Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
I like this quote because it seems to sum up how I feel about my bipolar disorder. When I am at my most insane I am manic, and the world is glorious and I am immortal. When I tumble back down to earth these things are no longer true for me, and I am left with the shattered remains of whatever I’ve destroyed “this time”. Coming down for me usually happens in a hospital and I am confronted with my sane mind, which is dull and full of regret.


“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
This one I think is interesting because it implies there is no such thing as a truly sane person, which I think may be true to an extent. Everyone has their foibles. It seems everyone I know either themselves have, or know someone who has struggled with a mental health issue at some point in their life. I don’t know what the statistics are once you add up every disorder on the DSM but it’s gotta be high. Anxiety alone in the US is around 18%--nearly one in five people! At that rate how can it be called a disorder? It’s practically normal!


“Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.”
― Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance I relate to this quote. When I was younger the idea of madness had a certain romance to it. I certainly didn’t think when I first started cutting myself that it was going to become a habit. I was biologically and environmentally inclined to mental health problems anyway, but it felt there was a line I could toe. Then I fell over it, and there was no coming back--it was too late to call it off.

“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
I could quote this whole book I love it so much, but this particular quote I find a lot of truth in. When you are full of joy everyone loves you and wants to be around you. But when you are depressed people avoid you. Even people who claim they’d be “there for you” often have a limit. No one likes to be dragged down, and then you’re left alone. And considering the tendency people have to isolate themselves when depressed anyway, I find this abandonment in dark times to be particularly unfortunate.

“The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW.”
― Shannon L. Alder
So this is true to an extent but I don’t really like this quote. It’s so simplistic. Yes, therapy will teach you mindfulness and to be in the moment, and yes, dwelling on the past causes depression and dwelling on the future causes anxiety. But mental illness is a physical disease, not just a thought disease. This quote seems out of touch with that. As a bipolar person, if I don’t take my meds my thoughts race and I can’t help that. It’s my brain chemistry. If my PTSD gets triggered then synapses in my brain fire differently than those who don’t have PTSD--the brain has been reformed in a way that causes this. So sure, it’s nice to practice living in the now, but to imply that’s the cure for all mental illness seems ignorant to me.








~jabberwocky~


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