“
I appear at times merry and in good heart, talk, too, before others quite reasonably, and it looks as if I felt, too, God knows how well within my skin. Yet the soul maintains its deathly sleep and the heart bleeds from a thousand wounds.
”
”
Hugo Wolf
“
Cry wolf often enough and you eventually get eaten by the wolf, even if the wolf is you.
”
”
Kris Kidd
“
Fury wagged his tail and smiled wickedly, then tried to look up Bride’s dress.
Vane caught him quickly by the neck. “Stop!” he snarled mentally to Fury. “Or I’ll rip your head off.”
Bride frowned at them. “Don’t you like my wolf?”
“Yeah,” Van said, patting him roughly on the head. “He’s my new best friend.”
“I’m your only friend, dickhead.”
Vane balled his fist in the wolf’s fur as a warning to him. “You know you have to be firm with wolves. Let them know who the alpha is.”
“Your father?”
Vane smacked Fury’s head.
“Ow!”
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Night Play (Dark-Hunter, #5; Were-Hunter, #1))
“
Lincoln's story confounds those who see depression as a collection of symptoms to be eliminated. But it resonates with those who see suffering as a potential catalyst of emotional growth. "What man actually needs," the psychiatrist Victor Frankl argued,"is not a tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling of a worthwhile goal." Many believe that psychological health comes with the relief of distress. But Frankl proposed that all people-- and particularly those under some emotional weight-- need a purpose that will both draw on their talents and transcend their lives. For Lincoln, this sense of purpose was indeed the key that unlocked the gates of a mental prison. This doesn't mean his suffering went away. In fact, as his life became richer and more satisfying, his melancholy exerted a stronger pull. He now responded to that pull by tying it to his newly defined sense of purpose. From a place of trouble, he looked for meaning. He looked at imperfection and sought redemption.
”
”
Joshua Wolf Shenk (Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness)
“
Today, women have access to the technological capacity to do anything to our bodies in the struggle for "beauty", but we have yet to evolve a mentality beyond the old rules, to let them imagine that this combat among women is not inevitable. Surgeons can now do anything. We have not yet reached the age in which we can defend ourselves with an unwillingness to have "anything" done. This is a dangerous time. New possibilities for women quickly become new obligations.
”
”
Naomi Wolf
“
The world is not made of bread and honey…nor of the sweet flesh of girls. This world is made of clouds and of the shadows of clouds. It is made of mental landscapes, porous as air, where men and women are as trees walking, and as reeds shaken by the wind.
”
”
John Cowper Powys (Wolf Solent)
“
but what is genius if not madness? Mental illness is a common euphemism for evil.
”
”
Trisha Wolfe (Born, Madly (Darkly, Madly, #2))
“
In his seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist Victor Frankl described the essence of what has come to be known as an existential approach to the human condition with this metaphor: “If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch,” he wrote, “they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together.” It is similarly true, he said, that therapy aimed at fostering mental health often should lay increased weight on a patient, creating what he described as “a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one’s own life.
”
”
Joshua Wolf Shenk (Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness)
“
[W]henever we heard an unflattering portrait of our own side our first question to ourselves was not “Is this true?” but “What are they trying to hide about themselves by accusing us of this?” Once this mental defense system had been perfected, few criticisms could hit home.
”
”
Markus Wolf (Man Without a Face: The Autobiography of Communism's Greatest Spymaster)
“
Do you remember anything about last night?" he asked.
Her stomach churned as memories of the night before swam into mental view. Oh, she recalled a few things. How could she forget? She took a solid gulp of her coffee. "I remember vodka, an ax murderer, and a marriage proposal."
"Good. The important things." He nodded.
”
”
Kristin Miller (So I Married a Werewolf (Seattle Wolf Pack, #3))
“
If women cannot eat the same food as men, we cannot experience equal status in the community. As long as women are asked to bring a self-denying mentality to the communal table, it will never be round, men and women seated together; but the same traditional hierarchical dais, with a folding table for women at the foot.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
Don't be afraid to live you life as a lone wolf, it is not as bad then, you will be disappointed less, your heart will be unbreakable, you will be stronger than the rest, for you know how to take pain without another, you will survive, your mental strength will be sharpened, your claws sharper, and your resistance to pain stronger.
”
”
Satuin Segi
“
Jealousy will hit you like a ton of bricks when you have a scarcity mentality.
”
”
J.S. Wolfe (The Unfolding: A Journey of Involution)
“
a wolf of fear resides in our minds ready to pounce at the slightest danger.
