Le Porter le deuil de Ma Maladie Mentale

"The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life."

~ Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces."

~ Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (1925)

"Much of what is labeled mental illness simply reflects our ‘unwise’ deployment of defense mechanisms. If we use defenses well, we are deemed mentally healthy, conscientious, funny, creative, and altruistic. If we use them badly, the psychiatrist diagnoses us ill, our neighbors label us unpleasant, and society brands us immoral."

~ George Eman Vaillant
The Mourning of My Mental Illness
(painting by Armand Désiré Gautier)