes in «mental health quotes» category

I took a step toward her. 'It is my right to reside in my own mind. It is my right,' I said.

I tried to figure out the answer in books. The more books I read, though, the more it became clear that there was no simple answer as to what schizophrenia is, or what causes it. There was, if anything, a charged and polarized disagreement, a complicated one, one I had never known about before.

It's actually such a tragedy that I live in a world that is inspired by me putting my body or mental state on the line

It’s a little-known secret, and it should probably stay that way: attempting suicide usually jump-starts your brain chemistry. There must be something about taking all those pills that either floods the brain sufficiently or depletes it so completely that balance is restored. Whatever the mechanism, the result is that you emerge on the other side of the attempt with an awareness of what it means to be alive. Simple acts seem miraculous: you can stand transfixed for hours just watching the wind ruffle the tiny hairs along the top of your arm. And always, with every sensation, is the knowledge that you must have survived for a reason. You just can’t doubt it anymore. You must have a purpose, or you would have died. You have the rest of your life to discover what that purpose is. And you can’t wait to start looking.

It's as if all the tears I cried were there for a reason, slowly watering my mind to allow for something beautiful to grow in place of the pain.

…it seemed to Kirsch that the most reliable guide to the mental landscape of a patient was the patient himself. He was better placed to explain his behaviour and his experiences than anyone else. Yet wherever Kirsch went, the patient was the very last person anyone thought to consult. Because, of course, the patient was insane.

It's exhausting to fight a war inside your head every single day. Mental health issues are people’s everyday lives. And, as a society, we need to accept that.

It’s hard to feel supported when you can’t tell people everything. People haven’t really got a clue what it’s like. It’s hard to trust anyone. It’s hard to believe people won’t let you down. I’m feeling like I want to cry. My body feels hollow. Empty. I don’t feel like I’m 17. I feel young. I’m not sure how old, maybe about 10 yrs. It’s hard to accept that I can’t get all the support I need from one person. From any person. It’s hard that no one can fully understand. It’s hard for me to admit that inside I feel a really lonely person. What do I need to do to take care of myself right now? Well I need to cuddle my teddies — it sounds silly, but I need some comfort... I was still cuddling teddies when I should have been cuddling boys. The sick imagery in my mind, rather than making me sexually active, had closed that door completely.

It’s important to point out that mental health is more about wellness rather than sickness.

It’s like everyone has their own little recipe for happiness, but no one really seems all that happy.

It’s like you’re always living in your head. . . . Relax and appreciate your surroundings a little.

It's not easy trying to stay afloat when the current keeps pulling you under.

It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.

It's okay to not be okay - it means that your mind is trying to heal itself.

It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier's mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.

It's the broken that find a way, because the cracks, although deep, let out as much light as the darkness they let in

It struck Hsing suddenly that Masada didn't even understand the nature of his own genius. To him the patterns of thought and motive that he sensed in the virus were self-explanatory, and those who could not see them were simply not looking hard enough. Yet he would readily admit to his own inability to analyze more human contact, even on the most basic level. That was part and parcel of being iru. What a strange combination of skills and flaws. What an utterly alien profile. Praise the founders of Guera for having taught them all to nurture such specialized talent, rather than seeking to "cure" it. It was little wonder that most innovations in technology now came from the Gueran colonies, and that Earth, who set such a strict standard of psychological "normalcy," now produced little that was truly exciting. Thank God their own ancestors had left that doomed planet before they, too, had lost the genes of wild genius. Thank God they had seen the creative holocaust coming, and escaped it.

It's up to you today to start making healthy choices. Not choices that are just healthy for your body, but healthy for your mind.

It’s vitally important that mental health care services are considered a basic human right.” -Shenita Etwaroo

It's unfortunate and worth noting that the same word we use to describe [pathological anxiety], we also use to describe our feelings about a high-pressure day at the office. The word 'anxiety', in all of its derivations, is among the most overused in the English language.

It’s unfortunate that inflated self-worth is being mistaken for confidence when it’s really an indication of the opposite. True confidence is reflected through humility, vulnerability and kindness. It’s quiet. It’s subtle. It does not overwhelm. It does not shrink others down to elevate oneself and it doesn’t not knock others down to give the illusion of being above.

It’s worth burning myself out like a match so long as others receive the light and warmth I dispatch.

It takes all my strength to do daily tasks. To some people, I’m just a number. I’m a projected food stamps debit card lifetime member. I’m seen as crazy or insane, but it doesn’t matter. I know I am bigger than my suffering.

It turns out that up to 35 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have ADHD.

It was hard for me to come up with something on the fly, which is why I preferred, if at all possible, not to say anything at all for fear it wasn't the right thing.