”
”
Mark Divine (Unbeatable Mind: Forge Resiliency and Mental Toughness to Succeed at an Elite Level)
“
If you can’t defeat your enemy physically, then invade them mentally and pick apart their defences brick by brick.
”
”
Caroline Peckham (Caged Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary, #1))
“
But at that moment all I could see was the wolf in the white van, so alive, so strong. Hidden from view, unnoticed, concealed. And I thought, maybe he's real, this wolf, and he's really out there in a white van somewhere, riding around. Maybe he's in the far back, pacing back and forth, circling, the pads of his huge paws raw and cracking, his thick, sharp claws dully clicking against the raised rusty steel track ridges on the floor. Maybe he's sound asleep, or maybe he's just pretending. And then the van stops somewhere, maybe, and somebody gets out and walks around the side to the back and grabs hold of the handle and flings the doors open wide. Maybe whoever's kept him wears a mechanic's jumpsuit and some sunglasses, and he hasn't fed the great wolf for weeks, cruising the streets of the city at night, and the wolf's crazy with hunger now; he can't even think. Maybe he's not locked up in the back at all: he could be riding in the passenger seat, like a dog, just sitting and staring out the open window, looking around, checking everybody out. Maybe he's over in the other seat behind the steering wheel. Maybe he's driving.
”
”
John Darnielle (Wolf in White Van)
“
Modern researchers have identified one or more major mood disorders in John Quincy Adams, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson, Benjamin Disraeli, William James, William Tecumseh Sherman, Robert Schumann, Leo Tolstoy, Queen Victoria, and many others. We may accurately call these luminaries “mentally ill,” a label that has some use—as did our early diagnosis of Lincoln—insofar as it indicates the depth, severity, and quality of their trouble. However, if we get stuck on the label, we may miss the core fascination, which is how illness can coexist with marvelous well-being. In
”
”
Joshua Wolf Shenk (Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness)
“
That even under vicious mental duress, your men and women will not hurt an E—no matter the cost. Arrows and Es have become an even tighter unit, one that nothing and no one will ever tear apart.
—Ivy Jane Zen to Aden Kai
”
”
Nalini Singh (Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity, #3; Psy-Changeling, #18))
“
Look at a dog on a leash. This monstrous, abject “pet” used to be a magnificent, powerful, proud wolf. Now it’s a joke. That’s what human interference with carnivorous nature achieves – the opposite of evolution, the removal of animals from vibrant nature to make them pathetic, enfeebled playthings and projections of human beings, with all their crazy neuroses and subjective mental traumas. The example of dogs should provide a horrific warning from history of how strong animals can be turned by humans into the most pathetic creatures.
”
”
David Sinclair (The Wolf Tamers: How They Made the Strong Weak)
“
Right,” said the wolf. He said it “Ro-ight,” had a bit of a Liverpoolian accent. Liverpudlian, Saunders corrected himself mentally, randomly. No, Scouse. They called it Scouse, which sounded like a disease, something you might die from after being bitten by a wild animal.
”
”
Joe Hill (Full Throttle)
“
Sitting in the cruiser, staring through this memory, she wondered why it was so hard for a headstrong woman in this world, in this country—why she had to be so alone to be who she was, and not just Valdivia herself, but every woman who is a lone wolf on the slick, icy tundra.
”
”
Jonathan Epps (Until Morning Comes (The American Wrath Trilogy))
“
Have you ever seen a rabbit go to a pharmacy, a hospital, or a mental asylum?” he asks rhetorically. “They don’t look for medicine, they heal themselves or die. Humans aren’t so simple; they’ve let technology get in the way of who they really are.” It’s an idea that I’ve thought a lot about, and one that doesn’t always sit comfortably. Yes the modern world has its drawbacks, but nature can also be brutal. So I interrupt the budding diatribe. “But rabbits get eaten by wolves,” I say. Hof doesn’t skip a beat at my interjection. “Yes, they know fight and flight. The wolf chases them and they die. But everything dies one day. It is just that in our case we aren’t eaten by wolves. Instead, without predators, we’re being eaten by cancer, by diabetes, and our own immune systems. There’s no wolf to run from, so our bodies eat themselves.
”
”
Scott Carney (What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength)
“
I've always believed in the Nero Wolfe theory of knowledge. You can just sit quietly in your room - according to Pascal, the activity that if practiced more assiduously would free humanity from most of its troubles, but that was before e-mail - and through sheer mental effort force the tiniest snippets of information to yield the entire story of which they are a fragment, because the whole truth is contained in every particle of it, the way every human cell contains our DNA.
