“
Sensitive people usually love deeply and hate deeply. They don't know any other way to live than by extremes because thier emotional theromastat is broken.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
With someone you like that much, the lows are as low as the highs are high. Does that make sense?'
It does. It also makes me sound bipolar.'
Love will do that to a person.
”
”
Simone Elkeles
“
Somewhere between love and hate lies confusion, misunderstanding and desperate hope.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Before I die I'd love to see my name on the Famous Bi Polar list I'm not ashamed of my Illness I believe most of my talent comes from it.
”
”
Stanley Victor Paskavich
“
Creativity is closely associated with bipolar disorder. This condition is unique . Many famous historical figures and artists have had this. Yet they have led a full life and contributed so much to the society and world at large. See, you have a gift. People with bipolar disorder are very very sensitive. Much more than ordinary people. They are able to experience emotions in a very deep and intense way. It gives them a very different perspective of the world. It is not that they lose touch with reality. But the feelings of extreme intensity are manifested in creative things. They pour their emotions into either writing or whatever field they have chosen" (pg 181)
”
”
Preeti Shenoy (Life is What You Make It: A Story of Love, Hope and How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny)
“
Unrequited love is the only emotion that allows sane people to taste the “life sentence” of someone with bipolar disorder. The longer they hang onto a lost cause the more unstable they look to everyone else. They contradict their own belief systems and statements, by circling the drain with two competing emotions—love and hate.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
She looked to Roy as though she lived in Oz, in the land of color, like she carried it with her everywhere she went. When they began dating, he found that her energy was the perfect counterpoint to the world into which he sank at regular intervals, that black and white Kansas that he inhabited.
”
”
J.K. Franko (Eye for Eye (Talion #1))
“
You cannot free someone
who is caged in
their own self.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
Crazy isn't a condition it's a place and it exists somewhere between Love and Oblivion
”
”
Stanley Victor Paskavich
“
But new love only lasts so long, and then you crash back into the real people you are, and from as high as we were, it's a very long fall, and we hit the ground with a thud.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
Take me to your darkest corners
and watch your demons
surrender to mine..
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
Falling in love happens so suddenly that it seems, all at once, that you have always been in love.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
Destruction wasn't when you chose to destroy me.
It was when i let you.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
My feelings are all over the place. Can you be bipolar in love?
”
”
Nicole Reed (Ruining Me (Ruining, #1))
“
I have bipolar 2 disorder, anxiety disorder, and ADHD. I take my medications every day. I go to therapy every week. I hope, one day, I can be on the other side of therapy - you know, like the one who gets to write stuff down and shakes her head and listens.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
Love is not enough. It takes courage to grab my father's demon, my own, or - God help me - my child's and strap it down and stop its mad jig; to sit in a row of white rooms filled with pills and clubbed dreamers and shout: stop smiling, shut up; shut up and stop laughing; you're sitting in hell. Stop preaching; stop weeping. You are a manic-depressive, always. your life is larger than most, unimaginable. You're blessed; just admit it and take the damn pill.
”
”
David Lovelace (Scattershot: My Bipolar Family)
“
Master the art of
selflove
and you will never have to seek
validation
ever again.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
I was lost for too long
but when i found you,
i could feel it in my bones.
You were my home.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
It's okay darling,
creative people are called crazy
all the time.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
I am no one's to be claimed,
I belong to me.
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
Sometimes I though about killing myself. The idea of it circled my head, shining and lovely like a tinsel halo. How beautiful it would be if everything could just stop. If I could stop. If I didn't have to feel like this. Yes, I thought about it and thought about it, but I was too exhausted to do anything about it. That should have been funny, right?
”
”
Alexis Hall (Glitterland (Spires, #1))
“
Just to let you know I don't post my books and things on the net in hopes of being rich. The reason is. "I am a person with Bipolar Disorder" and they're are a lot of great minds on the "Famous Bipolar" list that died penniless. If I do the same it's no big deal but having a form of mental Illness I would love to get my name on the Bipolar list also one day. Preferably while I'm still living so I can make sure they spelled it right
”
”
Stanley Victor Paskavich (Return to Stantasyland)
“
My story is not a sad story; it's a real one. It's a story about a girl who fought through a storm she thought would never end.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
They're the perfect loving fam'ly, so adoring...
