Bipolar Stigma Quotes

I have never seen battles quite as terrifyingly beautiful as the ones I fight when my mind splinters and races, to swallow me into my own madness, again.

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of. They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication.

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.

You can’t be beaten by something you laugh at.

Been under treatment for PTSD and bipolar since 1992. I’m not ashamed of my illness. I’ve been shunned by many and I feel for those shunned, too.

I'm not the kind of person who likes to shout out my personal issues from the rooftops, but with my bipolar becoming public, I hope fellow sufferers will know it's completely controllable. I hope I can help remove any stigma attached to it, and that those who don't have it under control will seek help with all that is available to treat it.

You may not understand my mind, but that does not give you the right to judge it.

I wondered how you would react when I revealed to you my hidden parts, my ugly parts that don’t do well in the sunlight.

It's feeling full of everything and empty of it all at the same time. This is mental illness.

If you want to see the stars, you must be willing to travel through the dark.

You were holding all my pieces together, and you were trying to balance them all in your righteous hands.

That feeling will come again—that feeling of not being enough for you. And I’ll sweep it up in me and then let it sweep out. I’ll try not to own it. I’ll not bear its heaviness.

When you become bipolar you break things that you can't later fix.

Sometimes I am high; sometimes I am low, but I love myself even when I hate myself.

Beautiful soul, do not give up. What we believe to be the end is usually just the beginning.

The light you are searching for can be found in your reflection.

I wasn’t saying it didn’t all happen like that, but all of that was included in the chunks of time that had gone missing from my brain. They dropped out somewhere. And if the chunks were round, they would have rolled away. So I was hoping they were bricks and heavy so they stayed in the same spot. I just needed to retrace my steps, if I only could remember where I’d been.

Take it from me, that kind of torment causes you to retreat to a place in your mind where you are so strong that nothing and no one can bother you. Or so you think! What you don't realize is that each time an incident occurs, you retreat inside of yourself a little bit at a time, until one day you might not recognize who YOU are.

The mental health problem is not just a health crisis; it's a social injustice. It's the mistreatment of the misunderstood.

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.

They told me to pursue acting, and I replied, "I live with mental illness. I've been an actress my whole life.

Although it is important to be able to recognise and disclose symptom of physical illnesses or injury, you need to be more careful about revealing psychiatric symptoms. Unless you know that your doctor understands trauma symptoms, including dissociation, you are wise not to reveal too much. Too many medical professionals, including psychiatrists, believe that hearing voices is a sign of schizophrenia, that mood swings mean bipolar disorder which has to be medicated, and that depression requires electro-convulsive therapy if medication does not relieve it sufficiently. The “medical model” simply does not work for dissociation, and many treatments can do more harm than good... You do not have to tell someone everything just because he is she is a doctor. However, if you have a therapist, even a psychiatrist, who does understand, you need to encourage your parts to be honest with that person. Then you can get appropriate help.

The uncomfortable, as well as the miraculous, fact about the human mind is how it varies from individual to individual. The process of treatment can therefore be long and complicated. Finding the right balance of drugs, whether lithium salts, anti-psychotics, SSRIs or other kinds of treatment can be a very hit or miss heuristic process requiring great patience and classy, caring doctoring. Some patients would rather reject the chemical path and look for ways of using diet, exercise and talk-therapy. For some the condition is so bad that ECT is indicated. One of my best friends regularly goes to a clinic for doses of electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment looked on by many as a kind of horrific torture that isn’t even understood by those who administer it. This friend of mine is just about one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and she says, “I know. It ought to be wrong. But it works. It makes me feel better. I sometimes forget my own name, but it makes me happier. It’s the only thing that works.” For her. Lord knows, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t understand the brain or the mind anything like enough to presume to judge or know better than any other semi-informed individual, but if it works for her…. well then, it works for her. Which is not to say that it will work for you, for me or for others.

Breaking and rebuilding happen simultaneously. So when you are crumbling, remember it's from the bottom we rise again.

Bipolar disorder has a much greater stigma than mania alone, and after that diagnosis it will be difficult, if not impossible, to convince anyone that the person shouldn't be medicated for life.

When I certify someone insane, I am not equivocating when I write that he is of unsound mind, may be dangerous to himself and others, and requires care and attention in a mental hospital. However, at the same time, I am also aware that, in my opinion, there are other people who are regarded as sane, whose minds are as radically unsound, who may be equally or more dangerous to themselves and others and whom society does not regard as psychotic and fit persons to be in a madhouse.

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

Watching Carrie Fisher on what seems to be her last work, the British sitcom " Catastrophe" playing a crazy old mom makes me wonder how many talents are taken for granted just because they have aged. Just to quote her again, as if "they are disobedient kids" treated with so little respect and honor. In a culture that venerates the youth and degenerates everything that is somewhat "out of date" we can only wonder how the future will be. If the same ones that diminishes the old will themselves be older too. If they are lucky enough to reach a certain age and age well.

I also reached out to far-away family and friends for emotional support. You cannot imagine the feelings of un-worthiness and shame that the diagnosis of a mental illness had caused me. I knew intellectually that I was not at fault, but I judged myself nonetheless. I had internalized the stigma around mental illness.

Like a canvas painted with bold strokes of light and dark, the experience of bipolar disorder is complex and nuanced. But within the spectrum of our moods and emotions lies a depth of creativity, passion, and resilience that is uniquely our own.

I was really into this caddying job and on a natural high. Unbeknownst to me, I was showing symptoms of mental illness for the first time. I didn’t have a clue that I was becoming progressively more manic as the day went along.

Being behind bars is a degrading and humiliating experience. And I deserved to be there. I had to pay the consequences for driving drunk and causing an accident. In the end, I got off really lucky.