It unwound like a coil of string in his chest and he could feel it spreading to his fingertips, the dryness of his bones, the warmth of his blood. For nearly a decade, no one knew how much it hurt to be him.

It was true. We were still soulmates.

It was during those years that I discovered that loving [my father] was like sticking a blade into my own heart. It got me nowhere, except awake in the middle of the night, recalling the years when my father was the strongest, the smartest, the funniest, and I lay curled in my bed, wondering why I had been cheated out of a father who loved me, and one I could love in return.

It was torture to be starving and not being able to eat. All I could think about was my face and my chewing and how much food was on my fork when I brought it to my mouth. Eating in front of people was like stripping and standing there naked for everyone to judge. My mind was in a constant state of panic wondering if I looked like a pig when I was eating, or if I was chewing too loud. Or worse, what if I ate too much and everyone saw what my mom always saw: a fat sob that could do with losing a few meals? The thought always left me in cold chills.

It would've been the perfect time to tell her. To tell anyone. To say, 'I'm drowning and I need someone, anyone, to be my life raft.' To say, 'I thought it had gone, and it hasn't and I'm so scared by what that means.' To say, 'I just want to be normal, why won't my head let me be normal?

It was soon after that I, overwhelmed with the implications of that memory, overdosed - well, somebody did but as it was my mouth and my stomach that was involved I had to take the consequences. Somehow or other (did an alter ring him?) Bruce (from my support group) got to know, drove over and took us to the hospital.

I understood drinking to be the gasoline of all adventure.

I used my mental illness as a springboard to the rest of my life.

I've always thought of wholeness and integration as necessary myths. We're fragmented beings who cement ourselves together, but there are always cracks. Living with the cracks is part of being, well, reasonably healthy

I've got to that point in life when there's very few thrills and lots of pills seems we all end up this way. As we wait for our final day. But there's one thing about the pills I take. My manic episodes have taken a break

I've had a lot of therapists, so I've had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I've faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

I used mental illness as a springboard to rest of my life.

I’ve always been so full of melancholy. But I’ve realized it’s because I’m alive. I’m open. I feel. I carry all things in my heart and sometimes I mistake the weight of it for heaviness when it’s really fullness.

I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather. Here are some obvious things about the weather: It's real. You can't change it by wishing it away. If it's dark and rainy, it really is dark and rainy, and you can't alter it. It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row. BUT it will be sunny one day. It isn't under one's control when the sun comes out, but come out it will. One day. It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are all are real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault. BUT They will pass: really they will. In the same way that one really has to accept the weather, one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes, "Today is a really crap day," is a perfectly realistic approach. It's all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. "Hey-ho, it's raining inside; it isn't my fault and there's nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow, and when it does I shall take full advantage.

I've come to believe in my bones that children - especially children in poverty - are desperate for an education to help them discover a sense of meaning and purpose. Yet, we have decided to narrow our focus to academic achievement, which creates an unhealthy fixation on grades as a sole indicator of self-worth.

I've learned to be comforted in the dark spot of my mind.

I wanted to grab his mum's face and yell, “I’m not a horrible person, I’m not. But I’m broken too and I’ve never been on the receiving end of this behaviour before and I can’t handle it and I have to look after me first, before anyone else.

I wanted to learn how to carry myself

I wanted to grab his mum's face and yell, “I’m not a horrible person, I’m not. But I’m broken too and I’ve never been on the recovering end of this behaviour before and I can’t handle it and I have to look after me first, before anyone else.

I was always a good girl. I was a straight-A student, top of my class. I did as I was told. I was polite to my elders. I was good to my siblings. I went to church. It was very easy to hide how very bad I was becoming from my family, from everyone. Being good is the best way to be bad.

I was always asking myself why. Why am I feeling this? Thinking that if I knew the cause I could find the cure. But of course there was no reasonable why, at least not in the present. I was awash in an accumulation of past feelings and future dreads, all similar, at least as far as my brain was concerned, and so, lumped together as one. But nobody can handle a lifetime of experience in one moment. That's why depression crushes you.

I was a kid; I had plenty more to do; I'd been through some crap but I was learning from it

I was merely a body that existed day in, day out. Breathing against the powerful waves of time.

I wondered if my friends would stop talking to me now that I was officially "crazy." What if they think I'll hurt their kids? That was a devastating thought. Then I was struck by an even bigger fear, and it's strange how long it took to surface: What will David do? Will he be afraid of me? Will he leave me? I can't make it without David. I was terrified, afraid of losing everything that I had worked so hard to build for myself, everything that kept me safe and secure. This can't be my life. It just can't be my life ran through my head over and over again.

I was scared. I couldn’t not be. Being scared is what anxiety is all about.