Mental Disorder Quotes

The building housing America's military brass is a five-sided pentagon, but somehow, the people in it still manage to make it the squarest place on earth. The latest evidence? A current military document that lists homosexuality as a mental disorder in the same league as mental retardation - noting, of course, the one difference: retarded people can still get into heaven. ~ Jon Stewart

PSYCHOSIS: A severe mental disorder, a derangement of personality. Some individuals experience mood swings and agitation, but emotional dampening and social withdrawal are the most common symptoms. Despite society's beliefs, psychotic individuals rarely become violent and are often at a much greater risk of causing harm to themselves than to others.8 There are many theories as to what causes psychosis. Many current theories agree that it is caused by a combination of inherited genetic factors and external environmental factors. ~ Alessandra Torre

Ordinary psyches often react to bad news with a momentary thrill, seeing the world, for once, in jagged clarity, as if lightning has just struck. But then darkness and dysfunction rush in. A mind such as Beethoven's remains illumined, or sees in the darkness shapes it never saw before, which inspire rather than terrify. This altered shape (raptus, he would say) makes art of the shapes, while holding in counterpoise such dualities as intellect and intuition, the conscious and the unconscious, mental health and mental disorder, the conventional and the unconventional, complexity and simplicity. ~ Edmund Morris

Instead of showing visibly distinct alternate identities, the typical DID patient presents a polysymptomatic mixture of dissociative and posttraumatic stressdisorder (PTSD) symptoms that are embedded in a matrix of ostensibly non-trauma-related symptoms (e.g., depression, panic attacks, substance abuse,somatoform symptoms, eating-disordered symptoms). The prominence of these latter, highly familiar symptoms often leads clinicians to diagnose only these comorbid conditions. When this happens, the undiagnosed DID patient may undergo a long and frequently unsuccessful treatment for these other conditions.
- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p5 ~ James A. Chu

Statism is a mental disorder, much akin to Stockholm Syndrome. ~ Dane Whalen

Stigmas speak to the idea of difference and how difference shames us and those we know. ~ Michael Lewis

Retrospective epidemiological studies report that 20% of the general population qualifies for a current psychiatric diagnosis and 50% for a lifetime one.4 Prospective epidemiological studies double these rates and suggest that mental disorder is becoming virtually ubiquitous.5, 6 During the past ~ Allen Frances

Sometimes it seems like "pain" is too obvious a place to turn for inspiration. Pain isn't always deep, anyway. Sometimes it's awful and that's it. Or boring. Surely other things can be as profound as pain. ~ Ellen Forney

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. ~ Elyn R. Saks

You get people who think you have a mental disorder, people calling you frigid, but I don't care. If they're that desperate, clearly THEY have a problem. ~ Rebecca McNutt

Stigma takes many forms, comes from all directions, is sometimes blatantly overt, but can also be remarkably subtle. It is the cruel comment, the unkind smirk, the extrusion from the group, the lost job opportunity, the rejected marriage proposal, the ineligibility for life insurance, the inability to adopt a child or pilot a plane.

But it is also the reduced expectation, the helping hand when none is needed or wanted, the solicitous sympathy that one cannot really be expected to measure up.

And the secondary psychological and practical harms of having a mental disorder come only partly from how others see you. A great deal of the trouble comes from the change in how you see yourself: the sense of being damaged goods, feeling not normal or worthy, not a full fledged member of the group.

It is bad enough that stigma is so often associated with having a mental disorder, but the stigma that comes from being mislabeled with a fake diagnosis is a dead loss with absolutely no redeeming features. ~ Allen Frances

Many people with Dissociative Disorders are very creative and used their creative capacities to help them cope with childhood trauma.p55 ~ Marlene Steinberg

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. ~ Elyn R. Saks

Do You Have DID?

