Mood disorders are terribly painful illnesses, and they are isolating illnesses. And they make people feel terrible about themselves when, in fact, they can be treated.

I think people don't understand how intimately tied suicide is to mental illness, particularly to depressive illness and bipolar illness.

Most people don't have the advantage of being able to evaluate their doctor in advance.

Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were.

Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.

There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen.

the intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness if my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe once i was better, that the illness was one i should willingly give up....moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable reactions to what life has dealt....even though the depressions that inevitably followed nearly cost me my life.