Kay Redfield Jamison Quotes

“When both she and I had to deal with our respective demons, my sister saw the darkness as being within and part of herself, the family and the world. I, instead, saw it as a stranger; however lodged within my mind and soul the darkness became, it almost always seemed an outside force that was at war with my natural self.”

“God only knew what ran underneath the fierce self-discipline and emotional control that had come with my upbringing. But the cracks were there, I knew it, and they frightened me.”

“People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them.”

“That was a moment where something clarified about shame for me: it’s not just something negative but some kind of arrow, it’s pointing at something, some confusing blend of fear and desire. There was liberation in that, thinking of shame as something to follow, like a path—rather than simply something to be paralyzed by, or try to dissolve, or become second-level meta-shamed by (i.e. “I shouldn’t even be having this feeling of shame…”)”

“Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There’s a light inside of you.”

“So the criminals win, that's what you're saying? For now they do. But it's a long game, Jamison. And I always play for the long game.”

“No pill can help me deal with the problem of not wanting to take pills; likewise, no amount of psychotherapy alone can prevent my manias and depressions. I need both.”

“Psychologists, for reasons of clinical necessity or vagaries of temperament, have chosen to dissect and catalog the morbid emotions - depression, anger, anxiety - and to leave largely unexamined the more vital, positive ones.”

“the intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness if my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe once i was better, that the illness was one i should willingly give up....moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable reactions to what life has dealt....even though the depressions that inevitably followed nearly cost me my life.”

“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.”