It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes… — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
“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… — 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 seduced into losing sight of the overall perspective of how costly, damaging, and life threatening my illness was. He was at ease with ambiguity, had a comfort with complexity, and was able to be decisive in… — 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 domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
An ardent temperament makes one very vulnerable to dreamkillers. — Kay Redfield Jamison Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