”
”
Katha Pollitt
“
That was when reality kicked back in and reminded Xander that the woman he'd just spent the past fifteen minutes mentally undressing was going to be in his squad, and that he was going to be her supervisor.
He was in so much trouble.
There was no way he could be her boss. It wouldn't be fair to her or his team, and it sure as hell wasn't something he could handle. He'd end up spending all his time gazing at her like a lovesick puppy instead of training her on weapons and tactics.
”
”
Paige Tyler (Wolf Trouble (SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team, #2))
“
Lia’s known Dean longer than any of us,” I said, mentally going through the details of the situation and the personalities involved. “No matter how many people come into this house, to Lia, they’ll always be a unit of two. But Dean…”
“Unit of one,” Michael finished for me. “He’s Mr. Lone Wolf.”
When things got bad, Dean’s impulse was to put up walls, to push other people away. But I’d never seen him shut Lia out before. She was his family. And this time, he’d left her on the outside—with us.
”
”
Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Killer Instinct (The Naturals, #2))
“
There’s an old, Native American parable. It explains how everybody has two wolves constantly fighting inside each of us. The negative wolf—the wolf that tells you that you’re bad, you can’t do it, you’re a failure. And the positive wolf, which tells you, you can do it. You are worthy. You are loved. The wolf that wins is, very simply, the one you feed. When you indulge one of the wolves, leave it to go unchallenged, agree with it, don’t seek out evidence to oppose it, you feed it, and it grows stronger.
”
”
Marina Vivancos (In This Iron Ground (Natural Magic #1))
“
It is “trickling down” to women of all social classes from elitist schools
and universities because that is where women are getting too close to
authority. There, it is emblematic of how hunger checkmates power in
any woman’s life: Hundreds of thousands of well-educated young
women, living and studying at the fulcrum of cultural influence, are
causing no trouble. The anorexic woman student, like the anti-Semitic
Jew and the self-hating black, fits in. She is politically castrate, with
exactly enough energy to do her schoolwork, neatly and completely,
and to run around the indoor track in eternal circles. She has no energy
to get angry or get organized, to chase sex, to yell through a bullhorn,
asking for money for night buses or for women’s studies programs or
to know where all the women professors are. Administering a coed
class half full of mentally anorexic women is an experience distinct from
that of administering a class half full of healthy, confident young women.
The woman in these women canceled out, it is closer to the administration
of young men only, which was how things were comfortably
managed before.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
That is what I want our young nascent readers to become: expert, flexible code switchers -- between print and digital mediums now and later between and among the multiple future communication mediums....I conceptualize the initial development of learning to think in each medium as largely separated into distinct domains in the first school years, until a point in time when the particular characteristics of the two mediums are each well developed and internalized.
That is an essential point. I want the child to have parallel levels of fluency, if you will, in each medium, just as if he or she were similarly fluent in speaking Spanish and English. In this way the uniqueness of the cognitive processes honed by each medium would be there from the start.
”
”
Maryanne Wolf (Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World)
“
You have doubtless read Trotter’s Instincts of the Herd in War and Peace, Mister Bond. Well, I am by nature and predilection a wolf and I live by a wolf’s laws. Naturally the sheep describe such a person as a “criminal”. ‘The fact, Mister Bond,’ The Big Man continued after a pause, ‘that I survive and indeed enjoy limitless success, although I am alone against countless millions of sheep, is attributable to the modern techniques I described to you on the occasion of our last talk, and to an infinite capacity for taking pains. Not dull, plodding pains, but artistic, subtle pains. And I find, Mister Bond, that it is not difficult to outwit sheep, however many of them there may be, if one is dedicated to the task and if one is by nature an extremely well-equipped wolf.
”
”
Ian Fleming (Live and Let Die (James Bond #2))
“
The first thing he did was to attempt to analyse a mental device he was in the habit of resorting to - a device that supplied him with the secret substratum of his whole life. This was a certain trick he had of doing what he called 'sinking into his soul’. This trick had been a furtive custom with him from very early days. In his childhood his mother had often rallied him about it in her light-hearted way, and had applied to these trances, or these fits of absent-mindedness, an amusing but rather indecent nursery name. His father, on the other hand, had encouraged him in these moods, taking them very gravely, and treating him, when under their spell, as if he were a sort of infant magician.