And I love them ev'ry day of ev'ry week.
So my son's a little shit, my husband's boring,
And my daughter, though a genius, is a freak.
”
”
Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal)
“
Lithium tweaks many mood-altering chemicals in the brain, and its effects are complicated. Most interesting, lithium seems to reset the body’s circadian rhythm, its inner clock. In normal people, ambient conditions, especially the sun, dictate their humors and determine when they are tuckered out for the day. They’re on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Bipolar people run on cycles independent of the sun. And run and run.
”
”
Sam Kean (The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements)
“
Love is never enough. Madness is enough. It is complete, sufficient unto itself. You can only stand outside it as a woman might stand outside a prison in which her lover is locked up. From time to time, a well-loved face will peer out and love floods back. A scrap of cloth flutters and it becomes a sign and a code and a message and all that you want it to be. Then it vanishes and you are outside the dark tower again.
”
”
Jerry Pinto (Em and The Big Hoom)
“
It turns out that up to 35 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have ADHD.
”
”
Julie A. Fast (Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder: Understanding and Helping Your Partner)
“
I stopped losing my sleep over you...
Now i lie awake
in search of me!!
”
”
Anjum Choudhary (Souled Out)
“
I look her in the eyes. ‘Words are just words. It’s the meaning of the words that determines how you feel about something. Feelings evoke emotions and make others feel something by what you say. You could say flatly, ‘I love you,’ or you could look someone in the eye and say, with a different tone of voice, ‘I love you.’ Which of those actually sounds like you love someone? That’s why it’s definitely how you say it.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
At first it's bliss. It's drunken, heady, intoxicating. It swallows the people we were - not particuarly wonderful people, but people who did our best, more or less - and spits out the monsters we are becoming.
Our friends despise us. We are an epic. Everything is grand, crashing, brilliant, blinding. It's the Golden Age of Hollywood, and we are a legend in our own minds, and no one outside can fail to see that we are headed for hell, and we won't listen, we say they don't understand, we pour more wine, go to the parties, we sparkle, fly all over the country, we're on an adventure, unstoppable, we've found each other and we race through our days like Mr. Toad in his yellow motorcar, with no idea where the brakes are and to hell with it anyway, we are on fire, drunk with something we call love.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
But if love is not the cure, it certainly can act as a very strong medicine.
”
”
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
“
I guess the fact that the three of us have had these diagnoses hanging over our heads makes us empathetic toward one another. When it is just us three, it is so much easier to be ourselves because we don’t have to try so hard. We all just understand each other and have become inseparable ever since.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
I love the idea of reincarnation, so just in case it doesn't exist, I decided to be different people in the same lifetime.
”
”
Nuno Roque
“
You may not understand my mind, but that does not give you the right to judge it.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
I guess at some point we fell in love, whatever that means. What the fuck is love anyway? Is it mutual dependance; two bipolar opposites bringing their failings together, making a comprehensive hole? Is it needing someone around all the time, just to feel like yourself? Is it a form of madness— all those cells & neurons giggling like moon-happy coyotes? Is it missing someone, feeling a physical craving for them, even when they are lying right next to you? Yes, I guess we fell in love.
”
”
Barnaby Legg (Godspeed: The Kurt Cobain Graphic)
“
It was as if my father had given me, by way of temperament, an impossibly wild, dark, and unbroken horse. It was a horse without a name, and a horse with no experience of a bit between its teeth. My mother taught me to gentle it; gave me the discipline and love to break it; and- as Alexander had known so intuitively with Bucephalus- she understood, and taught me, that the beast was best handled by turning it toward the sun.
”
”
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
“
Count Your Blessings And Not Your Depressings
”
”
John M Sheehan
“
It's feeling full of everything and empty of it all at the same time. This is mental illness.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
If you want to see the stars, you must be willing to travel through the dark.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
Healing isn't about overcoming the pain; it's living despite it.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
Not that I'm bipolar, but that I'm two people, and not just two people, but two people at odds with each other. The mom and the kid, the homebody and the explorer, the strong and the weak, the logical and the emotional, the funny and the sad, the angry and the calm, the open and the closed, the loved and the hated, the hot and the cold, the alive and the dead, the beautiful and the ugly. It's exhausting. I. Am. Exhausting.
