“
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
“
Every single person is a fool, insane, a failure, or a bad person to at least ten people.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy.
”
”
Harlan Coben (Hold Tight)
“
Good. It’s better if my DNA isn’t passed on.” “Why? You’re smart, beautiful, powerful.” “I’m also mentally unstable and may have tendencies toward criminal insanity.
”
”
Nalini Singh (Heart of Obsidian (Psy-Changeling, #12))
“
Yes, Simone, he is mentally unstable for being attracted to you. call the men in white suits.
”
”
Randa Abdel-Fattah (Does My Head Look Big In This?)
“
To evade insanity and depression, we unconsciously limit the number of people toward whom we are sincerely sympathetic.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
We should reflect on the idea that since the beginning of time sentient beings have been mentally unstable because they have been slaves of delusion, they lack the eye of wisdom to see the path leading to nirvana and enlightenment, and they lack the necessary guidance of a spiritual teacher. Moment by moment they are indulging in negative actions, which will eventually bring about their downfall.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV (The Way to Freedom: Core Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism)
“
For the scientist, at exactly the moment of discovery—that most unstable existential moment—the external world, nature itself, deeply confirms his innermost fantastic convictions. Anchored abruptly in the world, Leviathan gasping on his hook, he is saved from extreme mental disorder by the most profound affirmation of the real.
”
”
Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb)
“
Max dances around in a circle with one leg pulled up, and people move away as if he's mentally unstable. He and I are the only collectors that like to remain visible to the living. The other four roll incognito. Max finishes his dance and brushes his shoulders off.
"What the hell was that?" I ask.
"My new move," he says matter-of-factly.
My fellow collector is six years older than me but acts like he's thirteen. We met a couple of years ago after he kicked the bucket and came onboard. He talks so fast, I have trouble understanding him sometimes. I like to think he was the World's Best Car Salesman before he croaked.
”
”
Victoria Scott (The Collector (Dante Walker, #1))
“
Police intentionally murdering a mentally unstable person will always be unacceptable when there are numerous other non-lethal options available to them.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
You’re…you’re mentally unstable.”
“I wish I were. It would make things so much more fun. Sadly, I’m not. At least, not yet.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (The Return (Titan, #1))
“
Women enjoy a different history of madness. From witchcraft to hysteria we're just bad news. We know that women were condemned as witches because they were mentally unstable but no one has considered the numbers - even few as they might be - of women who were stoned to death for being bright. That I havent wound up chained to a cellar wall or burned at the stake is not a testament to our ascending civility but to our ascending skepticism. If we still believed in witches we'd still be burning them.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Stella Maris (The Passenger, #2))
“
I grin at the fierce burn in my legs, in my chest. Using pain to relieve pain. It doesn't make much sense.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Insurgent (Divergent, #2))
“
Hey,” Granny said. “I’m not mentally unstable. My psychiatrist even closed his practice and told me to never come back.
”
”
Mike Bloemer (The School Bully Is My Brother)
“
If Terrell Owens is really depressed or mentally unstable, why do the people I love use it as an excuse to talk badly about him?
”
”
Matthew Quick (The Silver Linings Playbook)
“
It was telling that he had taken responsibility for the thing that he did...but he did not mention the things done in his name. This was always the way of these strongmen. They would craft the fear so carefully and then toss it into the world for everyone to use. And when someone took that fear and destroyed with it, they were just "unstable" or "mentally ill".
”
”
Hank Green (A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2))
“
Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable for children and adolescents.
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
“
Against all expectations, the symptoms of Van Gogh’s mental illness are conspicuous by their almost complete absence from his letters. Much as he chose not to paint before he had fully recovered from one of his attacks, so he refrained from writing at times of crisis. Throughout his life, admittedly, his letters bear witness to a man possessed, frequently agitated, enraged, dejected, obsessed, but never deranged, or emotionally or intellectually unstable.
”
”
Vincent van Gogh (The Letters of Vincent van Gogh)
“
And someone who is perpetually accidentally hot-gluing herself to the carpet, and who is sort of mentally unstable, but in an “At-least-I-still-remember-how-pants-work” kind of way (cough…that’d be me).
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir)
“
In a culture where the brain is considered the center of consciousness, an unraveling brain is an unraveling self. To let the mentally unstable live in our midst is to face the fearful fragility of the ego. So we whisper our fears over their heads, driving them into the wilderness of the streets or locking them away where they can’t be seen. We let them pale into husks of
human beings, cut off from the mutual blood of society. Sometimes we toss them a coin; it’s a small price to pay for the relief of looking away.
”
”
Sondra Charbadze (The Sea Once Swallowed Me: A Memoir of Love, Solitude, and the Limits of Language)
“
The American Civil War lays out the stark contrast: the greatest generals in war are often abundant failures during peacetime, and vice versa. McClellan and Sherman are the sharpest contrasts; but there is also Grant the peacetime drunkard, and Stonewall Jackson the barely tolerable military professor. Only Lee stands out as effective in both peace and war (and even he had a mentally unstable father, and himself may have been dysthymic in his general personality). This conflict reflects, I think, the different psychological qualities of leadership needed in different phases of human activity, peace and war being the two extremes.
