#illness

I’m not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected…or that no one can outrun destiny…or that all roads lead to truth and coincidence is a lie to distract us? The reason I was in this place no longer mattered. The harsh reality stared me in the face and demanded an immediate decision. Walk away and blame it on my age. Or stay and try to help a woman who had slowly become my friend over the last few weeks. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#art #artist #beauty #college-application #glass-girl

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication. ↗

— Carrie Fisher

#courage #depression #drinking #illness #manic-depression

Armed with my positive attitude and inherent stubborn nature, I keep my mind focused and my life moving forward. I stop to rest, pout and even cry sometimes, but always, I get back up. Life is giving me this challenge and I will plow through it, out of breath with my heart racing if I have to. ↗

— Amy B. Scher

#inspirational-quotes #journey #attitude

Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author’s words reverberating in your head. ↗

— Paul Auster

#choice #comfort #comsolation #escape #pleasure

For a while she considered being ill, but she changed her mind... ↗

— Tove Jansson

#illness #change

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us. ↗

— Patti Davis

#america #country #father #feeling #gradually

It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. ↗

— Sam Harris

#mental-illness #communication

If suffering like hers had any use, she reasoned, it was not to the sufferer. The only way that an individual's pain gained meaning was through its communication to others. ↗

— Diane Wood Middlebrook

#helping-others #mental-illness #relating #self-disclosure #suffering

I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness- a real thorough-going illness. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#illness #sadness #equality

[W]e need not become fixated upon our own suffering, whatever its origin. We offer it up, thus participating in the well-being of the universe. When we experience an illness or depression not as our own but as the universe’s, we are one with all beings who experience this kind of suffering. (78) ↗

— Jean-Yves Leloup

#depression #illness #suffering #well-being #experience