Determining if you have DID isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, many clinicians and psychotherapists have such difficulty figuring out whether or not people have DID that it typically takes them several years to provide an accurate diagnosis. Because many of the symptoms of DID overlap with other psychological diagnoses, as well as normal occurrences such as forgetfulness or talking to yourself, there is a great deal of confusion in making the diagnosis of DID. Although this section will provide you with information which may help you determine if you have DID, it is a good idea to consult with a professional in the mental health field so that you can have further confirmation of your findings. ~ Karen Marshall

Her parents, she said, has put a pinball machine inside her head when she was five years old. The red balls told her when she should laugh, the blue ones when she should be silent and keep away from other people; the green balls told her that she should start multiplying by three. Every few days a silver ball would make its way through the pins of the machine. At this point her head turned and she stared at me; I assumed she was checking to see if I was still listening. I was, of course. How could one not? The whole thing was bizarre but riveting. I asked her, What does the silver ball mean? She looked at me intently, and then everything went dead in her eyes. She stared off into space, caught up in some internal world. I never found out what the silver ball meant. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

Don't tell me you have OCD about this?"
"OCD, ADHD - pretty sure if they come up with some new acronym tomorrow I'd have it. ~ Cyma Rizwaan Khan

Mental illness

People assume you aren't sick
unless they see the sickness on your skin
like scars forming a map of all the ways you're hurting.

My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s
Have you tried exercising? Have you tried eating better?
Have you tried not being sad, not being sick?
Have you tried being more like me?
Have you tried shutting up?

Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying,
and yes, I am still sick.

Sometimes monsters are invisible, and
sometimes demons attack you from the inside.
Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth
does not mean they aren't ripping through me.
Pain does not need to be seen to be felt.

Telling me there is no problem
won't solve the problem.

This is not how miracles are born.
This is not how sickness works. ~ Emm Roy

Golf is a mental disorder. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

For the scientist, at exactly the moment of discovery - that most unstable existential moment - the external world, nature itself, deeply confirms his innermost fantastic convictions. Anchored abruptly in the world, Leviathan gasping on his hook, he is saved from extreme mental disorder by the most profound affirmation of the real. ~ Richard Rhodes

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. ~ Elyn R. Saks

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence
whether much that is glorious
whether all that is profound
does not spring from disease of thought
from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable", and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi".
We will say then, that I am mad. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

The creature who lives inside my brain suggested I do it," I offered tentatively. "It was very convincing. ~ Joss Sheldon

The most common emotional defense is avoidance (an ineffective coping skill for any stressor) as expressed through denial (e.g., "That wasn't really bad, I barely remember it"). ~ Brian Luke Seaward

Our inner experience is that which we think, feel, remember, perceive, sense, decide, plan and predict. These experiences are actually mental actions, or mental activity (Van der Hart et al., 2006). Mental activity, in which we engage all the time, may or may not be accompanied by behavioral actions. It is essential that you become aware of, learn to tolerate and regulate, and even change major mental actions that affect your current life, such as negative beliefs, and feelings or reactions to the past the interfere with the present. However, it is impossible to change inner experiences if you are avoiding them because you are afraid, ashamed or disgusted by them. Serious avoidance of you inner experiences is called experiential avoidance (Hayes, Wilson, Gifford, & Follettte, 1996), or the phobia of inner experience (Steele, Van der Hart, & Nijenhuis, 2005; Van der Hart et al., 2006). ~ Suzette Boon

It happens that there are a lot of people who are very talented who also happen to have a mental disorder. A lot of the mental disorders are initially things that are adaptive. Like even OCD, it's good to sort of have structure and have certain rituals but when it gets to be extreme then it becomes problematic. ~ H. A. Berlin

Schizo. It didn't matter how many times Dr. Gill compared it to a disease or physical disability, it wasn't the same thing. It just wasn't. I had schizophrenia. If I saw two guys on the sidewalk, one in a wheelchair and one talking talking to himself, which would I rush to open a door for, and which would I cross the road to avoid? ~ Kelley Armstrong

The country is not growing because the mental state of the people are retarded ~ Sunday Adelaja

I was much crazier than I had imagined. Or maybe it was a bad idea to read DSM-IV when you're not a trained professional. Or maybe the American Psychiatric Association had a crazy desire to label all life a mental disorder. ~ Jon Ronson