”
”
S. Nassir Ghaemi (A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness)
“
I am wondering if many of the things that we say about ourselves as women, are actually responsible for leading us down detrimental paths in life. For example, usually we like to say that we're crazy, messy and lost. But when I think about it, I want to be of sound mind, with purpose and unlost (if there is such a word as unlost). Really, who wants to be mentally unstable and eternally insecure? I think maybe we need to stop saying these things about ourselves and we need to start seeing ourselves as what and who we really want to be.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
The only acceptable hobby, throughout all stages of life, is cookery. As a child: adorable baked items. Twenties: much appreciated spag bol and fry-ups. Thirties and forties: lovely stuff with butternut squash and chorizo from the Guardian food section. Fifties and sixties: beef wellington from the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Seventies and eighties: back to the adorable baked items. Perfect. The only teeny tiny downside of this hobby is that I HATE COOKING.
Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore the eating of the food. It's just the awful boring, frightening putting together of it that makes me want to shove my own fists in my mouth. It's a lovely idea: follow the recipe and you'll end up with something exactly like the pretty picture in the book, only even more delicious. But the reality's rather different. Within fifteen minutes of embarking on a dish I generally find myself in tears in the middle of what appears to be a bombsite, looking like a mentally unstable art teacher in a butter-splattered apron, wondering a) just how I am supposed to get hold of a thimble and a half of FairTrade hazelnut oil (why is there always the one impossible-to-find recipe ingredient? Sesame paste, anyone?) and b) just how I managed to get flour through two closed doors onto the living-room curtains, when I don't recall having used any flour and oh-this-is-terrible-let's-just-go-out-and-get-a-Wagamama's-and-to-hell-with-the-cost, dammit.
”
”
Miranda Hart (Is It Just Me?)
“
The very existence of social media is predicated on humankind's primitive drive of attention seeking. And when they successfully monetize your attention, they end up with billions of dollars and you end up with a screwed up mental state. And if we don't do anything about it now, the next generation will be a generation of mentally unstable glass creatures.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine)
“
Collectively with our coauthors, we warn that anyone as mentally unstable as Mr. Trump simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency.
”
”
Bandy X. Lee (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President)
“
The police think I’m a rubbernecker. They think I’m a stalker, a nut-case, mentally unstable.
”
”
Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train)
“
I had no idea what a mayor actually did. We'd had mayors who were mentally unstable and others who were alcoholics. I was neither.
”
”
Jón Gnarr (Gnarr: How I Became the Mayor of a Large City in Iceland and Changed the World)
“
DURANTE:Your children are rather mentally unstable. Particularly the girls. Must I put up with them all?
”
”
Billy London (A Life Sublime)
“
As Coriolanus watched Lucy Gray Baird take the stage, he felt a stab of uneasiness. Could she be mentally unstable? There was something vaguely familiar but disturbing about her.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0))
“
You must remember, the so-called Jihadis who are in reality, mentally unstable individuals run by Quranic fundamentalists, do not represent the whole Muslim population of the world.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar
“
It then occurs to me that I am mentally unstable.
So I decided to close my office door and go online. Maybe I can do some research and find out what's wrong with my personality and then fix it.
”
”
Augusten Burroughs (Magical Thinking: True Stories)
“
You get ill, you are accused of being mentally ill, denied effective treatment, then when you campaign for ‘real science’, you are accused of terrorising those who do not believe in your illness...after all, if your message is that people who say they are suffering from ME or CFS are mentally ill, then accusing them of irrational attacks adds strength to your case.
”
”
Martin J. Walker (Skewed: Psychiatric Hegemony and the Manufacture of Mental Illness in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)
“
The term stir-crazy comes from the early 1900s. Stir was slang for prison, based on the Gypsy word stariben. Stir-crazy was actually a play on an older expression, stir-bugs, which described a prisoner who became mentally unstable due to being locked up too long.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (House Rules)
“
In addition to calling him a “racist,” they accused him of being “mentally unstable,” “incompetent,” “morally disreputable,” a “would-be dictator,” and “unfit for the Oval office.” Months before he entered the White House, leading Democrats were vowing to impeach him.
”
”
David Horowitz (BLITZ: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win)
“
Yes, I know that now that there is truth in beauty and beauty in truth. My nature is to be depressive and come out of it and write, and enjoy writing and feeling as if I have a passion and excitement and love and euphoria for it and then I go 'back to sleep again' where I can eat and watch television and not work, not be productive and then just as if a magic switch is turned on I can do it all over again. I don't mind the being depressed part. Sometimes it seems to fuel me. The anger though is gone now that was there in my twenties and even earlier in my youth. Your voice is Tolstoy’s, Hemingway’s, Updike’s, Styron’s, Mcewan’s, Greene’s, Fugard’s, Kundera’s, Rilke’s while I am the incarnate of Radcliffe Hall crossing both genders effortlessly. You betray nothing. There is son in the picture. A small boy but you don’t introduce him to me. Obsessions are unhealthy creatures. They make you mentally ill, emotionally unstable; leave you with a chemistry of deep sadness in your life. I have my writing. It keeps me from disintegrating into fractions. I should stop now before I begin to make myself cry.
”
”
Abigail George (Winter in Johannesburg)
“
we began the process of learning how incredibly difficult it is to live with someone who is totally anal and slightly OCD (ahem…Victor). And someone who is perpetually accidentally hot-gluing herself to the carpet, and who is sort of mentally unstable, but in an “At-least-I-still-remember-how-pants-work” kind of way (cough…that’d be me). Victor remarked that comparing myself with the sometimes naked hermit next door wasn’t exactly a strong mental-wellness benchmark, especially since I often ended up pantsless myself. I raised my eyebrow at his seemingly seductive remark until I realized he was referring to the time he found me half naked because I’d just hot-glued my jeans to the carpet.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir)
“
(Note to self: Dreaming of and visualizing Prince Charming behind me was probably a huge indicator of my unstable mental state.)
