Patty Duke Quotes

I'm not the kind of person who likes to shout out my personal issues from the rooftops, but with my bipolar becoming public, I hope fellow sufferers will know it's completely controllable. I hope I can help remove any stigma attached to it, and that those who don't have it under control will seek help with all that is available to treat it.

I wish I had never got manic depression. When I was in junior high, I didn't know what was the matter with me. It was as if I'd died or something. Now that I go to a clinic and get the right kind of medicine, I am not as depressed as I used to be.

If my revelation of having bipolar II has encouraged one person to seek help, then it is worth it. There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.

Occupying my mind with complex problems has been my best and most powerful and most reliable defense against my mental illness.

A well chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.

Dealing with chronic anxiety has taught me to better understand the nuances of mental illness and the very individual nature of it.

If you are feeling some December blues, or even depression, don't fight it. Instead, do something for yourself. Be reflective. Let the emotions exist. And be encouraged that, like me, you can get to a better place, but it can take time.

Recovery is really important.

I live with being bipolar, but it doesn't define me anymore.

Once you can accept that you have a mental illness, that is when you can work on it.

Nothing good could ever have come of my life if I hadn't been able to get therapy and overcome my addictions.

I'm naturally a very happy person, but I've had times with depression and have got through it with therapy.

I always had a dissociative disorder. But I healed from it over the course of 14 years of big-time therapy. But, you know, I mean, everybody's kind of loony now. So I was kind of a pioneer in the mental illness thing, too.

Bipolar disorder is a scary disease, but it is manageable. And I feel blessed that I was able to get the right attention and the right medication to deal with my specific illness.

But my activities have been pretty much focused in the last almost 30 years on the recovery, of my own recovery, the understanding for my family of my recovery.

I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.

I never found out until I went into treatment that I was bipolar.

My treatment ended in March/April of '08. It wasn't until the end of that summer that I started to feel I wasn't depressed. Even when I went on vacation to Saint Lucia, I was kind of depressed, even though it was such a beautiful place.

I've always just talked to my family and my friends. I've never been a person that's gone through excessive therapy at all. Some people might say that I should.

Depression and anxiety can't fit in your head if you're cultivating feelings of joy and inspiration.

I love therapy. I swear by therapy. I couldn't exist without therapy.

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.

Alright, so I'm a manic depressive. What do you want from me?

The smartest thing I did was to stop going online. I'm the sort of person who will just look for the negative - Michael really can't understand it, but that's just the way I am. And with my bipolar thing, that's poison. So I just stopped. Cold turkey. And it's so liberating.

And so I was very grateful that I didn't do the British stiff upper lip, but I went straight to a therapist. And she was wonderful and helpful, and I went for about two years.