mental-illness

I have spent years ... clinging to the understanding that Iwas a defective biological unit .... This may truly be a valuableperspective for those who observe mental illness, but forme, as a subject, this tree bore only dry and tasteless fruit ...I have a chemical imbalance; I really didn't feel thosethings.I have a chemical imbalance; I didn't really experiencethose things.I have a chemical imbalance; I didn't really thinkthose things ...Here is an insight! The entire human drama of love, suffering,ecstasy, and joy, just chemistry.

It's not about blame or wallowing...you are all molded by so much more than a dysfunctional past, and you must ultimately take responsibility for creating the life you want.

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

I've grown up with an ethic, call it a part, that insists I hide my pain at all costs. As I talk, I feel this pain leaking out__ot just the core symptom of BPD, but all the years of being blamed or ignored for my condition, and all the years I've blamed others for how I am. It's the pain of being told I was too needy even as could never get the help I needed.

Why do they always prescribe thyroid medicine to go with the mental illness cocktails they whip up?

And while a bald head and a looped ribbon were seen as badges of courage and hope, her reluctant vocabulary and vanishing memories advertised mental instability and impending insanity. Those with cancer could expect to be supported by their community. Alice expected to be an outcast.

When my mind plays tricks on me I can deal. But when my mind plays tricks on my mind I can not tell what's real

There is clear evidence from internal investigations in the past that some raters actually see themselves as adversaries to veterans. If a claim can be minimized, then the government has saved money, regardless of the need of the veteran. Just recently, the press exposed an official e-mail from a high-level staff person who stated in essence that PTSD diagnosis was becoming too prevalent and offered ways to delay and deflect ratings in order to save the government money.

We need this help from the outside because we don't know how to to do this for ourselves. We start with a deep deficit__ chasm really__hen it comes to understanding and being tolerant of ourselves, and that's even before we go forth to do battle with the rest of the world. As soon as someone judges, criticizes, dismisses, or ignores, the cycle of pain and reactivity ramps up, compounded by shame, remorse, and rejection. The act of validation, simply saying, 'I can see things from your perspective,' can short-circuit that emotional detour.

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: PMC1489832PATRICK W. CORRIGAN and AMY C. WATSON

I need them to be aware and present with me in the midst of the storm, not just tell me what to do.

Life wasn__ perfect, but it wasn__ supposed to be. Eternal beauty could not exist if it were not for the face of a fatal flaw.

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).

Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still

An inner ease spreads inside me. Such is the power of acceptance and understanding from other people, the power of validation

The scariest thing of all is never knowing what you're suddenly going to believe.

Accepting a psychiatric diagnosis is like a religious conversion. It's an adjustment in cosmology, with all its accompanying high priests, sacred texts, and stories of religion. And I am, for better or worse, an instant convert.

Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins