“I occasionally laugh and tell him that his imperturbability is worth three hundred milligrams of lithium a day to me, and it… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
Lithium prevents my seductive but disastrous highs, diminishes my depressions, clears out the wool and webbing from my disordered thinking, slows me… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
Lithium remains the gold standard, but many drugs now treat bipolar disorder. Medication is critical and should be combined with psychotherapy. Compliance… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
“...even though [my psychiatrist] understood mor than anyone how much I felt I was losing--in energy, vivacity, and originality--by taking medication, he never was… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
It's more common than not that bipolar illness will start in the teens. One of the reasons I spend a lot of time on… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
I think that for thousands of years people have made the observation that there are certain kinds of extreme depressive states that seem to… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
Every seventeen minutes in America, someone commits suicide. Mostly, I have been impressed by how little value our society puts on saving the lives… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them,… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
“I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
When I'm talking about depression, I'm talking about the more severe forms of depression, and I think that conceptualising as a form of grief… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
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… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy,… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
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… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
We expect well-informed treatment for cancer or heart disease; it matters no less for depression. — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
Manic depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
People talk about grief as if it's kind of an unremittingly awful thing, and it is. It is painful, but it's a very, very… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share
