I Look Back Over My Shoulder And

The Intensity, Glory, And Absolute Assuredness If My Mind's Flight Made It Very Difficult For Me To Believe Once I Was Better, That The Illness Was One I Should Willingly Give Up....moods Are Such An Essential Part Of The Substance Of Life, Of One's Notion Of Oneself, That Even Psychotic Extremes In Mood And Behavior Somehow Can Be Seen As Temporary, Even Understandable Reactions To What Life Has Dealt....even Though The Depressions That Inevitably Followed Nearly Cost Me My Life.

I Think That When You're Depressed, You Can't Concentrate Long Enough And Well Enough To Read For The Most Part; Some People Can, But By And Large People - That's One Of The First Things That Goes, Is The Capacity To Read Meaningful Literature. With Grief, That's Not True. For A While You Can't Read, But Then You Really Are Amenable To Solace.

I Remember Sitting In His Office A Hundred Times During Those Grim Months And Each Time Thinking, What On Earth Can He Say That Will Make Me Feel Better Or Keep Me Alive? Well, There Never Was Anything He Could Say, That's The Funny Thing. It Was All The Stupid, Desperately Optimistic, Condescending Things He Didn't Say That Kept Me Alive; All The Compassion And Wamrth I Felt From Him That Could Not Have Been Said; All The Intelligence, Competence, And Time He Put Into It; And His Granite Belief That Mine Was A Life Worth Living.

If People Can Talk About Having Breast Cancer, Why Can't People Who Have Mental Illness Talk About Mental Illness? Until We're Able To Do That, We're Not Going To Be Treated With The Same Kind Of Respect For Our Diseases As Other People.

I Think Wanting To Write Is A Fundamental Sign Of Disease And Discomfort. I Don't Think People Who Are Comfortable Want To Write.