”
”
Tarrah Montgomery (I'm Not Cinderella (The Princess Chronicles Book 1))
“
Each of us is a chunk of uranium, extremely unstable, but extremely potent.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
“
Women was regarded as a creature whose boundaries are unstable, whose power to control them is inadequate. Deformation attends her. She swells, she shrinks, she leaks, she perforates, she disintegrates. Think of the female life cycle with its bloods, its penetrations, its pregnancies, its changes of shape. Think of the monsters of Greek myth, who are mostly women with deranged boundaries, like Skylla, Medusa, the Sirens, the Harpies, the Amazons, the Sphinx. Self-control is a virtue—physical, mental and moral—which, in the view of the ancients, women categorically do not possess. In order to achieve form or consistency, the female must submit herself to the regulation and articulation of the male.
”
”
Anne Carson
“
Stay away from unstable women. Women who have negative things to say about their exes should be avoided at all costs. Do not believe, for a moment, that you are special, better and different, because years later you will be that person she negatively remembers.
”
”
Jake Hollow (Jake Hollow's Guide on How to Persuade Women ~ Revised Edition: Female Edition)
“
I owed her for reasons I couldn’t untangle yet. I didn’t intend to throw her overboard just because she might be mentally unstable. Fuck, all of us were mentally unstable to a degree. I wouldn’t be a hypocrite and deny otherwise. She was one of the strongest women I’d come across, and she hadn’t spoken a word. That sort of strength…it did things to men like me. It made me want to break her and shelter her in equal measure. It set a war in motion between the devil and angel on my shoulders, and only time would tell what part of me would win. My
”
”
Pepper Winters (Dollars (Dollar, #2))
“
If a mother identifies with every fall of her child and takes personal pride in its every success, her self-image will be as unstable as her child’s balance. She finds stability when she realizes that she is not her child, and watches it with love and interest—but as a separate being.
”
”
W. Timothy Gallwey (The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance)
“
Labelling a woman as a hypochondriac is the modern day way of labelling a woman hysterical – the insinuation is that it is all in her mind, she is unstable (mentally and perhaps physically) her opinion and feelings are not to be trusted. Her pain and her concerns are not real.
But what if the hypochondriac, the highly sensitive woman, is picking up perfectly on the signs that something is wrong, she is registering the imbalance, that something is wrong, but she mistakes the issue as being in her own body, rather than the body of the world beyond her. She is told to quiet down, that nothing is wrong. But there is, she knows there is. This is why the constant reassurance does little to help her. She is feeling, deep in her bones, in her nerves, in her pulse that something is seriously wrong. Because it is. Her biological system may or may not have gotten sick from it yet, but the signs of a sick world are quickening within her.
”
”
Lucy H. Pearce (Medicine Woman: Reclaiming the Soul of Healing)
“
Good. Society as a whole cannot respect the individual. The ‘greater good’ of society, says there should be no place for the useless, the cripple who cannot work, the lazy, the mentally unstable, the genetically weak – the man who does not aid its running, or its ability to survive. It says the dead weight must be removed, or made to be useful. But if you say keep those alive, what you are saying is the survival of one, is more important than the ‘good’ of society – hence we don’t remove the useless, because most of society obviously does not know what’s ‘good’ for it... So, if we respect the individual, then one cannot abide by that theory of right and wrong.
”
”
Ciaran MacUaitéir (Of North Blood Drawn (Magen Book 1))
“
me thinking straight. I take a shower, get dressed and make another cup of coffee, and then I sit down in the living room, little black book at my side, and I call Scott. “You should have told me,” he says as soon as he picks up, “what you are.” His tone is flat, cold. My stomach is a small, hard ball. He knows. “Detective Riley spoke to me after they let him go. He denied having an affair with her. And the witness who suggested that there was something going on was unreliable, she said. An alcoholic. Possibly mentally unstable. She didn’t tell me the witness’s name, but I take it she was talking about you?” “But . . . no,” I say. “No. I’m not . . . I hadn’t been drinking when I saw them. It was eight thirty in the morning.” Like that means anything. “And they found evidence, it said so on
”
”
Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train)
“
Adult survivors of family scapegoating abuse have historically been diagnosed with one or more mental health conditions that ignore the trauma symptoms they are regularly experiencing. Rarely will their most distressing symptoms be recognized as Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) secondary to growing up in an unstable, non-nurturing, dangerous, rejecting, or abusive family environment.