Take it from me, that kind of torment causes you to retreat to a place in your mind where you are so strong that nothing and no one can bother you. Or so you think! What you don't realize is that each time an incident occurs, you retreat inside of yourself a little bit at a time, until one day you might not recognize who YOU are. ~ Yassin Hall

As it stands, the diagnostic criteria for depression are so loose that two people with absolutely no symptoms in common can both end up with the same unitary diagnosis of depression. For this reason especially, the concept of depression as a mental disorder has been charged with being little more than a socially constructed dustbin for all manner of human suffering. ~ Neel Burton

The unique stigma of PTSD. The stigma of PTSD remains one of the most formidable barriers to effective care. ~ Michael A. Cucciare

those glasses aren't for the sun they're for darkness, exclaims Rue. Sometimes when we harvest through the night, they'll pass out a few pairs to those of us highest in the trees. Where the torchlight doesn't reach. One time, this boy Martin, he tried to keep his pair. Hid it in his pants. They killed him on the spot. They killed a boy for taking these/ I say Yes. and everyone knew he was no danger. Martin wasn't right in the head. I mean he still acted like a three year old. He just wanted the glasses to play with, says Rue. Hearing this makes me feel like District 12 is some sort of safe haven. Of course, people keel over from starvation all the time, but I can't imagine the peacekeepers murdering a simpleminded child. There's a little girl, one of greasy sae's gradkids, who wanders around the Hob. She's not quite right but she's treated as a sort of pet. People toss her scraps and things. ~ Suzanne Collins

If you're spending so much time at the gym that your mail is forwarded there, you're not dedicated - you've got a mental disorder. ~ Dan John

Jail has become the biggest mental health hospital. ~ Steven Magee

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.
[Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking (The Creativity Post, December 6, 2011)] ~ Michael Michalko

The good part about having a mental disorder is having a valid reason for all the stupid things we do because of a damaged prefrontal cortex. However, the best part is seeing someone completely sane do the exact same things, without a valid excuse. This is the great equalizer of God and his little gift for all us crazy people to enjoy. ~ Shannon L. Alder

She was so shattered about what kind of man he was
brutal, tender, passionate. There was little doubt he had some mental disorder. ~ Margaret Way

Whereas an Otaku is a true connoisseur of the culture, showing the same reverence and respectful distance which any true expert
shows to their chosen field of expertise, the Weeaboo is like a socially awkward adolescent, ineptly trying to gain the social acceptance of Japanese people - because their unfortunate mental disorder has caused them to believe they are, in fact, Japanese. ~ Alexei Maxim Russell

For all the normal people who make fun of the mentally ill it's spelled K.A.R.M.A. and it's pronounced your days coming, Bitch! ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

Gay activists claim that because I don't subscribe to their political agenda, I am a homophobe, meaning I have a mental disorder - because that is what phobias are. ~ Laura Schlessinger

Thank you, Facebook Quizzes, for helping me identify my Disney princess spirit, my old-person name, my mental disorder, and the color of my soul. All in one evening. Best, Ariel Harriet Schizophrenic Mauve. ~ Jen Hatmaker

I had people saying 'it's all in your head'. Do you honestly think I want to feel this way? ~ Sonia Estrada

Other pressing problems with the current medical model [of mental disorder] is that it encourages false epidemics, most glaringly in bipolar disorder and ADHD, and the wholesale exportation of Western mental disorders and Western accounts of mental disorder. Taken together, this is leading to a pandemic of Western disease categories and treatments, while undermining the variety and richness of the human experience. ~ Neel Burton

You know... the thing that is so wrong about being mentally ill is the terrible price you have to pay for survival. ~ Joanne Greenberg

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all. ~ Bill Clinton

Psychos are in uniform circulation in society. ~ Pawan Mishra

It would seem that the affects, biological needs, and forms of behavior most repressed in a given culture are the ones most likely to give rise to symptoms . [ ... ]
in our culture it is considered much more acceptable to have an organic illness than an emotional or mental disorder; this would influence the fact that anxiety and other emotional stresses in our culture so often take a somatic form. In short, the culture conditions the way a person tries to resolve his anxiety, and specifically what symptoms he may employ. ~ Rollo May