”
”
Stacey Turis (Here's to Not Catching Our Hair on Fire: An Absent-Minded Tale of Life with Giftedness and Attention Deficit - Oh Look! A Chicken!)
“
Obsessed is more like it. But yeah, I saw you happy. Happier than you've been in a really, really long time. With someone you like that much, the lows are as low as the highs are high. Does that make sense?"
"It does. It also makes me sound bipolar."
"Love will do that to a person.
”
”
Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry (Perfect Chemistry, #1))
“
Sometimes I felt like I was drawn to mania. That Patrick was right, and I had loved him only during his manic episodes. That mania was true love. And it could consume you like it had consumed Patrick, or it could leave you feeling tired and used up, like it had left me. Nothing seemed to exist in between.
”
”
Andrea Lochen (Imaginary Things)
“
The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.” -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross ╬
”
”
Christine F. Anderson (Forever Different: A Memoir of One Woman's Journey Living with Bipolar Disorder)
“
Do not be blind in love and try not to suffer in silence. -Alba Castillo
”
”
Alba Castillo (Malice Intent: Is Love Worth Dying For?)
“
Sometimes I am high; sometimes I am low, but I love myself even when I hate myself.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
On her dark days, she screamed. On her bright days, she laughed, There was no in between, but every day she felt.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
Mental illness may be invisible, but the people who live with it are not.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
I wake up the next morning, happy and full of life. I again stare at my ceiling that says, ‘Build a life worth living’ This is the first time in forever that I have felt that maybe I am building a life worth living, that I’m not just faking it. My career my twin, books, and Archer are all I’ve had for so long, which was always worth living for - but love. Love is something more. Love makes you feel wanted. Love makes life worth living, and it’s something I have never felt in this way. I have known this guy only for a little over a week. He walked right into my life and changed everything. I don’t know how that is possible, but it is.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
St. Andrews provided a gentle forgetfulness over the preceding painful years of my life. It remains a haunting and lovely time to me, a marrow experience. For one who during her undergraduate years was trying to escape an inexplicable weariness and despair, St. Andrews was an amulet against all manner of longing and loss, a year of gravely held but joyous remembrances.
”
”
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
“
You know those afternoons," he asks, drawing a shaking breath, "where you’re just going along, doing fine, and then afternoon comes and it feels like you’ve just got the wind knocked out of you and everything is wrong?" He sighs and slowly pushes himself so he’s sitting upright. His shoulders are slumped. "That’s all," he says. "It’s just one of those afternoons."
We are silent for a minute. Then he lies back down on the couch.
I should say I love him. I should say it will be all right. But it won’t.
I walk down the hall to my bedroom. I lie down on my side and stare at the wall, the blue-flowered wallpaper next to my nose. Despite my best efforts, I start to cry.
I know those afternoons.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
Red is passion, warmth, love, lust. Red is also the color of rage, blood, power, irritation. Red is the rainbow’s compulsory bipolar color.
”
”
Whitney Barbetti (He Found Me (He Found Me, #1))
“
Beautiful soul, do not give up. What we believe to be the end is usually just the beginning.
”
”
Hannah Blum
“
The light you are searching for can be found in your reflection.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
She wanted to kill her, hold her . . . strangle her . . . scold her . . . love her to death. Good night, parenting was a bipolar disorder.
”
”
Catherine Bybee (Doing It Over (Most Likely To, #1))
“
Bipolars are made to make love to their destiny.
”
”
Kostas Gkionakis
“
The mental health problem is not just a health crisis; it's a social injustice. It's the mistreatment of the misunderstood.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
When you live with depression, anxiety, or any mental illness, you spend most of your time "trying to explain" yourself over taking care of yourself.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
They told me to pursue acting, and I replied, "I live with mental illness. I've been an actress my whole life.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
If they think you are too much; maybe it's because they are not enough.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
To love me, you must accept me as I am. You must love the parts of me you do not understand.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
Just like a flower blooms from the ground, so do we.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
I had assumed that a boy who loved me so intensely was full of happiness, love, and light so that he was free of his own demons and pain.
My assumption was entirely wrong.