”
”
Rebecca C. Mandeville (Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role)
“
In humans (and other highly sociable mammals, such as dogs), the default setting is a major contributor to their individual personality. People (and dogs) who go through life in discover mode (except when directly threatened) are happier, more sociable, and more eager for new experiences. Conversely, people (and dogs) who are chronically in defend mode are more defensive and anxious, and they have only rare moments of perceived safety. They tend to see new situations, people, and ideas as potential threats, rather than as opportunities. Such chronic wariness was adaptive in some ancient environments, and may still be today for children raised in unstable and violent settings. But being stuck in defend mode is an obstacle to learning and growth in the physically safe environments that surround most children in developed nations
”
”
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
“
All normal life, Peter, consciously or otherwise, resents domination. If the domination is by an inferior, or by a supposed inferior, the resentment becomes stronger. Physically, and, to an extent, mentally, a robot—any robot—is superior to human beings. What makes him slavish, then? Only the First Law! Why, without it, the first order you tried to give a robot would result in your death. Unstable? What do you think?” “Susan,
”
”
Isaac Asimov (I, Robot)
“
Someone said once that they'd never heard of a crime they couldn't imagine committing, and I realized then that if I had a daughter and she had a rabbit and that rabbit was alone with me and I was feeling the way I felt right now and I had a way to kill that rabbit and the time to spend killing that rabbit then killing the rabbit was something I could imagine myself possibly doing or at least considering doing or being on the edge of doing. And smearing a husband with the blood wasn't such a far step after that if you had a desire to smear your husband with blood and smearing someone with blood was something I could imagine a situation calling for because there were at least a few people in this world that I wouldn't not like to see smeared with blood—one person being Werner for fucking my plans, for sending me back out into a life with my wildebeest, to figure out a way to live here and I didn't want to do that and I didn't know how to do that and I wasn't sure how I was going to do that—
”
”
Catherine Lacey (Nobody Is Ever Missing)
“
A central tenet of the traditional command-and-control mentality is management by the numbers; this is the basis and means for decision making. The numbers are largely financial and activity-related (what people do), which may or may not be of value to understanding and improving the system. With a proclaimed interest in ‘shareholder value,’ senior managers sit astride a system that they make more unstable and suboptimal through financial interference. Almost without thinking about it, the purpose of the organization becomes ‘make the budget.’ As
”
”
John Seddon (Freedom from Command and Control: Rethinking Management for Lean Service)
“
I believe the perception of what people think about DID is I might be crazy, unstable, and low functioning. After my diagnosis, I took a risk by sharing my story with a few friends. It was quite upsetting to lose a long term relationship with a friend because she could not accept my diagnosis. But it spurred me to take action. I wanted people to be informed that anyone can have DID and achieve highly functioning lives. I was successful in a career, I was married with children, and very active in numerous activities. I was highly functioning because I could dissociate the trauma from my life through my alters. Essentially, I survived because of DID. That's not to say I didn't fall down along the way. There were long term therapy visits, and plenty of hospitalizations for depression, medication adjustments, and suicide attempts. After a year, it became evident I was truly a patient with the diagnosis of DID from my therapist and psychiatrist. I had two choices.
First, I could accept it and make choices about how I was going to deal with it. My therapist told me when faced with DID, a patient can learn to live with the live with the alters and make them part of one's life. Or, perhaps, the patient would like to have the alters integrate into one person, the host, so there are no more alters. Everyone is different.
The patient and the therapist need to decide which is best for the patient. Secondly, the other choice was to resist having alters all together and be miserable, stuck in an existence that would continue to be crippling. Most people with DID are cognizant something is not right with themselves even if they are not properly diagnosed. My therapist was trustworthy, honest, and compassionate. Never for a moment did I believe she would steer me in the wrong direction. With her help and guidance, I chose to learn and understand my disorder. It was a turning point.
”
”
Esmay T. Parker (A Shimmer of Hope)
“
Dear Silent Sorrow,
I am hurting. I am numb. I am weak. I am dead inside. I am lost for words... please, help me. Will the morning ever come in my and Kace’s life? Where is the sun? It keeps setting on us, but it never rises! I am walking on a bridge surrounded by troubled waters. Where is the moon? I need help with controlling the waters. The bridge has water on it, under it, and all around it. It is unstable. It is rocking from side to side. I am scared. What am I to do? Please, tell me quickly. My fear is that I will never get across to the other side without Kace. I need Kace in my life. I need him. I will not leave Kace behind. I do not understand any of this. It is hard to find peace—when will morning come? Right here and right now, I am unable to feel.
I will jump off this troubled bridge if Kace is not with me.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
“
When there is an autocracy, we may be sure that the masses will some day overthrow it; and when there is a democracy or ochlocracy, we may be sure that some group of mentally and physically superior individuals will some day overthrow it by establishing a more or less enduring (but never wholly permanent) supremacy, either through judgment in playing men against each other, or through patience and ability in concentrating power by taking advantage of the indolence of the majority. In a word, the social organisation of humanity is in a state of perpetually and incurably unstable equilibrium.
I believe in an aristocracy, because I deem it the only agency for the creation of those refinements which make life endurable for the human animal of high organisation.
In an aristocracy some persons have a great deal to live for. In a democracy most persons have a little to live for. In an ochlocracy nobody has anything to live for.
”
”
H.P. Lovecraft
“
Early in the 19th-century, the behaviorist E. L. Thorndike performed a series of experiments that satisfied two generations of American psychologists that abstractions were not importantly involved in learning how to perform skilled tasks. He asked his subjects to perform a particular task for varying amounts of time (e.g., cancelling Os from a sentence, and then switched them to another task; cancelling adverbs from a sentence). He found that “transfer of training” effects were slight and unstable. Sometimes he found that performance of the first task enhanced the second, sometimes that it made it more difficult, and, often, that it had no effect at all. One would, of course, assume that performance on the second task would be improved if subjects learned something general from performance of the first task. Since they so often failed to show improved training, Thorndike inferred that people don't, in fact, learn much that is general when performing mental tasks. This meant that training was going to be very much a bottom-up affair, consisting of little more than slogging through countless stimulus-response associations. This conclusion has suffused deeply into American psychology, cognitive science, and education. Newell (1980), based on some similar failed efforts to find training effects for reasoning tasks, has asserted that learned problem-solving skills generally are idiosyncratic to the task.