People who live with mental illnesses are among the most stigmatized groups in society.
Fighting the stigma caused by mental disorders: past perspectives, present activities, and future directions. World Psychiatry. Oct 2008; 7(3): 185–188. PMCID: PMC2559930 ~ Heather Stuart

Discouragement is a mental disorder. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

In this paper I propose the existence of two distinct presentations of DID, a Stable and an Active one. While people with Stable DID struggle with their traumatic past, with triggers that re-evoke that past and with the problems of daily functioning with severe dissociation, people with Active DID are, in addition, also engaged in a life of current, on-going involvement in abusive relationships, and do not respond to treatment in the same way as other DID patients. The paper observes these two proposed DID presentations in the context of other trauma-based disorders, through the lens of their attachment relationship. It proposes that the type, intensity and frequency of relational trauma shape - and can thus predict - the resulting mental disorder.
- Through the lens of attachment relationship: Stable DID, Active DID and other trauma-based mental disorders ~ Adah Sachs

A more fundamental problem with labelling human distress and deviance as mental disorder is that it reduces a complex, important, and distinct part of human life to nothing more than a biological illness or defect, not to be processed or understood, or in some cases even embraced, but to be 'treated' and 'cured' by any means possible - often with drugs that may be doing much more harm than good. This biological reductiveness, along with the stigma that it attracts, shapes the person's interpretation and experience of his distress or deviance, and, ultimately, his relation to himself, to others, and to the world. Moreover, to call out every difference and deviance as mental disorder is also to circumscribe normality and define sanity, not as tranquillity or possibility, which are the products of the wisdom that is being denied, but as conformity, placidity, and a kind of mediocrity. ~ Neel Burton

The truth is schizophrenic and has as many faces as there are people. ~ Roel Hollander

Trapped within the confines of his mind, he is too aware of every thought passing through it, as if he were outside, looking in. At night he often lies awake ruminating endlessly about what's wrong with him, about death, and about the meaning of existence itself. At times his arms and legs feel like they don't belong with his body. But most of the time, his mind feels like it is operating apart from the body that contains it. ~ Daphne Simeon

maybe the American Psychiatric Association had a crazy desire to label all life a mental disorder. I ~ Jon Ronson

Liberalism is a mental disorder. ~ Michael Savage

Narcissistic Supply

You get discarded as supply for one of two reason: They find you too outspoken about their abuse. They prefer someone that will keep stroking their ego and remain their silent doormat. Or, they found new narcissistic supply. Either way, you can count on the fact that they planned your devaluation phase and smear campaign in advance, so they could get one more ego stroke with your reaction. Narcissists are angry, spiteful takers that don't have empathy, remorse or conscience. They are incapable of unconditional love. Love to them is giving only when it serves them. They gaslight their victims by minimizing the trauma they have caused by blaming others or stating you are too sensitive. They never feel responsible or will admit to what they did to you. They have disordered thinking that is concerned with their needs and ego. It is not uncommon for them to hack their targets, in order to gain information about them. They enjoy mind games and control. This is their dopamine high. The sooner you distance yourself the healthier you will become. Narcissism can't be cured or prayed away. It is a mental disorder that turns the victims of its abuse into mental patients because it causes so much psychological manipulation. ~ Shannon L. Alder

The connection between religious faith and mental disorder is, from the viewpoint of the tolerant and the "multicultural," both very obvious and highly unmentionable. ~ Christopher Hitchens

complicated human behavior was increasingly getting labeled a mental disorder. ~ Jon Ronson

There are men who wants only the woman; such are tagged, 'real men', and there are ones who want only their bodies; such are tagged, 'fake men', and there are others who wants neither the woman, nor the body; such are tagged, 'GAY MEN ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Maybe my addictive tendencies weren't limited to my zest for things I could drink. Like maybe (I learned while working with my therapist) I had broader issues with control and addiction and using substances to dial down my anxiety. And maybe self-medication is a real dangerous way of trying to quiet the noise of a mental health disorder. And maybe alcoholism also runs in the family. ~ Anne T. Donahue

