We have greater reason to fear you than you do to fear us, and this is why, in her words:
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He looked at me in a knowing way, and said,
“Elyn, you don’t really understand: These people are psychotic. They’re different from me and you. They wouldn’t experience restraints as we would.” I didn’t have the courage to tell him in that moment that, no, we’re not that different from him. We don’t like to be strapped down to a bed and left to suffer for hours any more than he would. – Elyn Saks Associate Dean and Professor at the University of Southern California, living with schizophrenia
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#affirmations
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After each seeming death within my mind or heart,
It has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest. It has, inexplicably and savingly, provided not only cloak but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather. – Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind American author and writer, living with bipolar disorder
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I have often longed for peace and tranquility— looked into the lives of others and envied a kind of calmness— and yet I don’t know if this tranquility is what I truly would have wished for myself.
Unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one’s darker side and one’s darker energies. And, above all, that one should learn from turmoil and pain, share one’s joy with those less joyful and encourage passion when it seems likely to promote the common good.
Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.
– Kay Redfield Jamison American author and writer, living with bipolar disorder
Attributions Selected Facebook posts from a young woman living with mental illness, 2012–2013. Jamison, Kay Redfield. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. London: Picador, 1996. Print. Jamison, Kay Redfield. “The Benefits of Restlessness and Jagged Edges.” This I Believe. NPR. 6 June 2005. Radio. Transcript. Saks, Elyn. “What’s It Like To Have A Psychotic Episode?” TED Radio Hour. NPR. TED, 19 July 2013. Radio. Transcript.