Only if you're kind to yourself, can you be kind to others.
Ruby WaxRead
How come every other organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy, except the brain?
Interpretation
Mental health issues often go unrecognized or stigmatized compared to physical ailments.
Ruby Wax's quote highlights the societal stigma around mental health, emphasizing that while other bodily organs receive sympathy when affected by illness, the brain, which governs our mental health, is often overlooked and misunderstood. This reflects a broader conversation about the normalization of discussing mental health and the importance of acknowledging that emotional and psychological suffering is as valid as physical ailments.
In practice
In a mental health awareness campaign, this quote can remind individuals to empathize with those struggling with psychological issues.
The depressed person was in terrible and unceasing pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.
I had really bad obsessive-compulsive disorder. At its worst, I was compelled to leave my house at three o'clock in the morning and go out in the alley because I just knew that the paper-towel roll I threw in the recycling bin was uncomfortable, like it was lying the wrong way, and I would be down in the garbage.
Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.
I have a feeling I shall go mad. I cannot go on longer in these terrible times. I shan't recover this time. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it but cannot fight any longer.
Negative thinking patterns can be immensely deceptive and persuasive, and change is rarely easy. But with patience and persistence, I believe that nearly all individuals suffering from depression can improve and experience a sense of joy and self-esteem once again.
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.
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