”
”
Richard E. Nisbett (Rules for Reasoning)
“
Out of 1,016 study subjects who’d been involved with the Moonies, 90 percent of those who’d been interested enough to attend one of the workshops where this so-called brainwashing occurred decided that the whole thing wasn’t really their cup of tea and quickly ended their Moonie careers. They couldn’t be converted. Of the remaining 10 percent who joined, half left on their own steam within a couple of years. So what made the other 5 percent stay? Prevailing wisdom would tell you that only the intellectually deficient or psychologically unstable would stick by a “cult” that long. But scholars have disproven this, too. In Barker’s studies, she compared the most committed Moonie converts with a control group—the latter had gone through life experiences that might make them very “suggestive” (“Like having an unhappy childhood or being rather low-intelligence,” she said). But in the end, the control group either didn’t join at all or left after a week or two. A common belief is that cult indoctrinators look for individuals who have “psychological problems” because they are easier to deceive. But former cult recruiters say their ideal candidates were actually good-natured, service-minded, and sharp. Steven Hassan, an ex-Moonie himself, used to recruit people to the Unification Church, so he knows a little something about the type of individual cults go for. “When I was a leader in the Moonies we selectively recruited . . . those who were strong, caring, and motivated,” he wrote in his 1998 book Combatting Cult Mind Control. Because it took so much time and money to enlist a new member, they avoided wasting resources on someone who seemed liable to break down right away. (Similarly, multilevel marketing higher-ups agree that their most profitable recruits aren’t those in urgent need of cash but instead folks determined and upbeat enough to play the long game. More on that in part 4.) Eileen Barker’s studies of the Moonies confirmed that their most obedient members were intelligent, chin-up folks. They were the children of activists, educators, and public servants (as opposed to wary scientists, like my parents). They were raised to see the good in people, even to their own detriment. In this way, it’s not desperation or mental illness that consistently suckers people into exploitative groups—instead, it’s an overabundance of optimism.
”
”
Amanda Montell (Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism)
“
Mentally ill, insane, mad, crazy, ludicrous, mentally unstable....
”
”
Deyth Banger
“
Irrational fears that haunt our nightmares are indicatory of an unstable mindset. Unsettled thoughts that tug at us during daylight trigger nightmares. The content of nightmares can manifest from physical causes such as sleeping in an uncomfortable or awkward position, suffering from a fever, or psychological causes such as stress or anxiety. Emotional based nightmares that cause us to awaken with feelings of terror or horror can arise from mental complexes that contain the residue from unresolved physiological or psychological issues
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Dealing with a narcissist in a divorce is like dealing with a bully. The wear and tear you will experience when you try to protect your child’s emotional welfare will be significant. Even though you are mentally healthier than the narcissist, you can look unstable to the professionals involved in your case due to your reactions to the bully’s abusive behavior.
”
”
Karyl McBride (Will I Ever Be Free of You?: How to Navigate a High-Conflict Divorce from a Narcissist and Heal Your Family)
“
There is a basic terrorist germ in fundamentalism – a germ that is purely genocidal. This germ drives the psyche of mentally unstable individuals in the path of chaos, which actually is presented to them by the fundamentalists as the path of God.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Illusion of Religion: A Treatise on Religious Fundamentalism (Humanism Series))
“
Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn?”3 Collectively with our coauthors, we warn that anyone as mentally unstable as Mr. Trump simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the presidency
”
”
Bandy X. Lee (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President)
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Social Media Is giving everyone power and sometimes that power goes to the wrong people. A mental , unstable or Insane person, who has a lot of followers or fans on social media. Has more power, control and Is believable more than a normal, sane civilize person.
That person is setting up standards and principles for normal civilized people In the society and everyone follows , because of majority rules. Nowadays we are not even surprised by people doing crazy things. It is how crazy can you be. That Is why today laws are changed. People are doing weird stuff and are uncultured, ungovernable, ill disciple, reckless, negligent, dangerous, ill mannered and not respectful. It is not doing something right, but It is doing something everyone Is doing.
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D.J. Kyos
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It's not easy to recognize how to handle a mentally unstable ex-partner. Many people will tell you to walk away, but sometimes it's not that easy. There may be legal obligations or shared children and family and community ties that make it challenging to leave them. If you've experienced abuse, there is the added complication that the abusive partner will often rely on you for emotional support and material support, even after they have mistreated you.
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Lara Carter (Co-Parenting with a Narcissistic Ex: Protect Your Child from a Toxic Parent & Start Healing from Emotional Abuse in Your Relationship | Tips & Tricks for Co-Parenting with a Narcissist)
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A woman will follow you to the end of the world as long as she can trust you enough to lead her the right way. No woman will submit to a man who doesn’t have a sense of direction on his own. Doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life and is unstable. Not just financially but mentally as well. Keep her happy son, and that goes for all of you.
