Elyn R. Saks Quotes

No one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness.

Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces.

A mental illness diagnosis does not automatically sentence you to a bleak and painful life, devoid of pleasure or joy or accomplishment. I also wanted to dispel the myths held by many mental-health professionals themselves - that people with a significant thought disorder cannot live independently, cannot work at challenging jobs, cannot have true friendships, cannot be in meaningful, sexually satisfying love relationships, cannot lead lives of intellectual, spiritual, or emotional richness.

Nothing I can do. There will be raging fires, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people lying dead in the streets. And it will all - all of it - be my fault.

But explaining what I've come to call "disorganization" is a different challenge altogether. Consciousness gradually loses its coherence. One's center gives way. The center cannot hold. The "me" becomes a haze, and the solid center from which one experiences reality breaks up like a bad radio signal.

There are forces of nature and circumstance that are beyond our control, let alone our understanding, and to insist on victory in the face of this, to accept nothing less, is just asking for a soul-pummeling. The simple truth is, not every fight can be won.

In my experience, the words "now just calm down" almost inevitably have the opposite effect on the person you are speaking to.

Mental illness is among the most stigmatized of categories.' People are ashamed of being mentally ill. They fear disclosing their condition to their friends and confidants-and certainly to their employers.

If you are walking on a path thick with brambles and rocks, a path that abruptly twists and turns, it's easy to get lost, or tired, or discouraged. You might be tempted to give up entirely. But if a kind and patient person comes along and takes your hand, saying, "I see you're having a hard time- here, follow me, I'll help you find your way," the path becomes manageable, the journey less frightening.

I needed to put two critical ideas together: that I could both be mentally ill and lead a rich and satisfying life.

Don't focus on it," she said. "Don't define yourself in terms of something which even many highly trained and gifted professionals do not fully understand.

Dropping in and out of your own life (for psychotic breaks, or treatment in a hospital) isn't like getting off a train at one stop and later getting back on at another. Even if you can get back on (and the odds are not in your favor), you're lonely there. The people you boarded with originally are far, far ahead of you, and now you're stuck playing catch-up.

So the grades I earned were the only objective signal I ever received about how I was doing in the world. The task of setting and achieving academic goals operated as a sort of adhesive; I needed it to hold myself together. Failing (or, at least in this case, failing my own expectations) tore that adhesive off and further splintered my fragile sense of self.