”
”
Maddy Kobar (With a Reckless Abandon (The Veerys of Dove Grove, #1))
“
i have loved and i have also been ignored. the second one felt better because through that, i found the love which i would otherwise never. i called her self-love.
”
”
Yogesh Chandra (The Words I Could Never Say: Bipolar Poetry)
“
She was a victim of her own brain chemistry, and as her daughter my role was to accept and love her for who she was, not who I wanted her to to be.
”
”
Amra Pajalic (Things Nobody Knows But Me)
“
It is said that true love lasts forever – the pain tells me they were right.
I didn’t know what love was before my children were born, and I didn’t find myself until we parted ways.
”
”
Aaron Kyle Andresen (How Dad Found Himself in the Padded Room: A Bipolar Father's Gift For The World (The Padded Room Trilogy Book 1))
“
I don't need people, love or sex. Neither money, clothes or cars. The hate I gained was most needed. Don't understand me in the wrong way. It's been a while and the loathing turns into indifference, which now solves my problems.
”
”
Mario Fingarov
“
Depression, bipolar disorder, and other examples of neurodivergence7 are stigmatized because we are unwilling to extend the same care and treatment to our brains that we afford our bodies. If I broke my arm and never went to a see a doctor, not only would I be in extreme pain but the people in my life would be incensed by such a reckless choice. Yet we make statements like “It’s all in your head” all the time, minimizing the experiences of our brains and neglecting their care.
”
”
Sonya Renee Taylor (The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love)
“
Things weren’t always as good as they are now. In school we learned that in the old days, the dark days, people didn’t realize how deadly a disease love was.
For a long time they even viewed it as a good thing, something to be celebrated and pursued. Of course that’s one of the reasons it’s so dangerous: It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or make rational decisions about your own well-being. (That’s symptom number twelve, listed in the amor deliria nervosa section of the twelfth edition of The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, or The Book of Shhh, as we call it.) Instead people back then named other diseases—stress, heart disease, anxiety, depression, hypertension, insomnia, bipolar disorder—never realizing that these were, in fact, only symptoms that in the majority of cases could be traced back to the effects of amor deliria nervosa.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
He is the most wonderful person alive. I am suddenly struck by the fact that he is unlike anyone else in the world. How many people could love me like this? How many people would visit every day at six o'clock, without fail? And bring me dinner, and a grocery bag of fruit? Who could? Who would? Why would they?
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
Guess what? Your brain is part of your body! Why am I yelling this? Because too often we treat our brain as though it’s a separate operating system tucked away in a room we call the skull. Our tendency to divorce our brains from our bodies is one of the sneaky ways in which body shame thrives. Isolating our brains gives us permission to treat them differently. Depression, bipolar disorder, and other examples of neurodivergence7 are stigmatized because we are unwilling to extend the same care and treatment to our brains that we afford our bodies. If I broke my arm and never went to a see a doctor, not only would I be in extreme pain but the people in my life would be incensed by such a reckless choice. Yet we make statements like “It’s all in your head” all the time, minimizing the experiences of our brains and neglecting their care.
”
”
Sonya Renee Taylor (The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love)
“
if you really want to know where the scent of the flowers is the strongest, try walking the garden of self-love. -the air we both forgot to breathe
”
”
Yogesh Chandra (The Flower That Went Mad: Bipolar Poetry)
“
It's amazing the things that the heart and mind can endure. No one ever told me that growing up, so I often spent my childhood thinking something was wrong with me.
”
”
Yassin Hall (Journey Untold My Mother's Struggle with Mental Illnesses: Bipolar, paranoid schizophrenia, or other forms of mental illness is debilitating for everyone including the families left to try to cope)
“
The hands of his sadness close around my throat and I can't breathe. I have run out of the enormous love he needs to be all right.
”
”
Marya Hornbacher (Madness: A Bipolar Life)
“
Just when I’m loving life it seems to start raining.
”
”
Mike Skinner
“
your love gave me strength. but it was your silence that made me realize how strong i truly was. -a bleeding heart
”
”
Yogesh Chandra (The Words I Could Never Say: Bipolar Poetry)
“
I am love and as such I receive love.