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A.J. Davidson (A Hitta for Christmas)
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it's the hope that drives every depressed person to the unstable mentality
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Orpheus Aku
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part of me wanted her to have a mental illness so I could have an answer to explain her unstable behavior and my own. If she was bipolar, and that was genetic, then I could blame the emotional episodes I experienced as a teen and well into adulthood on someone or something else.
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Susan Lieu (The Manicurist's Daughter)
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In a world of differing opinions, mentally unstable people and complete psychopaths, it was the type of simplistic notion that some people wouldn't want to follow or ignorance would just simply not allow them to understand.
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S.A. Tawks (Misadventurous)
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Sam’s Club, Trader Joe’s, and other discount stores that sell cheap supplements should not be your source for SAMe. Instead, look at GNC, local natural-food stores, or the Internet. You get what you pay for, and cheap SAMe doesn’t work. If the SAMe you’ve tried in the past wasn’t effective, don’t give up; try a different brand, preferably one recommended by a functional medicine doctor. SAMe is highly unstable and needs to be enteric coated and kept in a moderate-temperature storage facility. To take SAMe, start with 400 mg. on an empty stomach (thirty minutes before or ninety minutes after eating). If you don’t see an improvement in your mental and physical energy, increase your dose by 400 mg. each day—up to 1,200 mg.—until you do. I find it is best to take SAMe all at once, thirty minutes before breakfast. The method allows you to get a substantial morning boost that will often last through the day. You can take SAMe in divided doses if needed, but always on an empty stomach. Don’t take it past 3:00 p.m., as it may interfere with your sleep.
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Rodger H. Murphree (Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 5th Ed)
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his son was a weak and mentally unstable young man with sadistic inclinations—which went a long way toward explaining his current flirtation with the British—
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Scott Anderson (Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East)
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Shit, I guess a person who was mentally unstable could be convinced of anything in their mind.
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Nika Michelle (Forbidden Fruit 5: The Final Taste)
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In the 1950s, Harry became aware that an extremely important member of Congress was a heroin addict. “He headed one of the powerful9 committees of Congress,” he wrote. “His decisions and statements helped to shape and direct the destiny of the United States and the free world.” Harry went to this man in the corridors of Washington, D.C., and told him sternly he must stop using the drug. “I wouldn’t try to do anything about it, Commissioner,” replied the legislator. “It will be the worse for you.” He would go to the gangsters to get it whatever Harry did, “and if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn’t care . . . The choice is yours.”10 All over America, Anslinger had cut off legal avenues to drugs and forced addicts to go to gangsters for a filthy supply. But he had always pictured it being done to the “unstable, emotional, hysterical,11 degenerate, mentally deficient and vicious classes.” Now, before Harry, there was a man he respected, and he was an addict. So he assured the legislator that there would be a safe, legal supply for him at a Washington, D.C., pharmacy so he would never have to go to the gangsters or go without. The bureau even picked up the tab until the day the congressman died. A journalist uncovered the story and was about to break it. Harry told him that if he published a word, Harry would have him sent to prison for two years. He smothered the story.12 Years
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Johann Hari (Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs)
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You’re probably wondering what the heck I mean by “The Pillars of Your Life”, right? Well this is simple. It’s the things that make your life what it is. The things or people that make you, you. There’s work, family, your hobby, your art, and your traditions. Except, some of us have wonky pillars. Some of us give one pillar too much to hold, and the others not enough. One’s too tall, whilst the others are too small. Therefore we become unstable, and sometimes, everything comes crashing down.
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S.R. Crawford (From My Suffering: 25 Ways to Break the Chains of Anxiety, Depression & Stress)
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Tim blinked his eyes a few times, and then crossed a leg over in an attempt to regain a composure that would cover any visible traces of destructive inclinations possibly stored in any mental compartments in his emotional vehicle. He trembled a bit after catching a presumed glimpse of unstableness in himself through the second person perception of himself that could have possibly been perceived by his supervisor.
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Calvin W. Allison (Strong Love Church)
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In almost every single one of the 50 or more correspondences he had with my attorneys, he made mention of my being “delusional” or “mentally unstable,” regardless of the subject at hand. He continued to use this same tactic each and every time we got in front of a judge. These were the same tactics that were used against women who stood up for their right to vote… the same tactics that have been used for centuries to keep women in their place… the same tactics used to prejudice courts against women—especially when there are no real facts of wrong doing.
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Miriam Silver (Protecting My Child: - How a mother tries to protect her son and is placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List)
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Laughter is a thing given to us for many purposes. It combats tragedy and pain, expresses joy, and allows for small clues as to the mental stability of the person producing it. I’m unstable, scared to death, and totally amused by the weirdest shit for the entirety of my life, which consists of one day. I’m like a gibbering housefly. I’m never bored, though.
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Wayne Lemmons (Not This Thursday (The Forgetful Detective Book 1))
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One way to accomplish this was by casting Booth—despite his heroic status—as mentally unstable.
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Anonymous
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Memory is only the preservation of a synthesis previously made; it is plain that memory will not exist when the synthesis has not yet been effected or when it is but half effected and remains unstable and fragile. It is said that memory is a corporeal function, that remembrances have in some sort got into the organism: no doubt, yet they must have become organised. To establish remembrances, to create habits, is one of the prerogatives of mental activity.
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Anonymous
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In fact it typically gets worse, as he uses therapy to develop new excuses for his behavior, more sophisticated arguments to prove that his partner is mentally unstable, and more creative ways to make her feel responsible for his emotional distress. Abusive men are sometimes masters of the hard-luck story, and may find that accounts of childhood abuse are one of the best ways to pull heartstrings.
