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The complexities of what we are given in life are vast and beyond comprehension.

Kay Redfield Jamison

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Kay Redfield Jamison
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: June 22
Essayist
Psychologist
Given
Life
Complexities
Comprehension
Complexity
Vast
Beyond

More quotes by Kay Redfield Jamison

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It is true that I had wanted to die , but that is peculiarly different from regretting having been born. Overwhelmingly, I was enormously glad to have been born, grateful for life, and I couldn’t imagine not wanting to pass on life to someone else.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I think wanting to write is a fundamental sign of disease and discomfort. I don't think people who are comfortable want to write.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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Manic depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I am tired of hiding, tired of misspent and knotted energies, tired of the hypocrisy, and tired of acting as though I have something to hide.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I realized that it was not that I didn’t want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn’t know why I wanted to go on
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I am reminded of the importance of small kindnesses.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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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.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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There are relatively few things that kill people that are young other than car accidents and suicide.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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Everything previously moving with the grain is now against - you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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One of the advantages of science is that one's work, ultimately, is either replicated or it is not.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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Suicide is not a blot on anyone’s name it is a tragedy
Kay Redfield Jamison
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You become aware of an illness by understanding yourself and understanding the meaning that that illness has in your own life, symbolically and, more importantly, quite literally.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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Everyone has good cause for suicide, or at least it seems that way to those who search for it. (74)
Kay Redfield Jamison
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The ancient dialogue between reason and the senses is almost always more interestingly and passionately resolved in favor of the senses.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I think that when you're depressed, you can't concentrate long enough and well enough to read for the most part some people can, but by and large people - that's one of the first things that goes, is the capacity to read meaningful literature. With grief, that's not true. For a while you can't read, but then you really are amenable to solace.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse. Since almost everyone I knew was seeing a psychiatrist, and since I had an absolute belief that I should be able to handle my own problems, I naturally bought a horse.
Kay Redfield Jamison
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An ardent temperament makes one very vulnerable to dreamkillers.
Kay Redfield Jamison