Losses and other events - whether anticipated or actual - can lead to feelings of shame, humiliation, or despair and may serve as triggering events for suicidal behavior. Triggering events include losses, such as the breakup of a relationship or a death; academic failures; trouble with authorities, such as school suspensions or legal difficulties; bullying; or health problems. This is especially true for youth already vulnerable because of low self-esteem or a mental disorder, such as depression. Help is available and should be arranged. - American Association of Suicidology ~ Sue Klebold

It seemed to him [Otto Kugelblitz] obvious that the human life span runs through the varieties of mental disorder as understood in his day - the solipsism of infancy, the sexual hysterias of adolescence and entry-level adulthood, the paranoia of middle age, the dementia of late life ... all working up to death, which at last turns out to be sanity. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Mind you, I cannot swear that my story is true. It may have been a dream; or worse, a symptom of some severe mental disorder. But I believe it is true. After all, how are we to know what things there are on earth? Strange monstrosities still exist, and foul, incredible perversions. Every war, each new geographical or scientific discovery, brings to light some new bit of ghastly evidence that the world is not altogether the same place we fondly imagine it to be. Sometimes peculiar incidents occur which hint of utter madness.

How can we be sure that our smug conceptions of reality actually exist? To one man in a million dreadful knowledge is revealed, and the rest of us remain mercifully ignorant. There have been travelers who never came back, and research workers who disappeared. Some of those who did return were deemed mad because of what they told, and others sensibly concealed the wisdom that had so horribly been revealed. Blind as we are, we know a little of what lurks beneath our normal life. There have been tales of sea serpents and creatures of the deep; legends of dwarfs and giants; records of queer medical horrors and unnatural births. Stunted nightmares of men's personalities have blossomed into being under the awful stimulus of war, or pestilence, or famine. There have been cannibals, necrophiles, and ghouls; loathsome rites of worship and sacrifice; maniacal murders, and blasphemous crimes. When I think, then, of what I saw and heard, and compare it with ~ Robert Bloch

I remembered reading that the sweat and breath of certifiable psychopaths have a subtle but distinctive chemical odor because of certain physiological conditions accompanying that mental disorder. Maybe her breath smelled of craziness. ~ Dean Koontz

The house has to be clean and in order because I have to be able to sift through the creative disorder in my mind. The mental disorder that I'm exploring has to bounce off the walls. It has to go in and out of different rooms. If the room is not in order, then I can't distinguish which is which, and that really drives me crazy. ~ Alexis De Veaux

While he can interact with others who have no idea that anything is wrong, Ron lives without spontaneity, going through the motions, doing what he thinks people expect him to do, glad that he is able to at least appear normal throughout the day and maintain a job. He studied drama briefly while in college, and remains enamored of Shakespeare and literature, but an emerging self-consciousness eventually robbed him of his ability to act. Now he feels as if all of his life is an act - just an attempt to maintain the status quo.

Recalling literature he once loved, he sometimes pictures himself as Camus's Meursault, in The Stranger: an emotionless character who plods through life in a meaningless universe with apathy and indifference. He's tired of living
this way but terrified of death. ~ Daphne Simeon

If two people with no symptoms in common can both receive the same diagnosis of schizophrenia, then what is the value of that label in describing their symptoms, deciding their treatment, or predicting their outcome, and would it not be more useful simply to describe their problems as they actually are? And if schizophrenia does not exist in nature, then how can researchers possibly find its cause or correlates? If psychiatric research has made so little progress in recent decades, it is in large part because everyone has been barking up the wrong tree. It is not a question of getting a bigger and better scanner, but of going right back to the drawing board.