It was, however, when staying in his grandmother's house at Weymouth that the word had come to him which he now always used in his own mind to describe these obsessions. It was the word ‘mythology’ ; and he used it entirely in a private sense of his own.
”
”
John Cowper Powys (Wolf Solent)
“
There is nothing illogical in the desire of the "have-nots" to appropriate the wealth of the "haves"; in fact, it is part and parcel of the law of animal life. The bear robs the hive and the wolf the fold, and when "nature red in tooth and claw" is stretched into its human dimension, there is nothing irrational in Marx's theory that, granted the power, one social class should devour another. But what is irrational is, to assume that by robbing the hive the bear will assume the industry of the bee, or by robbing the fold the wolf will become as pacific as the sheep. It is astonishing that a man of Marx's high intelligence could have believed in ritualistic cannibalism on the social plane; that by wresting the forces of production from the bourgeoisie and centralizing them in the hands of the proletariat, the proletariat would automatically aacquire the skills of the ruling class. And it is equally astonishing that a man of Lenin's mental calibre could have attempted to put this magic into practice.
”
”
J.F.C. Fuller (The Conduct Of War, 1789-1961: A Study of the Impact of the French, Industrial, and Russian Revolutions on War and its Conduct)
“
Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own had a vision that someday
young women would have access to the rich forbidden libraries of the
men’s colleges, their sunken lawns, their vellum, the claret light. She
believed that would give young women a mental freedom that must
have seemed all the sweeter from where she imagined it: the wrong
side of the beadle’s staff that had driven her away from the library because
she was female. Now young women have pushed past the staff
that barred Woolf’s way. Striding across the grassy quadrangles that
she could only write about, they are halted by an immaterial barrier
she did not foresee. Their minds are proving well able; their bodies selfdestruct.
When she envisaged a future for young women in the universities,
Woolf’s prescience faltered only from insufficient cynicism. Without it
one could hardly conceive of the modern solution of the recently allmale
schools and colleges to the problem of women: They admitted
their minds, and let their bodies go. Young women learned that they
could not live inside those gates and also inside their bodies.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
A companionable silence fell between them, and Kris found he liked this pleasant restful moment between them. But his curiosity won in the end. “So, Rafe… what do you look like?” “Specific measurements?” Rafe chuckled, and Kris’s blush deepened. “I’m six-four—” “Jesus, you’re a giant!” Kris exclaimed, comparing his mental image of Rafe with his own height of five-ten, and realizing his head would barely reach the guy’s shoulders. “Thanks… I think,” Rafe replied with adorable modesty. “I weigh about two fifteen—” “You’re in great shape, then,” Kris interjected dreamily as he imagined this stranger in front of him—and the picture was beginning to form and take a definite shape of masculine perfection, bulk of muscles and broad shoulders, wide chest and tall figure tapered down to the waist and hips. It was a very nice picture too—sex on a stick. “I ride a lot,” Rafe explained, then apparently thought better of it. “I mean I ride horses—not men.” Kris burst out laughing. “Good one. You… uh, never ride men…?” As if he was standing right in front of him, Kris could see Rafe grinning. “Maybe.” There was a pause, and Kris couldn’t wait to hear more as he wanted to see what his mate looked like through his mind’s eye.
”
”
Susan Laine (The Wolfing Way (Lifting the Veil #1))
“
You’re going to do great,” Lizzy said as they reached the mini Tiki bar. The air was cool in the high fifties and the scent of various meats on the grill filled the air. Even though they’d had the party catered, apparently Grant had insisted on grilling some things himself. “I wouldn’t have recommended you apply for it otherwise.”
Athena ducked behind the bar and grinned at the array of bottles and other garnishes. She’d been friends with Lizzy the past couple months and knew her friend’s tastes by now. As she started mixing up their drinks she said, “If I fail, hopefully they won’t blame you.”
Lizzy just snorted but eyed the drink mix curiously. “Purple?”
“Just wait. You’ll like it.” She rolled the rims of the martini glasses in sugar as she spoke.
“Where’d you learn to do this?”
“I bartended a little in college and there were a few occasions on the job where I had to assist because staff called out sick for an event.” There’d been a huge festival in Madrid she’d helped out with a year ago where three of the staff had gotten food poisoning, so in addition to everything else she’d been in charge of, she’d had to help with drinks on and off. That had been such a chaotic, ridiculous job.
“At least you’ll have something to fall back on if you do fail,” Lizzy teased.