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Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
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This man might be a thug, a criminal, and mentally unstable, but he’s my monster and I love him.
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Indi Marie (Marcello’s Obsession (Devious, #2))
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Why did no one help him as a lost, mentally unstable child?
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S.A. Mackenzie (Save Us (The Broken Souls, #3))
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Loyalty is highly prized by sociopaths because it serves their personal ends, but there is no real relationship. Dividing the world into good and bad in an unstable, fluctuating way is called “splitting.
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Bandy X. Lee (The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President)
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Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and- as I will show-unsuitable for children and adolescents. Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness-perpetually-to managing what became their online brand. This was now necessary to gain acceptance from peers, which is the oxygen of adolescence, and to avoid online shaming, which is the nightmare of adolescence. Gen Z teens got sucked into spending many hours of each day scrolling through the shiny happy posts of friends, acquaintances, and distant influencers.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
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[Faithfulness to mental prayer] is a school of truth in love, because it teaches us, little by little, no longer to place our relationship with God on the shaky, unstable basis of our own impressions, moods, or feelings, but on the solid foundation of faith--God's faithfulness, which is as firm as a rock.
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Fr. Jacques Philippe
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Only then did scientists realize the rather profound conclusions of the experiment: REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. Describe these symptoms to a psychiatrist without informing them of the REM-sleep deprivation context, and the clinician will give clear diagnoses of depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia. But these were all healthy young individuals just days before. They were not depressed, weren’t suffering from anxiety disorders or schizophrenia, nor did they have any history of such conditions, self or familial. Read of any attempts to break sleep-deprivation world records throughout early history, and you will discover this same universal signature of emotional instability and psychosis of one sort or another. It is the lack of REM sleep—that critical stage occurring in the final hours of sleep that we strip from our children and teenagers by way of early school start times—that creates the difference between a stable and unstable mental state.
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Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
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The chief executive officer today is an essentially political position, which requires men and women to assume public postures that often conflict with their true personalities. Many corporate executives who confront this tension become infected with hubris, as this man did. Like him, they come to believe they can overcome any skepticism and dig out of any financial hole, no matter how deep. Given the complexity of accounting, they, and their employees, manage reported earnings in a way that diverges from reality. Securities analysts and journalists entice them to repeat optimism so frequently that they come to believe it, just as he did. Some corporate officers become mentally unstable as the pressure mounts, especially at times of calamity. Many have unhappy endings.
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Frank Partnoy (The Match King: Ivar Kreuger and the Financial Scandal of the Century)
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It is the lack of REM sleep—that critical stage occurring in the final hours of sleep that we strip from our children and teenagers by way of early school start times—that creates the difference between a stable and unstable mental state.
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Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams)
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Babe, you can't put your life on hold because of some mentally unstable, serial-killing fucker. He thrives off your fear, and by hiding away you'd be letting him win." Kody was practical, his tone calm, but he had to know I was a bit pissed off.
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Tate James (Fake (Madison Kate, #3))
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In the divine economy of grace, sin and failure become the base metal and raw material for the redemption experience itself. Much of organized religion, however, tends to be peopled by folks who have a mania for some ideal order, which is never true, so they are seldom happy or content. It makes us anal retentive after a while, to use Freud's rude phrase, because we can never be happy with life as it is, always filled with different people, mentally unstable people, people of “other” and “false” religions, irritable people, LGBTQIA+ people, and people with totally different customs and traditions, not to mention wild nature, which we have not loved very well up to now. Organized religion has not been known for its inclusiveness or for being very comfortable with diversity. Yet pluriformity, multiplicity, and diversity form the only world there is! It is rather amazing that we can miss, deny, or ignore what is in plain sight everywhere.
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Richard Rohr (Falling Upward, Revised and Updated: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life)
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Everyone now knows that the woman was mentally unstable and desperate for attention. She set you up, targeted you. She admitted it.
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Loreth Anne White (The Maid's Diary)
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We are all uranium humans,
extremely unstable,
but extremely potent.
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Abhijit Naskar (Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo)
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Heaven vs Hell
The US is criminal, perverse, war mad, uncivilised, crime ridden and full of mentally unstable people.
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Sheikh Gulzar-Heaven vs Hell
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can hardly explain how it felt When you ripped me apart, Tore off my thick skin, Stomped on my heart. Your weapons were words, The most hurtful kind. They weren’t curses or insults; They were lies. You made me believe things That weren’t true, Doubt my own memories Before I thought to doubt you. When I said that you were wrong, Perhaps lying or forgetting, You looked at me like I was crazy, overreacting. Guilting me into thinking I was mistaken and petty, Caused me to go to bed Questioning my own reality. I would constantly wonder If I was mentally unstable, Would I die this way Or learn to see false from real? My memories changed As I trusted your experience. I tried to scrub myself of What I thought was delirium. In you, I finally believed, Although it took time; I decided to make you My eyes, ears, and guide. Sometime later, The truth knocked on our door. We had no choice but to answer it; There was no hiding anymore.