”
”
Aaron Kyle Andresen (How Dad Found Himself in the Padded Room: A Bipolar Father's Gift For The World (The Padded Room Trilogy Book 1))
“
Suicide is a permanent decision to a temporary feeling.
”
”
Stephen F. Arterburn (Understanding and Loving a Person with Bipolar Disorder: Biblical and Practical Wisdom to Build Empathy, Preserve Boundaries, and Show Compassion (The Arterburn Wellness Series))
“
I look up at the sky again and whisper, ‘I will live for you.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
Breaking and rebuilding happen simultaneously. So when you are crumbling, remember it's from the bottom we rise again.
”
”
Hannah Blum (The Truth About Broken: The Unfixed Version of Self-love)
“
Logan looked at her and wondered how someone so beautiful could be so oblivious to their own beauty, how someone so smart could be so foolish to the extent of their own intellect and how someone so loving and compassionate could ever think she wasn’t worthy of love?
It was like watching a blind man trapped and wandering aimlessly and helplessly in a scorching hot desert unable to see the small puddle of water that lay just a foot away. The only difference was that she had eyes. Two beautiful ones, yet she could not see. Is that what madness was? Was it to be able to view and appreciate every form of beauty but to be blind to the value and exquisiteness of one’s own? Logan believed in many forms of insanity but he knew in that instant watching her trembling frame on the train tracks that hers, that her illness, surpassed any clinical or psychological term known. Maybe she did suffer from depression or bipolar or schizophrenia. Who knew? All he was certain of in that moment that she suffered from no greater illness than the blindness of the heart.
”
”
Ali Harper
“
Organize your life, get a calendar, and make lists. Block out time for relaxation, for fun, for productivity. There are always spaces in time that you can work on yourself. I have my days scheduled down to the minute.
”
”
Phylecia Kellar (Be Happy or Get the F* Out: A Bipolar Success Story — and Your Guide to Hope, Recovery, and Designing a Life You Love)
“
There was almost certainly a genetic contribution to Einstein’s dopaminergic traits. One of his two sons became an internationally recognized expert on hydraulic engineering. The other was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of twenty, and died in an asylum. Large population studies have also found a genetic component of a dopaminergic character. An Icelandic study that evaluated the genetic profile of over 86,000 people discovered that individuals who carried genes that placed them at greater risk for either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were more likely to belong to a national society of actors, dancers, musicians, visual artists, or writers.
”
”
Daniel Z. Lieberman (The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race)
“
If Porter crawled into bed with me, I wouldn’t flee the scene right away. I probably wouldn’t even kick him out. I might kick him in the gonads and then rub my cheek against his chest because that’s the kind of girl I am. Beat them and then treat them.
”
”
Meghan Quinn (The Mother Road)
“
I have bipolar 2 disorder, anxiety disorder, and ADHD. I take my medications every day. I go to therapy every week. I hope, one day, I can be on the other side of therapy - you know, like the one who gets to write stuff down and shakes her head and listens.
”
”
Emma Thomas (Live for Me)
“
I experience thousand of emotions in a day But, one thing is for sure.I am bipolar, and I am proud. I want to write a book and carry a burning torch, To illuminate and eradicate the stigma attache to it. I am not an illness. I have a story to tell and I am winning the battle by loving myself
”
”
MARGARET CABAL CABANTAN COHEN
“
We always make the best decision we can based upon what we believe in that moment. When I was growing up, my father and I experienced a lot of tension with each other for many years. He had bipolar disorder and it was very difficult for him. As I got older and went through my transformation of consciousness and really forgave him—and forgave myself and forgave the world—my father started showing up in my awareness as an angel. He got happier and happier and our relationship began to improve. People would say, “Your dad
has really changed a lot,” and I would say, “My mind has really changed.” My father was just reflecting that back. In fact, he came to me one day and said, “David, I’m sorry. I was not a very good father. I didn’t do the things that a good father should do.”
I replied, “Nonsense! I don’t believe that for one instant. You did the best you could and I did the best I could. You didn’t let me down and I didn’t let you down. We’re not going to buy into that guilt trip anymore.”
He lit up when I said this. His whole demeanor changed and he instantly reflected love back to me. That simple exchange completely rearranged our view of everything that had taken place during those early years. None of it mattered anymore. We had been mistaken about many things because we couldn’t perceive truly while we were going through our time together.
