Offensive Quote

[lemonflavor]

This was posted on a non-Christian message board as a quote of the day:

"Money-giving is a very good criterion of a person's mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill people."
--Karl A. Menninger

I don't get the connection at all.

Does anyone have positive quotes about people with mental illness?

 

[lemonflavor]

I did some digging and found out who Karl Menninger is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Menninger
He obviously saw something pertinent to that quote in his experience but I disagree with much of his philosophies.

 

[Soulwings]

Ooh I have a positive one... at least, it's pretty positive.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind. - Thomas Babington Macaulay.

 

[lemonflavor]

Man, this is really bothering me now. Partly because it was a friend who posted the quote on the board. He doesn't know about my "mental illness" although I think most people think those who are mentally ill are those who are deluded and locked up in an institution for life.

I have a closer friend who knows about my mental illness stuff but I have a feeling he doesn't believe in psychiatry. So I talk to him less and less about it.

I unfortunately saw a web site about how mental illness and psychiatry is a sham and everything is spiritual. Now I'm all in a funk.

Some quotes I found:

You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.
Jerry Garcia

In the end you forget how wretched the condition of the mentally ill really is.
Anna Freud

But again what do they see as mental illness?

 

[Alaskamomma]

Someone who doesn't have it can't even begin to possibly understand mental illness. WHen I think of those of us who are... we are unique. I think of people like Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Edgar Allan Poe or Hemingway who wrote such wonderful works and could capture mental illness with a stroke of a pen.

Kay Jameson Redfield has a book called Touched With Fire and it explores all the famous people who suffered from bipolar disorder. It is a fascinating read and greatly has helped me appreciate what I have... although at times it really does "madden" me.

 

[berry2000]

Wow what a wack job...that psychiatrist is. He sounds old school anyways...anyone who worked at a "Sanatorium" scares me.

Sorry your friend posted this...i could see why that would be upsetting.

I'd try to take it with a grain of salt. Obviously your friend and the sanatorium guy have not lived w/ mental illness themselves they are only outside observers.

I have a mental illness and it certainly isn't because i'm not generous. Sometimes i think it is because i am too generous.

It's obviously just someone's opinion and not TRUTH.

 

[Alive again]

I also am an extremely generous person in more ways than just with money. Obviously this guy practiced during the 1930's and on when not much was known about mental illnesses and came up with false conclusions because of his experience and the lack of knowledge about neurochemicals! it is plain rude of someone to post something so misinformed~!!!

I am thankful to live in a time where it is better understood that this is a physical illness (this was not so even in my father's era in the 1940-70's or even my brother's who developed problems in the 1960'-80's) . And where there are better meds to help with this illness!!!

 

[OneOfHisOwn]

One ceases to recognize the significance of mountain peaks if they are not viewed occasionally from the deepest valleys.
- Dr. Al Lorin
Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
- Napoleon Hill

Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-4).
- Bible

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
- Helen Keller

 

[angelkiss]

Just do your best and let God do the rest
-angelkiss

Love me for who I am and what I am cause that's all I'll ever be.
-author unknown

(These don't point directly at mental illness but I use them in all situations including my illnesses.)
God bless!
s and es!!

 

[ladyjay787]

This was posted on a non-Christian message board as a quote of the day:

"Money-giving is a very good criterion of a person's mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill people."
--Karl A. Menninger

I don't get the connection at all.

Does anyone have positive quotes about people with mental illness?

I don't agree with this quote. My ex, who is bipolar, was very generous.

 

[lemonflavor]

I think those of us who are "mentally ill" know ourselves better and have dealt with things that those who are marginal or undiagnosed haven't. I think many of us even though we are crazy (I affectionately use that term) are actually less crazy than a lot of supposedly normal people.

I wish I could come up with a quotable quote to this affect.

And on the subject, because of this many of us are more sympathetic and more generous because of what we have and are going through.