Frank Bruno Quotes

I've had a mental illness for nearly half my life, and I can no longer imagine myself without it. It seems less like something that happened to me than like part of who I am; some days, it is the thing about me, but it is always at least a thing about me.

I'm always going to have to manage my mental health issues.

I know what mental illness looks like, and I know that if a person is not ready to get help, they won't.

If the spectrum linking everyday depression to Major Depression sometimes hinders understanding of it, it also offers an opportunity for empathy. Because almost everyone, at some point, experiences feelings of sadness, of hopelessness, of emptiness, not to mention lethargy and irritability.

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

I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic.

I'd had episodes before, but I swept them under the carpet. This time, I couldn't do that because everyone knew. I got on with the hard work of getting better and haven't had a blip in almost 10 years.

Mental illness can happen to anybody. You can be a dustman, a politician, a Tesco worker... anyone. It could be your dad, your brother or your aunt.

The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.

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.

I am mentally ill. I can say that. I am not ashamed of that. I survived that, I'm still surviving it, but bring it on. Better me than you.

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 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.

Getting to have an opportunity to tell a story that is about mental illness and how it affects one's self and one's community was really something that really meant a lot to me.

I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy.

It was either therapy or die.

I've seen schizophrenics who are so hopeless, you couldn't cheer them, and their lives are miserable and they end up as suicides. That's not right.

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

There are so many cliches associated with mental health - such as the 'fine line between lunacy and genius' - which are, on the whole, a load of rubbish.

It's been taboo for so long to admit you had a mental health problem.

When I was diagnosed, I believed my illness would be my great, lifelong weakness. Bipolar disorder was to be my impenetrable prison, and I would be locked up with it in a castle Princess Toadstool style. Thinking there was no way out, I let it consume me.

The likelihood is that you or someone you know closely will suffer from a mental health condition in your lifetime.

At Somerset I played with Marcus Trescothick who has spoken very openly about his battle with depression and anxiety. I had a few conversations with him about his problems but I also read his book which provided me with a great insight into what he went though.

Being mentally ill is not a joke. It is a most painful thing.