Kay Redfield Jamison Quotes

Quotes about:

• I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Taken, Long Ago, Storm

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2009). “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness”, p.215, Vintage

  55 Copy quote

• There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars....But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable....It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Depression, Stars, Pain

  36 Copy quote

• I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Inspirational, Self, Bipolar

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness”, p.59, Pan Macmillan

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• I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse. Since almost everyone I knew was seeing a psychiatrist, and since I had an absolute belief that I should be able to handle my own problems, I naturally bought a horse.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Horse, School, Choices

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.39, Pan Macmillan

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• Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Crazy, Real, Tired

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.45, Pan Macmillan

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• I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Simple, Thinking, Choices

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.133, Pan Macmillan

  25 Copy quote

• Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury; the time spent engaged in it is not time that could be better spent in more formal educational pursuits. Play is a necessity.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Children, Educational, Play

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2004). “Exuberance: The Passion for Life”, p.69, Vintage

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• Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Suicide, Unique, Bipolar

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.11, Pan Macmillan

  28 Copy quote

• I am tired of hiding, tired of misspent and knotted energies, tired of the hypocrisy, and tired of acting as though I have something to hide.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Tired, Hypocrisy, Acting

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.11, Pan Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• Grief comes and goes, but depression is unremitting

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Grief, Comes And Goes

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• The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness. It has been a fascinating, albeit deadly, enemy and companion; I have found it to be seductively complicated, a distillation both of what is finest in our natures, and of what is most dangerous.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Beautiful, Believe, Chinese

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.10, Pan Macmillan

  17 Copy quote

• We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Wall, Pain, Sadness

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from May 17, 2014

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• I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy, overwhelming despair - dreading everything. Dreading life. Empty inside, to the point of numbness. It's like there's something already dead inside. My whole being has been pulling back into that void for months. (81)

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Numbness, Wish, Despair

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from Oct 29, 2012

  23 Copy quote

• When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Suicide, Suicidal, Thinking

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2011). “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide”, p.93, Vintage

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• Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. ... You're frightened, and you're frightening, and you're 'not at all like yourself but will be soon,' but you know you won't.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Depression, Jobs, Divorce

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.133, Pan Macmillan

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• Others would say to me, 'It is only temporary, it will pass, you will get over it,' but of course they had no idea how I felt, although they were certain that they did. Over and over and over I would say to myself, If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Moving, Thinking, Ideas

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.70, Pan Macmillan

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• There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Believe, Mind, Enough

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.130, Pan Macmillan

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• Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Believe, Life Is, Complicated

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.105, Pan Macmillan

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• Far too many doctors-many of them excellent physicians-commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than the general population, they also have a greater access to very effective means of suicide.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Suicide, Mean, School

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.127, Pan Macmillan

  17 Copy quote

• Anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Anxiety, Bipolar, Resilience

  "Kay Redfield Jamison - A deep love and loss". "All In The Mind" with Natasha Mitchell, www.abc.net.au. January 15, 2011.

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• No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods. Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Depression, Pain, Dark

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from Jan 11, 2012

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  Suicide, Pain, Suicidal

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2011). “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide”, p.24, Vintage

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• One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest.

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Titles, Degrees, Dishonesty

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2014). “An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness”, p.11, Pan Macmillan

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• 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

  Stupid, Optimistic, Feel Better

  FaceBook post by Kay Redfield Jamison from Oct 12, 2012

  6 Copy quote

• ...Time does not heal, It makes a half-stitched scar That can be broken and again you feel Grief as total as in its first hour. -Elizabeth Jennings

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Grief, Broken, Half

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