I Think People Don't Understand How Intimately

Once A Restless Or Frayed Mood Has Turned To Anger, Or Violence, Or Psychosis, Richard, Like Most, Finds It Very Difficult To See It As Illness, Rather Than Being Willful, Angry, Irrational Or Simply Tiresome.

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.

The Awareness Of The Damage Done By Severe Mental Illness—to The Individual Himself And To Others—and Fears That It May Return Again Play A Decisive Role In Many Suicides

Curiosity, Wonder, And Passion Are Defining Qualities Of Imaginative Minds And Great Teachers...restlessness And Discontent Are Vital Things... Intense Experience And Suffering Instruct Us In Ways Less Intense Emotions Can Never Do.

I Have Often Asked Myself Whether, Given The Choice, I Would Choose To Have Manic-depressive Illness. If Lithium Were Not Available To Me, Or Didn't Work For Me, The Answer Would Be A Simple No... And It Would Be An Answer Laced With Terror. But Lithium Does Work For Me, And Therefore I Can Afford To Pose The Question. Strangely Enough, I Think I Would Choose To Have It. It's Complicated.