”
”
David Hoffmeister (Quantum Forgiveness: Physics, Meet Jesus)
“
Look at you Infidelity”, shaking his head in frustration. “I’m not sure if your choice of drug is passion, the thrill of the affair or the man himself, but there is a void you are trying to have us fulfill in your life and you are hooked! The secrets, the lies, the lame attempts to quit sleeping around…the isolation; don’t you get it? YOU LOVE INFIDELITY!"
- Loving Infidelity
”
”
Taylor Marie (Loving Infidelity)
“
Bipolar disorder is vicious. In her manic phases, she was the mother every kid wants—fun, loving, full of life. But when the switch flipped, she barely spoke to any of us, just hid out in her room, watching TV. She didn’t bathe. Didn’t eat. She refused her meds, preferring alcohol. No one, least of all Dad, could convince her otherwise. And then one day, she was gone.” “You mean dead.” “Yes.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins (Love Lies Beneath)
“
If someone thinks you’re a fucking problem, an addict, a fuck-up, and broken, they’re going to treat you differently despite all their best intentions otherwise, which can foster a slow, steady reduction, stripping away confidence
and self-love until it all becomes a repeated, entrenched story. The irony is that this contraction often occurs in the care of those
who are genuinely trying to help.
”
”
Cory Richards (The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within)
“
This work of art has followed me from jail into the padded room, to the suicide triage unit, to the streets, through bankruptcy, into rehabilitation, back to health and financial independence, and into society as a loving and healthy, successful father. If it wasn’t for the purpose I found in writing this work of art, I’d be dead. I know this work of art will change your life, because it changed mine.
”
”
Aaron Kyle Andresen (How Dad Found Himself in the Padded Room: A Bipolar Father's Gift For The World (The Padded Room Trilogy Book 1))
“
People will love people
no matter what
terrible shit they do.
We forgive people, even when
they don’t ask for forgiveness.
When there is no
atonement,
no penance.
Why do we love people?
Why do we forgive evil?
Stupidity—
Shallowness—
the darkest motives.
We forgive
because we are attached,
we have known them a long time,
we have put them into the
category of family or friend.
We want to have sex with them.
Because they entertain us.
We even forgive child molesters
if they make good movies.
The unspeakable truth
is that we need written laws
that have mystic origins—
with weapons to keep
them upheld.
Because we are too
forgiving of our friends
and family. We take their side,
even when we know
they are wrong, and lying.
The world would collapse
into chaos without law
not because we are
savage beasts, but because
we are so forgiving.
”
”
Noah Cicero (Bipolar Cowboy)
“
Amor Apocalypse is headed our way,
Now that Roe vs Wade is overturned.
Love is where the scrotum-brain scotus,
Will lay next their filthy hand.
First they came for our choice,
Then they'll come for our love.
Soon they'll go for good old lynching,
Land of the free will be land of the shrubs.
Straight and queer are products of a bipolar world,
In the sanctuary of love there's no straight, no queer.
In love's domain queer is straight, straight is queer,
A heart full of love and light is radiantly nonpolar.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım)
“
When I look back on my life I realize I was very sick for a long time. Sitting here in good health, I find myself crying. I do that sometimes. I am very sensitive. My dear son Jayden, who many know as Fox0r Jr., inherited that trait from me. I see it in him already. Jaxson is confident. Owen is sweet and loving. He is also spry and cunning. Finley is bold. Finley is also a stirring and adventurous child. We have laughed together. We have cried together. We have smiled together. My sons, next to Jesus, are my greatest inspiration.
”
”
Aaron Kyle Andresen (How Dad Found Himself in the Padded Room: A Bipolar Father's Gift For The World (The Padded Room Trilogy Book 1))
“
I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am a poet. I am a minister. I am church. I am dance. I am the breath of the ancestors. I am the joy of God. I am my grandmother’s prayers. I am my grandfather’s dreaming. I am incense burning. I am a woman. I am the natural dread. I am a woman who loves the company of other women. I am a woman who honors the ancestors. I am sister. I am daughter. I am a daughter of Oshun. I am a person who feels deeply. I am alive. I am whole. I am a woman who believes in freedom. I am a woman who fights for freedom. I am a co-journeyer. I am a friend. I am loved by many.