What's more, medical-type labels can be as harmful as they are hollow. By reducing rich, varied, and complex human experiences to nothing more than a mental disorder, they not only sideline and trivialize those experiences but also imply an underlying defect that then serves as a pseudo-explanation for the person's disturbed behaviour. This demeans and disempowers the person, who is deterred from identifying and addressing the important life problems that underlie his distress. ~ Neel Burton

The distinction between diseases of "brain" and "mind," between "neurological" problems and "psychological" or "psychiatric" ones, is an unfortunate cultural inheritance that permeates society and medicine. It reflects a basic ignorance of the relation between brain and mind. Diseases of the brain are seen as tragedies visited on people who cannot be blamed for their condition, while diseases of the mind, especially those that affect conduct and emotion, are seen as social inconveniences for which sufferers have much to answer. Individuals are to be blamed for their character flaws, defective emotional modulation, and so on; lack of willpower is supposed to be the primary problem. ~ Antonio R Damasio

Homosexuality is a mental disorder that can be cured through counselling. ~ Stockwell Day

Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others. ~ Michael Lewis

The DID patient is a single person who experiences himself or herself as having separate alternate identities that have relative psychological autonomy from one another. At various times, these subjective identities may take executive control of the person's body and behavior and/or influence his or her experience and behavior from "within." Taken together, all of the alternate identities make up the identity or personality of the human being with DID.

- Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision, p7 ~ James A. Chu

I think the stigma attached to mental illness will disappear just like it did for cancer years ago. ~ Sally Graham

Solomon had good days and he had bad days, but the good had far outnumbered the bad since Lisa and Clark had started coming around. Sometimes, though, they'd show up and he's look completely exhausted, drained of all his charm and moving in slow motion. They could do that to him - the attacks. Something about the physical response to panic can drain all the energy out of a person, and it doesn't matter what causes it or how long it lasts. What Solomon had was unforgiving and sneaky and as smart as any other illness. It was like a virus or cancer that would hide just long enough to fool him into thinking it was gone. And because it showed up when it damn well pleased, he'd learned to be honest about it, knowing that embarrassment only made it worse. ~ John Corey Whaley

If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of his history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction. Murder within the species on an individual or collective scale is a phenomenon unknown in the whole animal kingdom, except for man, and a few varieties of ants and rats. ~ Arthur Koestler

It isn't depression, or anxiety, though it can sometimes appear as a symptom of these better - known conditions. Often, it emerges with cruel ferocity as a chronic disorder completely unto itself.
Its destructive impact on an individual's sense of self is implied in its very name - depersonalization. ~ Daphne Simeon

Because at this time, in this place, Chinese writing exhibits symptoms of a mental disorder. ~ Murong Xuecun

While the world has found the right names for all chronic mental diseases, I believe poetry is also a brain dysfunction, yet the only one that owns itself the mastery for the cure. Isn't it lovely to say, "He/She suffers of Poetry?". ~ Ioana-Cristina Casapu

Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32). Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33):

- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities;
- authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others;
- benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for.
- Although stigmatizing attitudes are not limited to mental illness, the public seems to disapprove persons with psychiatric disabilities significantly more than persons with related conditions such as physical illness (34-36). ~ Matthew W. Corrigan

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

Pathological dissociation is characterized by profound, functional amnesias and significant alterations in identity; normal dissociation is expressed primarily in the form of intense absorption with internal stimuli (e.g., daydreams) or external stimuli (e.g., a fascinating book or television program). ~ Frank W. Putnam

A very serious mental disorder is associated with creativity, a disorder that afflicts only the great souls, and its cure is not known, even to the great souls. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

It is growing up different. It is extreme hypersensitivity. It is a bottomless pit of feeling you're failing, but three days later, you feel you can do anything, only to end the week where you began. It is not learning from your mistakes. It is distrusting people because you have been hurt enough. It is moments of knowing your pain is self inflicted, followed by blaming the world. It is wanting to listen, but you just can't anymore because your life has been to full of people that have judged you. It is fighting to be right; so for once in your life someone will respect and hear you for a change. It is a tiring life of endless games with people, in order to seek stimulus. It is a hyper focus, so intense about what bothers you, that you can't pay attention to anything else, for very long. It is a never-ending routine of forgetting things. It is a boredom and lack of contentment that keeps you running into the arms of anyone that has enough patience to stick around. It wears you out. It wears everyone out. It makes you question God's plan. You misinterpret everything, and you allow your creative mind to fill the gaps with the same old chains that bind you. It narrows your vision of who you let into your life. It is speaking and acting without thinking. It is disconnecting from the ones you love because your mind has taken you back to what you can't let go of. It is risk taking, thrill seeking and moodiness that never ends. You hang your hope on "signs" and abandon reason for re ~ Shannon L. Alder