“I seriously hope not.” She set the two glasses on the bar and strained the purple concoction into them. With the twinkle lights strung up around the lanai and the ones glittering in the pool, the sugar seemed to sparkle around the rim. “This is called a wildcat.”
“You have to make me one of those too!” The unfamiliar female voice made Athena look up.
Her eyes widened as her gaze locked with Quinn freaking Brody, the too-sexy-man with an aversion to virgins. He was with the tall woman who’d just asked Athena to make a drink. But she had eyes only for Quinn. Her heart about jumped out of her chest. What was he doing here of all places? At least he looked just as surprised to see her.
She ignored him because she knew if she stared into those dark eyes she’d lose the ability to speak and then she’d inevitably embarrass herself.
The tall, built-like-a-goddess woman with pale blonde hair he was with smiled widely at Athena. “Only if you don’t mind,” she continued, nodding at the drinks. “They look so good.”
“Ah, you can have this one. I made an extra for the lush here.” She tilted her head at Lizzy with a half-smile. Athena had planned to drink the second one herself but didn’t trust her hands not to shake if she made another. She couldn’t believe Quinn was standing right in front of her, looking all casual and annoyingly sexy in dark jeans and a long-sleeved sweater shoved up to his elbows. Why did his forearms have to look so good?
“Ha, ha.” Lizzy snagged her drink as Athena stepped out from behind the bar. “Athena, this is Quinn Brody and Dominique Castle. They both work for Red Stone but Dominique is almost as new as you.”
Forcing a smile on her face, Athena nodded politely at both of them—and tried to ignore the way Quinn was staring at her. She’d had no freaking idea he worked for Red Stone. He looked a bit like a hungry wolf. Just like on their last date—two months ago. When he’d decided she was too much trouble, being a virgin and all. Jackass. “It’s so nice to meet you both.” She did a mental fist pump when her voice sounded normal. “I promised Belle I’d help out inside but I hope to see you both around tonight.” Liar, liar.
“Me too. Thanks again for the drink,” Dominique said cheerfully while Lizzy just gave Athena a strange look.
Athena wasn’t sure what Quinn’s expression was because she’d decided to do the mature thing—and studiously ignore him.
”
”
Katie Reus (Sworn to Protect (Red Stone Security, #11))
“
I’m first up, love,” Arion says as he starts invading my space again. “I thought the only thing holding you back was your fear. Clearly the fear is absent if you’re willing to turn yourself over to the very darkest part of me. It’s amazing you’re in one piece, so clearly you played submissive very well, Violet. It’s because you were ready for me to save you and overcame your fear of me. Now we can be together.”
When I say nothing and simply stare at him like he’s forever losing his mind more and more when we speak, he frowns like he’s genuinely perplexed.
“Arion, no matter what you did, I couldn’t have endured another second of those cries. And you were at Abby’s mercy while in that state. You ripped my throat out and told me to put on some healing potion so you could sit down and watch the fight.”
Apparently, I guess right, because his pupils widen marginally.
“I held your hand when you finished,” he says like he’s defending himself.
“So you could watch the fight.”
“Vance was focused. It’s been ages since he focused. Thing of beauty while it happens,” he says as if that’s important information.
I gesture between us. “That’s sort of the problem. I feel like the conduit for your feelings for them because you have heterosexual body parts with a homosexual mentality. I’m not sure I’m okay with simply being a conduit,” I carefully explain, causing his eyes to widen a little more, as several muffled sounds of amusement spring from somewhere else in the room.
“I’m sorry, love, but you’ve really lost me,” Arion says very seriously, brow crinkling.
“You want this to be a thing between you and me, even though Idun is returning, because you want them back. It looks like you’re getting that without me, so we can be friends,” I suggest, completely rambling.
I don’t think I’m explaining this very well, since they’re all muffling laughter down the hall. Even Vance makes a choked sound of amusement.
Or they’re just really immature about these things…
That’s definitely possible.
Arion scrubs a hand over his face, as someone struggles to cover a surprise laugh with a cough.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It’s inappropriate to do with an audience,” I babble. “But you’re really intense. And I’ve just survived an apocalyptic wolf storm with your mostly naked beta, whose threads are still in my bra because one set of clothes ended up being enough.”
The look of frustrated confusion on his face doubles.
“I could use a small break before we discuss curses, some really confusing relationship statuses, and the somewhat terrifying woman you’ve all loved rising very soon. And those wolves stole my oranges, so I need to go back and get all of them.”
