Ben Bernanke Quotes

One of things so bad about depression and bipolar disorder is that if you don't have prior awareness, you don't have any idea what hit you.

I'm a mental-health advocate big time, so I think it's great when depression is a thing that's discussed out in the open, because it's still way too stigmatized.

I'm lucky to have depression less severely than a lot of people. I know some find it useful to talk about it and people are definitely doing that more. It's becoming less stigmatised.

I fought a disease. I fought a disease called depression that a lot of people fight every single day. And unlike other diseases, there is a stigma surrounding it.

Before I got on full-time medication, I believed that my mental disorder was the reason I could create so much and create well, because it made me crazy. I could go to these dark places and then come out of it and just be human again.

Several politicians and wives of politicians have been public about their experiences with depression or bipolar illness, including Lawton Chiles, Patrick Kennedy, Tipper Gore and Kitty Dukakis. Each made a tremendous difference by doing so.

Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression and yet was a great president. Don’t you think that should help with the stigma of mental illness? We should tell everyone about that.

As I kept having episodes of depression, I realized that it was not a one-off: that I had, well, not a disease, really - more an illness.

Mental illness lives all around us every day. I've seen it in other family members, I've seen it in friends, and I've dealt with it myself with my own postpartum depression.

It's estimated that 16 million people in the U.S. have struggled with depression - and I include myself in that statistic. It's real, and it's not shameful, and there is help available. You can bring it to the light, you can tell the truth, you can go to a meeting, you can reach out to a friend. None of us are alone.

Depression is an illness and not a necessary part of healthy living.

Schizophrenia beats dining alone.

I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world's largest association of mental-illness workers, and I am all for more funding for mental-health care and research - but not in the vain hope that it will curb violence.

Everyone says to you, 'if you play Ophelia, you'll end up crazy,' but we're all somewhere on the spectrum of mental health, and I think that if you approach it that way it's not such an intimidating issue.

Depression has been called the world's number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you.

I know of people who don't believe it, but depression is an illness, but unlike, say, a broken leg, you don't know when it'll get better.

Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little better and can again function sufficiently.

Mental health is such a complex thing and so difficult to diagnose. What is a mental problem? Who does have mental problems? What's the difference between mental problems and depression and sadness?

The mental health conversation is very important to me. I have friends that struggle with various mental illnesses. I've struggled with depression and anxiety. I'm very interested in how we deal with that.

One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.

If you look at suicides, most of them are connected to depression. And the mental health system just fails them. It's so sad. We know what to do. We just don't do it.

The only reason I've shared my story is to take that tiny baby step of breaking down the stigma attached to depression.

We're becoming so much better at destigmatizing all sorts of things, including mental illness in 'Silver Linings.'

I read an article somewhere that stated 1 in 4 American women will be considered clinically depressed in their lifetime. This should be more than a gold mine for pharmaceutical companies - it should be a wake-up call.

Washington is riddled with unstable people who are either depressed or make other people depressed.