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.Kay Redfield Jamison
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 Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one?Kay Redfield Jamison
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 mildly manic.Kay Redfield Jamison
The most important thing I have learned about the manic-depressive illness, however, is that one can have it and still be laureate... Still teach at a university... and still have a family... I know this from personal experience.Kay Redfield Jamison
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.Kay Redfield Jamison
I have seen the breadth and depth and width of my mind and heart and seen how frail they both are, and how ultimately unknowable they both are.Kay Redfield Jamison
No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods.Kay Redfield Jamison
Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behaviour somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable reactions to what life has dealt.Kay Redfield Jamison
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness. One only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere.Kay Redfield Jamison
It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up.Kay Redfield Jamison