What do you know about bipolar disorder?” I almost say, What do you know about it? But I make myself breathe and smile. “Is that the Jekyll-Hyde thing?” My voice sounds flat and even. Maybe a little bored, even though my mind and body are on alert. “Some people call it manic depression. It’s a brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in mood and energy. It runs in families, but it can be treated.” I continue to breathe, even if I’m not smiling anymore, but here is what is happening: my brain and my heart are pounding out different rhythms; my hands are turning cold and the back of my neck is turning hot; my throat has gone completely dry. The thing I know about bipolar disorder is that it’s a label. One you give crazy people. I know this because I’ve taken junior-year psychology and I’ve seen movies and I’ve watched my father in action for almost eighteen years, even though you could never slap a label on him because he would kill you. Labels like “bipolar” say This is why you are the way you are. This is who you are. They explain people away as illnesses. Jennifer Niven
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  2. The true definition of mental illness is when the majority of your time is spent in the past or future, but rarely living in the realism of NOW. - Shannon L. Alder
  3. For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces. - Osamu Dazai
  4. He was fucking sad. That's it. That's the point. He knows life is never going to get any different for him. That there's no fixing him. It's always going to be the same monotonous depressing bullshit. Boring, sad, boring, sad. He just wants it to... - Jasmine Warga
  5. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Friedrich Nietzsche
More Quotes By Jennifer Niven
  1. I do my best thinking at night when everyone else is sleeping. No interruptions. No noise. I like the feeling of being awake when no one else is.
  2. The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count.
  3. People rarely bring flowers to a suicide.
  4. What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet - give her...
  5. You shouldn't spend all your time worrying about the love that leaves, because then you might overlook the love that was always there.
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