1,815 Quotes About Mental-illness

[...] I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theater for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied.

And I was incapable of living all by myself in those lodgings where I didn't know a soul. It terrified me to sit by myself quietly in my room. I felt frightened, as if I might be set upon or struck by someone at any moment.

I swear that I will never cause trouble for anybody, as long as I live!! So please! Nobody cause any trouble for me, either!!

...all I could think about was how both sets of parents had needed to make their decision, on whether to medicate their child, in a scientific vacuum. (p. 35)

So he lay there in the dark without them ever knowing he wasn't okay. Because he'd learned a long time ago that the better they thought he was, the longer he could live this way.

We mistake our mistakes as being damaged.

The ethics of psychiatric therapy is the very negation of the ethics of political liberty. The former embraces absolute power, provided it is used to protect and promote the patient's mental health. The latter rejects absolute power, regardless of its aim or use.

We all have problems, but let's not kid ourselves: it's how we deal with them that makes the difference.

Nobody complains about all the fog. I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That’s what McMurphy can’t understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we’d be easy to get at.