There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder. ~ Allen Frances

A thousand times, people may have touched each other, but never ever sensed a single vein of oneness or complicity in the wilderness of their inner world, since obdurate mental impediments have been barricading the road to understanding and propinquity. ("A thousand times") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Richard Dawkins says he can't be sure God doesn't exist. Well, you know what I do when I'm not sure about something? I go on a big crusade about it and write a bunch of books on the subject. No, wait, that sounds more like what someone with a mental disorder would do. That's one of the crazy things about lots of atheists: They're whole movement is supposed to be about being logical and reasonable, yet they tend to rail against religion is a very mindless way that doesn't seem to serve any more purpose than a tantrum. Perhaps I just don't understand their strong faith in not having faith. ~ Frank J. Fleming

The Ego, as noted, is simply the content of your PSM [Phenomenal Self Model] at this moment (your bodily sensations, your emotional state, your perceptions, memories, acts of will, thoughts). But it can become the Ego only because you are constitutionally unable to realize that all this is just the content of a simulation in your brain. It is not reality itself but an image of reality - and a very special one indeed. The Ego is a transparent mental image: You - the physical person as a whole - look right through it. You do not see it. You see with it. The Ego is a tool for controlling and planning your behavior and for understanding the behavior of others ~ Thomas Metzinger

The goal of yoga according to Patanjali I am told is citta vrtti nirodha, which means to be silent or free from mental fluctuations. ~ Bryan Kest

I've come to believe in my bones that children - especially children in poverty - are desperate for an education to help them discover a sense of meaning and purpose. Yet, we have decided to narrow our focus to academic achievement, which creates an unhealthy fixation on grades as a sole indicator of self-worth. ~ Shanna Peeples

In what disorder we lived, how many fragments of ourselves were scattered, as if to live were to explode into splinters. ~ Elena Ferrante

I was diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia to multiple personality disorder. ~ Darrell Hammond

[ ... ] I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theater for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied. ~ Osamu Dazai

The moments of peace in between the mental practices are meditation. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

So often, we're told that women's stories are unimportant. After all, what does it matter what happens in the main room, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom? Who cares about the relationships between mother, daughter, and sister? A baby's illness, the sorrows and pains of childbirth, keeping the family together during war, poverty, or even in the best of days are considered small and insignificant compared with the stories of men, who fight against nature to grow their crops, who wage battles to secure their homelands, who struggle to look inward in search of the perfect man. We're told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men. The men in my life - my father, Z.G., my husband, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my son - faced, to one degree or another, those great male battles, but their hearts - so fragile - wilted, buckled, crippled, corrupted, broke, or shattered when confronted with the losses women face every day...Our men try to act strong, but it is May, Yen-yen, Joy, and I who must steady them and help them bear their pain, anguish, and shame. ~ Lisa See

It has been said of dreams that they are a 'controlled psychosis,' or, put another way, a psychosis is a dream breaking through during waking hours. ~ Philip K. Dick

The world, however bleak I have found it in the last few weeks, must nonetheless be formed of goodness, if but a few moments in Nature's company may suffice to renew one's health and mental aspect. ~ Stephanie Barron

They were a well-mixed bunch of men whose mental sharpness ranged from that of a butter knife to an overripe plum. ~ Annelie Wendeberg

Once you say 'I want to find Truth', all your life will be deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a most radical transformation. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You are a human being before any label, handicap, disease or disorder. You are entitled to dignity. This is the human race's one religion that unites us, yet it is our hatred and lack of tolerance that distorts our faith to a place of justification. This justification will always be in the oppressor's benefit. ~ Shannon L. Alder

There are six mental faculties that we have, and how we use them sets the course for our life. ~ Bob Proctor

I had to persevere because this was my life. This championship, this was the stuff I dreamt of all my life, and I wasn't gonna be denied. ~ Mike Tyson