There are a lot of studies that suggest a higher rate of creativity in bipolars than the general population. Kay Redfield Jamison More Quotes by Kay Redfield Jamison More Quotes From Kay Redfield Jamison Mood disorders are terribly painful illnesses, and they are isolating illnesses. And they make people feel terrible about themselves when, in fact, they can be treated. Kay Redfield Jamison painful facts people Each way to suicide is its own: intensely private, unknowable, and terrible. Suicide will have seemed to its perpetrator the last and best of bad possibilities, and any attempt by the living to chart this final terrain of life can be only a sketch, maddeningly incomplete Kay Redfield Jamison finals suicide way Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better. Kay Redfield Jamison marvelous life Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me. Kay Redfield Jamison telephones able helping I think that when you're depressed, you can't concentrate long enough and well enough to read for the most part; some people can, but by and large people - that's one of the first things that goes, is the capacity to read meaningful literature. With grief, that's not true. For a while you can't read, but then you really are amenable to solace. Kay Redfield Jamison grief meaningful thinking Anyone who suggests that coming back from suicidal despair is a straightforward journey has never taken it. Kay Redfield Jamison suicidal taken journey 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. Kay Redfield Jamison pain loneliness reality The complexities of what we are given in life are vast and beyond comprehension. Kay Redfield Jamison comprehension complexity given The pursuit of knowledge is an intoxicant, a lure that scientists and explorers have known from ancient times; indeed, exhilaration in the pursuit of knowledge is part of what has kept our species so adaptive. Kay Redfield Jamison exhilaration ancient knowledge 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. Kay Redfield Jamison passion real people I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel better or keep me alive? Well, there never was anything he could say, that's the funny thing. It was all the stupid, desperately optimistic, condescending things he didn't say that kept me alive; all the compassion and wamrth I felt from him that could not have been said; all the intelligence, competence, and time he put into it; and his granite belief that mine was a life worth living. Kay Redfield Jamison optimistic feel-better stupid Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest. Kay Redfield Jamison manifest sadness made I don't think grief of grief in a medical way at all. I think that I and many of my colleagues, are very concerned when grief becomes pathological, that there is no question that grief can trigger depression in vulnerable people and there is no question that depression can make grief worse. Kay Redfield Jamison grief people thinking I am a huge advocate of prescription drugs given wisely and for the right reasons and the right diagnosis and also psychotherapy. Kay Redfield Jamison diagnosis drug reason From a public health point of view, still the overwhelming problem is that people are not treated enough for depression; depression remains under treated. Kay Redfield Jamison problem views people 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. Kay Redfield Jamison done long years Suicide is a particularly awful way to die: the mental suffering leading up to it is usually prolonged, intense and unpalliated. There is no morphine equivalent to ease the acute pain, and death, not uncommonly, is violent and grisly. The suffering of a suicidal is private and inexpressible, leaving family members, friends and colleagues to deal with an almost unfathomable kind of loss, as well as guilt. Suicide carries in its aftermath a level of confusion and devastation that is, for the most part, beyond description. Kay Redfield Jamison suicidal pain suicide 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 Kay Redfield Jamison girl dream looks The ancient dialogue between reason and the senses is almost always more interestingly and passionately resolved in favor of the senses. Kay Redfield Jamison ancient favors reason But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so. Kay Redfield Jamison medical fit loss
