I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow.

Confidentiality is an ancient and well-warranted social value.

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

I think that when you're depressed, you can't concentrate long enough and well enough to read for the most part; some people can, but by and large people - that's one of the first things that goes, is the capacity to read meaningful literature. With grief, that's not true. For a while you can't read, but then you really are amenable to solace.

Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.

But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met.

I am tired of hiding, tired of misspent and knotted energies, tired of the hypocrisy, and tired of acting as though I have something to hide.