An Unquiet Mind

by Kay Redfield Jamison

The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful.

It took me far too long to realize that lost years and relationships cannot be recovered, that damage done to oneself and others cannot always be put right again, and that freedom from the control imposed by medication loses its meaning when the only alternatives are death and insanity.

One is what one is, and the dishonesty of hiding behind a degree, or a title, or any manner and collection of words, is still exactly that: dishonest. Necessary, perhaps, but dishonest.

Yet why not say what happened?

“How far do our feelings take their colour from the dive underground? I mean, what is the reality of any feeling?”

Not having children of my own is the single most intolerable regret of my life.

W e are all, as Byron put it, differently organized. We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities.

Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you’re irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.