“I’ve already returned them to your cellar,” Emit says from somewhere behind Arion.
“Then I need to go start using them while they’re useable,” I say as I quickly disentangle myself from Arion and attempt to escape. “I’ll return the shirt.”
“Keep it,” he says quietly from behind me, as I finally take in the other three all standing somewhat close together, smirking at me.
“I’ll drive you home,” Damien says with a slow grin.
“I’m not talking to you, and if you’re a smart man, you’ll figure out why,” I state firmly. “Only when you figure it out will we discuss it.”
“I’ll take you—”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now, because I need to get my cool back,” I tell Emit, whose eyes immediately flick away, as his jaw tics.
He’s had multiple opportunities to explain to me why he told Damien I was a monster, and yet didn’t even bother telling me what I was. All this time, I’ve been patiently waiting, refusing to get too angry.
Now…I’m getting sort of freaking angry, because he still hasn’t said one word about it.
“Guess that just leaves me,” Vance says as he puts his hand at the small of my back and starts guiding me out.
”
”
Kristy Cunning (Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters, #4))
“
The idea is that a beard makes it easy to cut a man’s throat. You grab it and jerk his head up.”
“I see,” Silk said. Mentally, he cancelled the beard he had only just resolved to grow.
”
”
Gene Wolfe (Exodus from the Long Sun (The Book of the Long Sun #4))
“
I heard her earlier. She’s probably enjoying herself. She doesn’t really get much of a chance to let herself go in Ankh-Morpork.” “Er . . . no . . .” Vimes had a mental picture of a werewolf letting go. But surely, Angua wouldn’t— “You two, uh . . . you’re getting along okay, are you?” he said, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. “Oh, fine, sir. Fine.” So her turning into a wolf occasionally doesn’t worry you? Vimes couldn’t bring himself to say it. “No . . . problems, then?” “Oh, not really, sir. She buys her own dog biscuits and she’s got her own flap in the door. When it’s full moon I don’t really get involved.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Jingo (Discworld, #21; City Watch, #4))
“
just took their weighty German word for it. Jesus, Mani, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha—at the very outset the leader did not offer his circle of followers a better state hereafter or an improved social order or any reward other than a certain “psychological state in the here and now,” as Weber put it. I suppose what I never really comprehended was that he was talking about an actual mental experience they all went through, an ecstasy, in short. In most cases, according to scriptures and legend, it happened in a flash. Mohammed fasting and meditating on a mountainside near Mecca and—flash!—ecstasy, vast revelation and the beginning of Islam. Zoroaster hauling haoma water along the road and—flash!—he runs into the flaming form of the Archangel Vohu Mano, messenger of Ahura Mazda, and the beginning of Zoroastrianism. Saul of Tarsus walking along the road to Damascus and—flash!—he hears the voice of the Lord and becomes a Christian. Plus God knows how many lesser figures in the 2,000 years since then, Christian Rosenkreuz and his “God-illuminated” brotherhood of Rosicrucians, Emanuel Swedenborg whose mind suddenly “opened” in 1743, Meister Eckhart and his disciples Suso and Tauler, and in the twentieth-century Sadhu Sundar Singh—with—flash!—a vision at the age of 16 and many times thereafter;
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
“
Hey, Kristen, have you ever treated anyone crazy, like someone with multiple personalities, or something like that?” Mom flinched as if he’d thrown a bucket of spiders on her. “We don’t like to use the term ‘crazy.’ It implies a negative connotation for people with mental health issues, which are illnesses, just like cancer or heart disease
”
”
Laura Wolfe (The In-Laws)
“
When an emotional problem is conceptualized as internal, as a disease, as a faulty personality, or otherwise, a message is being implied that such a person is innately defective; the problems in the world, in the family, and in society are simply meaningless triggers of an individual deficit rather than the problems themselves. And, if one is a victim of such disease, then it is logical to assume they have no responsibility or control over their behaviors and must, therefore, be controlled by others. By dismissing the life circumstances underlying one’s distress and blaming them for having something internally wrong with them, society is, in effect, for many re-creating the traumatic dynamics that led to the distressing experiences in the first place. This is not hyperbole; evidence has demonstrated the traumatizing effects of mental health care for many, with some meeting full criteria for PTSD as a direct result of their treatment experiences (e.g., Mueser, Lu, Rosenberge, & Wolfe, 2010).
”
”
Noel Hunter (Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services)