”
”
Monica Coleman (Bipolar Faith: a Black Woman's Guide to Depression and Faith - A Study Guide)
“
It is said that when Martin Luther would slip into one of his darker places (which happened a lot, the dude was totally bipolar), he would comfort himself by saying, “Martin, be calm, you are baptized.” I suspect his comfort came not from recalling the moment of baptism itself, or in relying on baptism as a sort of magic charm, but in remembering what his baptism signified: his identity as a beloved child of God. Because ultimately, baptism is a naming. When Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan, a voice from heaven declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Jesus did not begin to be loved at the moment of his baptism, nor did he cease to be loved when his baptism became a memory. Baptism simply named the reality of his existing and unending belovedness. As my friend Nadia puts it, “Identity. It’s always God’s first move.”9 So, too, it is with us. In baptism, we are identified as beloved children of God, and our adoption into the sprawling, beautiful, dysfunctional family of the church is celebrated by whoever happens to be standing on the shoreline with a hair dryer and deviled eggs. This is why the baptism font is typically located near the entrance of a church. The central aisle represents the Christian’s journey through life toward God, a journey that begins with baptism. The good news is you are a beloved child of God; the bad news is you don’t get to choose your siblings.
”
”
Rachel Held Evans (Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church)
“
How do you become a person?
Usually, instead of trying to get a job,
I listen to music on YouTube, instead of being
a person, I try to become the notes of songs,
the chord structure of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”
covered by Amy Winehouse, I want to become that song, I learn
the song on guitar and strum it on my adobe porch thing,
trying to become non-human, sometimes I try to become
the taste of a Carl’s Jr. cheeseburger, I want to be
that delicious, that bad for you.
Sometimes I listen to Amitabha chants,
Navajo chants, even old
Kentucky Old Regular Baptists call out chants, I
want to be a pure feeling, that may lead to heaven,
but instead I am Noah Cicero, sometimes I scream, I
can’t be controlled, I can’t be tamed, because I
don’t know what to be—
”
”
Noah Cicero (Bipolar Cowboy)
“
Daydreamer"
Victory may lay in the fog
Silent seas
Howling dogs
You and and me
Cut from a different cloth
Concrete love
Oh let me tell ya
Im gunna take this one step further
Lets explore don’t stick to what you know
We’re gunna take this one step further
I’ve found the truth
The stars are you
CHORUS:
Daydreamer
Running in the dark
Skiing in the fields
Oh lets get lost
Buy a ticket to mars
Oh show me the way
And i’m sure i’ll stay
We’re blossom leaves
No camouflage
Let colours bleed for us all to see
Hey your coming with me
Whether you like it or not
1 2 3
Im gunna take this one step further
Lets explore don’t stick to what you know
We’re gunna take this one step further
I’ve found the truth
The stars are you
CHORUS:
Daydreamer
Running in the dark
Skiing in the fields
Oh lets get lost
Buy a ticket to mars
Oh show me the way
And i’m sure i’ll stay
What you running for
Running for
What you running for
CHORUS:
Daydreamer
Running in the dark
Skiing in the fields
Oh lets get lost
Buy a ticket to mars
Oh show me the way
And i’m sure i’ll stay
”
”
Bipolar Sunshine
“
He loved the idea that he was mentally ill,” said his daughter Monica, “and hated the idea he was an alcoholic”—that is, bipolar disorder was a bona fide illness, while alcoholism smacked of a shameful personal failing.
”
”
Blake Bailey (A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates)
“
Kaash koi
Kaash koi mujhe mere in andhero se bahar nikale,
Haath pakde mera kuch der roshni me saath nibhale,
Dar lagta aaj mujhe apni hi pechaan se,
Kash koi mujhse meri hi pechaan chura le,
Sahem jata hu mein aksar apni hi aawaj se,
Kash koi mujhe apne aap se bacha le,
Aaj har mehfil sunsaan hai, har rang berang hai
Kash koi aa k mujhe apne rang me mila le,
Kaash koi mujhe mere in andhero se bahar nikale,
haath pakde mera kuch der roshni me saath nibhale,
”
”
Ratish Edwards