I can still remember The way your face changed in front of me. I’ll never forget That nightmare of a memory. It soon become clear There was nothing wrong with me. I was right all along, But still I wondered, was I really? The doubt would kill me, Rip my brain to pieces And from this trauma, There was no healing. I can hardly explain how it felt, To be programmed to doubt myself. My tears, cuts, and bruises Were a cry for help, That no one heard. Perhaps I could have shouted louder, But I thought I was in the wrong. You don’t realize your weakness When you think you’re being strong. I still can’t believe there was a time You convinced me to believe in lies. Little did I know back then That it was all a gaslight.
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Shai Kara (Hellfire: A Poetry Collection)
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I was losing hope, and my thoughts grew increasingly confused. We’ve conquered a lot, but she’s a crazy woman! She’s mentally unstable and emotionally driven by everything. She wants me to be open and honest, but she can’t handle it. Just when I let her into my thoughts and struggles, she clobbers me! She doesn’t really want to help me at all or truly be HOT. I shouldn’t have told her anything!
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Phil Fretwell (Savage Marriage: Triumph over Betrayal and Sexual Addiction)
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I will not date a lady that has a therapist.
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Steven Magee
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The problem with being an unstable genius is some people will call you crazy and others will call you a mastermind.
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Steven Magee
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The difference between President Trump and Steven Magee? Steven Magee publicly acknowledges his mental illnesses.
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Steven Magee
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Essentially, this history suggests that up until approximately 1700 most Europeans thought of themselves as possessed of a single body type. Under the ‘one-body’ regime, the testicles and penis, and ovum and womb (or in later formulations the vagina), were homologous, the former being driven from the body by the dry heat of the male while the latter remained inside, in the cool, wet interior of the female. Thus, because one’s body was plumbed in much the same way whether one was male or female, it was the experiences which the body underwent and the possession of a peculiar mix of humours which determined whether one would be male or female. As a result of this view masculinity and femininity (both as physical and mental characteristics) were seen as part of a continuum which encompassed not only masculinity and feminity but effeminacy. While this implies that both gender and sex were unstable – maleness could degenerate into effeminacy, females could become male – it does not necessarily mean that gender boundaries were unstable as well. Thus, while many eighteenth-century men were accused of being effeminate because manliness was a virtue that could be aspired to by both sexes, women could equally be praised for their 'manly’ characters. In neither case was the social role of the individual fundamentally questioned. While anatomy was not used to exclude either sex of the characteristics normally associated with its opposite, 'woman’ was associated with unrestrained sexuality, irrationality, and openness to the influence of both the devil and God, while 'man’ was seen as more rational, sexually controlled, and possessed of a kind of dangerous intellectual pride which threatened his ability to experience salvation.
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Tim Hitchcock (English Masculinities, 1660-1800 (Women And Men In History))
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The problem with being a police officer is that it routinely puts you in contact with unstable people who are mentally at the extreme edges of civilized society.
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Steven Magee
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Reliability has become scarce – commitment has become scarce – attachment has become scarce. The very socio-psychological mechanisms that sustain the stability and wellness of a society are beginning to collapse, and when they do, the very fabric of societal stability and sanity will get ripped apart, which I am afraid is no longer a possibility. This has already begun to happen and the situation will get only worse, creating a society full of sociopaths, psychopaths and basically unstable, depressed and superficial human beings with no strength of character and conscience, and no sense of patience and sanity whatsoever. They will crave for appraisal – they will crave for attention – they will crave for flattery – they will crave for perfection. Everything about them will be artificial and superficial. And no matter how much they pretend to present their life as perfect, inside they will be dying every single second of their existence.
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Abhijit Naskar (The Gospel of Technology)
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Tessa gave her head an angry shake. Unreliable, unstable—and quite possibly a danger to everyone around her. That was how a good portion of the world still viewed mental illness. Didn’t matter if it was anxiety or depression or schizophrenia. Sure, they might pay lip service to the notion that a mental disorder was a health condition, not a reason to judge. But plenty of people didn’t believe that. Not deep down. Even her own mother thought she was out of control.
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A.V. Geiger
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The man who will lightly sacrifice a long-formed mental habit is exceptional. The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar. Trotter, in his admirable Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, has called them the 'stable-minded,' and has set over against them a minority of 'unstable-minded people,' fond of innovation for its own sake.... The tendency of the stable-minded man... will always be to find that 'whatever is, is right.' Less subject to the habits of thought formed in youth, the unstable-minded naturally take pleasure in all that is new and revolutionary. It is to the unstable-minded that we owe progress in all its forms, as well as all forms of destructive revolution. The stable-minded, by their reluctance to accept change, give to the social structure its durable solidity. There are many more stable- than unstable-minded people in the world (if the proportions were changed we should live in a chaos); and at all but very exceptional moments they possess power and wealth more than proportionate to their numbers. Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted and always derided as fools and madmen. A heretic, according to the admirable definition of Bossuet, is one who 'emits a singular opinion'—that is to say, an opinion of his own, as opposed to one that has been sanctified by general acceptance. That he is a scoundrel goes without saying. He is also an imbecile—a 'dog' and a 'devil,' in the words of St. Paul, who utters 'profane and vain babblings.' No heretic (and the orthodoxy from which he departs need not necessarily be a religious orthodoxy; it may be philosophic, ethical, artistic, economic), no emitter of singular opinions, is ever reasonable in the eyes of the stable-minded majority. For the reasonable is the familiar, is that which the stable-minded are in the habit of thinking at the moment when the heretic utters his singular opinion. To use the intelligence in any other than the habitual way is not to use the intelligence; it is to be irrational, to rave like a madman.
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Aldous Huxley