Susanna Kaysen Quotes

I had panic attacks as a little girl, and they were not subtle.

They put me in solitary confinement, and although I went on to do 8,755 days of solitary in total, the first two were the hardest. I almost went mad, beating my head against the wall.

Fear was my main emotion until I started taking anti-depressant medication. And I was one of the people where, as I got older, the fear got worse and worse. So I can really relate to an animal getting, you know, scared and traumatized.

What do you fear, lady?' he asked. 'A cage,' she said.

I think I ran so hard and so fast, in a lot of ways, from my life and I kind of took a fall. It was like - what do they call it? - post-traumatic stress syndrome.

They weren't crazy. They were tired of being locked up. Even I could see that.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

My fears and anxieties throughout my whole life have been slowly squeezing my voice.

I'm phobic about the idea of being constrained.

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

I actually did go through severe depression and anxiety attacks where I couldn't sleep for weeks. It was definitely several months of being not myself.

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

There's something called latent PTSD. It manifests itself in different ways. I want to be free of it, but I'm not.

The only time you can be completely free from risk is when you're in prison.

I believe that everyone experiences depression to some degree at some time in their lives. And there are probably millions of people who live with a low level of sadness and heaviness day in and day out.

I couldn't deal with a normal life.

I've suffered from anxiety and a lot of other things.

I never thought I would see the outside of Chicago.

I went through an extreme depression.

I had gone through a really rough patch in my life, struggling with anxiety and depression for the first time ever, and it was totally new to me. I really had no idea what was going on, and it was all I could think about, so it was all I could write about.

A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

I had suffered from depression in my childhood.

Anxiety has been a big problem for me, but I think my biggest struggle has been depression.

I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy, not because they are crazy, but because it's the best available option at the time.