Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
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.
I know that things get worse before they get better because that’s what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big.
Psycho 11 and III say, in effect, there's no way to survive with a psychological problem. If you've got it, the law can keep you locked up because there's no chance for cure.
Mental illness doesn't need to be hidden or glorified. It should be normalized to where people feel comfortable sharing with their families and friends and know they're not alone. By opening up about my struggle, I'm hoping I can help someone who feels like they don't know what to do or when they can't accept their situation.
I will alway support anybody being vocal about their mental illness, how they're dealing with it, and how it affects them. And I'll always support people waking up and paying attention to that.
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.
We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.
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.
I have a wonderful family. My father is a brilliant father, and my mother a brilliant person who had mental-health issues, but has been wonderfully creative throughout her life. They couldn't have been more supportive.
I am bipolar, and I am proud. And that is why I wanted to write a book. To shine a light on mental illness, to be vulnerable about the days I let it take control and paid dearly for it, and to tell anyone fighting a similar battle: You are not alone. You are not broken.
miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else.
I'm a recovering optimist.
The likelihood is that you or someone you know closely will suffer from a mental health condition in your lifetime.
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.
People tend to look at mental health differently than physical health. If someone tears their ACL, we don't expect them to run 30 yards for a touchdown. They need to be treated and have the time to rest and heal, It's the same thing for mental health.
I have a theory that all abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it is, is foremost an assault on the mind.
Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever.
Some of the brightest, most creative minds have been touched by mental illness.
'Yield' was completed in 1997 and released in 1998. In the spring of 1997, I had made a decision to stop taking medications that I had been taking daily since 1988.
I won the argument against the knife that night, but barely. I had some other good ideas around that time--about how jumping off a building or blowing my brains out with a gun might stop the suffering. but something about spending a night with a knife in my hand did it. The next morning I called my friend Susan as the sun came up, begged her to help me. I don't think a woman in the whole history of my family had ever done that before, had ever sat in the middle of the road like that and said, in the middle of her life, "I cannot walk another step further--somebody has to help me.
I was very ashamed of seeing a therapist because I thought only crazy people went, and then, after about nine years, I asked him, 'Well, was I really crazy?' And he nodded and said, 'You were but not any more.'
Children whose parents return to study do much better at school. Offenders who persist with studies are much less likely to reoffend. The national mental health strategy recognises the important role adult learning can play for people recovering from mental illness.
And if you're lucky enough to survive going crazy and get back to the point where you can pass for normal, it builds a question into the rest of your life. You have to forgive people for wondering, 'How all right can he be?'
I became comfortable with what I knew would be the process of trying to pick up the pieces of brain that were in the rubble and tried to make some mosaic out of the pieces and that that would be the trajectory.
