Kay Redfield Jamison quotes

"We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this--through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication, we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. "

"Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe."

"Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest."

"I look back over my shoulder and feel the presence of an intense young girl and then a volatile and disturbed young woman, both with high dreams and restless, romantic aspirations"

"I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated... I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters... Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But normal or manic I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know."

-- Kay Redfield Jamison

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For those of you who don't know, Kay Redfield Jamison is an author. She was a psychiatrist before, and then she got bipolar disorder. She wrote about it and all these quotes are from her book "An Unquiet Mind". There are more quotes and at times I think she expresses exactly what I go through or exactly what I need to hear/learn from my disorder.