Top 99 Mental Illness Quotes

We need to treat people with mental illness like people.

I think of emotional well-being as a resource within each of us that allows us to do more and to perform better. That doesn’t mean just the absence of mental illness. It’s the presence of positive emotions that allows us to be resilient in the face of adversity.

I had known a couple of people in college who went off the rails, who had significant bouts with mental illness.

I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also. People don’t develop a mental illness because they are in the happiest of situations, usually. One doctor observed that it was rare when people were rich to become schizophrenic. If they were poor or didn’t have too much money, then it was more likely.

Our family suffers from a hereditary condition called, generally, mental illness. Specifically, multiple family members in successive generations have suffered from either bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

When you cry out in pain from a broken wrist, no one questions it. You just go to the hospital and take the necessary steps. Mental illness is just as real, even if it can’t be seen.

I think we need to update the existing laws to create uniformity across the states so that all people with mental illness who find themselves in the criminal justice system for committing horrific crimes will be treated exactly the same.

I’m trying to push for common-sense gun reform and mental illness reform so we can make sure that these individuals that have a criminal background that are mentally unstable and have a history of domestic violence are no longer able to get a gun.

Mental illness, unfortunately, is an invisible disease: it’s not seen or heard. For whatever reason, because of that, society has decided that if we can’t see it, maybe it doesn’t exist, so they want to just sweep it under the carpet or say, ‘Snap out of it,’ or that you’re looking for attention.

So much progress has been made with topics like mental illness and drug abuse and sexual identity.

With commitment and the right investments, we can create a San Francisco where no one is forced, relegated, or allowed to sleep on the streets, and where no one endures addiction or mental illness on the streets without supportive and effective services.

People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.

How many artists subscribe to the notion that creative success depends on input from the fickle muse or her modern avatar, mental illness? Probably very few.

Mental illness is just like any other injury – you just don’t see it but it’s the same in the sense that things don’t just heal overnight, or with the snap of a finger.

Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever.

I know I’m not a self-indulgent idiot; I also know I’m not the second coming of Deepak Chopra. If I had believed either of those, or both, as some people do when they get famous, that’s when the mental illness arrives.

I like Aimee Mann. Her album ‘Mental Illness’ is so good.

In the 1830s, Dorothea Dix revolutionized the care of people with mental illness by taking them out of jails and caring for them in asylums, later known as state hospitals.

Every day on our streets there are people who are facing a combination of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Each of these conditions is challenging alone, but when experienced at the same time it creates a downward spiral that makes it even more difficult for the person to get treated and housed.

I should be writing songs about happiness all day long, but a lot of my songs get inspired from that place of unworthiness and shame, which really goes with mental illness.

Too many people will die needlessly if we go back to letting people buy junk insurance or insurance that doesn’t help people with diseases related to mental illness.

We were never supposed to live until 40. We were built to self-destruct at 30, whether from cancer or mental illness. We’re all going way beyond our expiration date.

We’re becoming so much better at destigmatizing all sorts of things, including mental illness in ‘Silver Linings.’

Playing someone who has a mental illness, the responsibility to not stuff it up is really strong. You have to get it right. Not just for the people who are sufferers, but for the people who care about them – their loved ones.

Sometimes, patients with serious mental illness, just as with other serious medical illnesses, require hospitalization. In the absence of available public or private hospital beds, there are few options.

One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That is a lot of people.

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and yet so many Americans are left to fight this battle without the coverage, support, and resources they need.

Children certainly can’t learn if they’re dealing with trauma or mental illness.

I think the stigma surrounding mental illness and also the stigma surrounding self-esteem issues or insecurities or just even feeling different is something that doesn’t really get enough attention. Everybody struggles with feeling alone or that they are going through something they don’t quite understand.

It is possible and very common to overcome and manage a mental illness.

It can be difficult for people to talk about it, because there still is that stigma around mental illness. But I would encourage people to do that, because they’ll be surprised once they do ‘come out’ how many other people have had similar experiences.

Romantic love is mental illness. But it’s a pleasurable one. It’s a drug. It distorts reality, and that’s the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.

People get really irritated by mental illness.

I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world’s largest association of mental-illness workers, and I am all for more funding for mental-health care and research – but not in the vain hope that it will curb violence.

The most dangerous thing, when you have a serious mental illness, is convincing yourself that you don’t have it. And you see it all the time. People get on medication, and they feel better, and they stop taking it. And some flirt with unreality on some levels. But it feels so convincing to them that it feels real.

I wrote a ‘Lenny Letter’ on a whim, and it felt indulgent, but people came up to me with tears in their eyes saying, ‘Thank you.’ There’s so much shame about mental illness in our country and so many stereotypes about women being ‘crazy’ or ‘psycho.’

People accuse me of glamorizing mental illness. Looking back sometimes, that’s true. But I don’t feel guilty.

Over the years, I have been a house painter, farm worker, paste-up artist, Easter Bunny, pizza delivery person, homeless shelter staff member, and counselor for adults and kids with mental illness – I quit my last real job in 2000 to work on writing full-time.

I want to work with faith-based leaders to address the negative attitudes that are still too often associated with mental illness, attitudes that hold people back from getting the help that they need.

Most people, if you live in a big city, you see some form of schizophrenia every day, and it’s always in the form of someone homeless. ‘Look at that guy – he’s crazy. He looks dangerous.’ Well, he’s on the streets because of mental illness. He probably had a job and a home.

Living with mental illness is not a choice and can lead to debilitating circumstances.

I think that mental illness is something that is so real.

You can only explain America’s gun violence problem through guns, because mental illness doesn’t automatically lead to violence, and it doesn’t lead to violence anywhere else but America.

I’m not a doctor, but I would assume that anything that you’re doing that’s harming you, and you can’t stop doing it, is a sign of mental illness.

It is as imperative to take care of our minds as is our bodies and hence seeking help for mental illness is of paramount importance.

Mental illness is real, and I got them. I don’t know if it’s the multiple concussions or the lifestyle choices.

I was the most important person of the world, and people like the Pope would be just like enemies, who would try to put me down in some way or another, or the president. People are always selling the idea that people who have mental illness are suffering.

Mental illness is a disease and organic mental illness of young kids is becoming more and more of a disease… we do need to talk about it.

One day, I made a remark that I might work with people with mental illness, and somebody in the press heard it, and it was in the paper. And the more I thought about it and found out about it, the more I thought it was just a terrible situation with no attention. And I’ve been working on it ever since.

Mental illness leaves a huge legacy, not just for the person suffering it but for those around them.