Kay Redfield Jamison Quotes
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Because I teach and write about depression and bipolar illness, I am often asked what is the most important factor in treating bipolar disorder. My answer is competence. Empathy is important, but competence is essential.
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Moods are complicated and very much a part of who we are. People would be very boring without them.
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Nothing good comes out of depression.
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People respond differently to people who are grieving. They reach out. But depression is so very isolating. It's hard to explain to anyone who has never been depressed how isolating it is. Grief comes and goes, but depression is unremitting.
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With grief, you have reason to despair; it's a human thing.
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Scientists have made extraordinary advances in understanding the brain and its disorders.
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Grief is so human, and it hits everyone at one point or another, at least, in their lives. If you love, you will grieve, and that's just given.
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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?
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Lithium remains the gold standard, but many drugs now treat bipolar disorder. Medication is critical and should be combined with psychotherapy. Compliance is a major problem. Patients believe that once they're better, they no longer need the medication. It doesn't work that way.
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I think one thing is that 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.
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When I'm talking about depression, I'm talking about the more severe forms of depression, and I think that conceptualising as a form of grief is probably not the most effective way of looking at it. I mean, at the end of the day, people suffer enormously, and you want to treat it.
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It's more common than not that bipolar illness will start in the teens. One of the reasons I spend a lot of time on college campuses is exactly that reason. It's terribly important to talk to students about knowing these things in advance.
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Grief comes and goes, but depression is unremitting.
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There are a lot of studies that suggest a higher rate of creativity in bipolars than the general population.
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An intense temperament has convinced me to teach not only from books but from what I have learned from experience. So I try to impress upon young doctors and graduate students that tumultuousness, if coupled to discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing.
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I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease.
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I love animals, and I was always attracted to the idea of being a zoo veterinarian or a veterinarian with the circus.
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There is no common standard for education about diagnosis. Distinguishing between bipolar depression and major depressive disorder, for example, can be difficult, and mistakes are common. Misdiagnosis can be lethal. Medications that work well for some forms of depression induce agitation in others.
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Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.
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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.
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'An Unquiet Mind' wasn't hard to write in terms of the actual writing of it.
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I am one of millions who have been treated for depression and gotten well; I was lucky enough to have a psychiatrist well versed in using lithium and knowledgeable about my illness, and who was also an excellent psychotherapist.
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Mania is as bad as it gets. If not treated, it will become worse, more frequent, and harder to treat.
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We expect well-informed treatment for cancer or heart disease; it matters no less for depression.