Quotes & Sayings About Losing One's Mind

The first time I got a chance to meet Michael was onstage at Madison Square Garden. There were tons of people on the stage, and I just remember losing my mind. Like, Oh my God, that's Michael Jackson right there. I was just over his right shoulder. And then when I finally got a chance to get on the stage with him, I was just shut down. He had the type of magic that you just bowed to. I just said, I love you, and I know you've heard it a million and one times from fans all over the world, but you've meant so much to me as an entertainer, and I love you, and I've admired you all these years. — Usher

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is "I didn't get enough sleep." The next one is "I don't have enough time." Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don't have enough of ... Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we're already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn't get, or didn't get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack ... This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life. — Brene Brown

Tell me you need me, Alexis. Tell me you need this as fucking bad as I do. Tell me it's okay. Tell me I'm not the only one who's losing his mind." The words grated, rugged and fuelled by need.
Emotion thickened in my throat, so heavy, so right. "I need you."
The last threads of whatever was holding Zee back snapped. — A.L. Jackson

...if we run toward our fears, they lose their power and ultimately disappear"

"I think this is one of the giant lessons in adapting to age without losing your mind: we must let go of what was and begin accepting what is"

"'fate loves the fearless.' There is no better time to be fearless than in your fifties; if you really put your mind and your energy into it, you can make amazing things happen. — Tracey Jackson

The shame-based person is nearly always enmeshed in some way with one or more people. While we are in a dysfunctional, shame-based relationship, we may f eel like we are losing our mind, going crazy. When we try to test reality, we are unable to trust our senses, our feelings and our reactions. — Charles L. Whitfield

I knew this for a fact. Little by little, the ache to see him, to hear him would disappear. Little by little I'd forget how his arms felt, how his fingers felt, how his lips felt..the sound of his voice, the intensity of his gaze, all of it. Trace by trace it would slip from my mind, recede into foggy memory. The painful haze that dulled my present would melt into the past. Maybe not all the way, maybe there would be a few scars. Maybe I'd be different, but I'd be me again. Little by little. — Jennifer DeLucy

If there was a moral issue involved, she would, of course, defend her position to the end. But long ago her mother had taught her that often it is the little things over which people battle foolishly, losing friends, disturbing peace of mind, destroying serenity with no end in view save that they continue to defend the position they have already taken. It was far better, her mother pointed out, to give in gracefully, remembering that a fight in a lesser cause is never worth the struggle. She maintained that by doing so one gained everything really worth having, serenity, sweetness, and inner strength. — Loula Grace Erdman

I try not to think that death might really just be losing one's mind forever. So scattered that it never comes back. — J.R. Rain

To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. — Washington Irving

I have lived one step away from losing my mind for years. I am quick and accurate in spotting unstable streaks in others. — Charlaine Harris

There are more than 300,000 families in the Gulf region that lost their homes and are waiting for peace of mind. The hurricane exposed the sad reality of poverty in America. We saw, in all its horrific detail, the vulnerabilities of living in inadequate housing and the heartbreak of losing one's home. — Harry Connick Jr.

Friends and family came and went, sometimes helping her with her tears, other times making her laugh. But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live. But what was the point in living when there was no life in it? These questions went through her mind over and over until she reached the point of not wanting to wake up from her dreams
they were what felt real.
Deep down, she knew it was normal to feel like this, she didn't particularly think she was losing her mind. She knew that one day she would be happy again and that this feeling would just be a distant memory. It was getting to that day that was the hard part. — Cecelia Ahern

Every day there is a war inside your mind: A war between you and yourself! One side of you may defeat the other side of you! But you must know that your winning side might fail in the real world! Always be ready to give a chance immediately to your losing side, to your defeated idea! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

As a Cambion, balance is paramount.
Never lose control, never allow emotions to run wild, and never, ever forget who you are and what lives within you. Such discipline requires a sound mind, a thick skin, and a high tolerance for all things weird, because one wrong move and it's over. No matter how tempting it is at first, in the end, there's nothing more tragic, more excruciating than losing yourself.
Well, except maybe high school. — S.A.M.

It is a strange thing being suddenly motherless. It's like losing a rudder that was keeping me on course, one that I never paid much mind to before now. Who will teach me how to parent, how to deal with the unkindness of strangers, how to be humble? You already did, I realize. — Jodi Picoult

She found that she did not mind losing the previous moment, for this one was just as lovely. — Leslye Walton

But how can one regret what, to the mind, has never existed? Even loss is an inaccurate description, for what loss is without the awareness of losing? — Nicole Krauss

My psycho-analytic work has convinced me that when in the baby's mind the conflicts between love and hate arise, and the fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in development. — Melanie Klein

You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind
for everyone wants to live as long as he is alive
even the degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing.
Writing that springs from the surface of existence
when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up
is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough. — Franz Kafka

The noble art of losing face may one day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call disgrace. — Piet Pieterszoon Hein

There's no question you get caught up in the drama but I always concentrate on whose winning and whose losing that's for sure. That's one thing you can't do in boxing is lose your concentration, watch your mind wander. — Harold Lederman

For the person who wants to capture everything that passes before his eyes, [...] the only coherent way to act is to snap at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his yes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. This is the only way that he rolls of exposed film will represent a faithful diary of our days, with nothing left out. If I were to start taking pictures, I'd see this thing through, even if it meant losing my mind. But the rest of you still insist on making a choice. What sort of choice? A choice in the idyllic sense, apologetic, consolatory, at peace with nature, the fatherland, the family. Your choice isn't only photographic; it is a choice of life, which leads you to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion. So you think you are saving yourselves from madness, but you are falling into mediocrity, into hebetude."

- from "The Adventure of a Photographer — Italo Calvino

Life was about loss. One minute standing on the promise of your dreams, then free-falling backward into nothingness. Is this what it meant to grow old? To gradually be stripped of all you cared about. And then what? Were you supposed to spend the rest of your life, dreaming about the past while you waited to die? Or did you start a new life, set the cycle in motion once again. Take the chance of losing that, too. And if you did, what happened to the old life? Did it die away from lack of attention? — Shelley Noble

What's happening to me?" she whispers to the quilt. "I'm losing my mind."
Though that implies that I had one to begin with. — Nenia Campbell

He terrifies me, Aunt Peg." I don't have the backbone to say it to her face. "Oliver is such a self-contained person. He's always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I'm the one who's always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don't know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything's going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They're so kind and gentle. — Elisa Marie Hopkins

I wear makeup and I don dramatic attire because I like control. I'm not interested in controlling others but I'm invested in strict self-governance. This is why I don't do many face-to-face interviews. I don't like being caught off-guard. It all goes back to that attempt to create order amidst disorder. One of the most frightening things about losing your mind is that you feel like your body, your brain, every part of your essence is being invaded. There is such a palpable helplessness to that narrative and I hate the sense of victimhood that it implies. Certainly, this is how I felt during my moments of psychological disquiet. I felt like my personhood was under attack. Performativity is important to me because I'm the teller of my own stories. I have been performing these multiple roles for so long that they have bled into my identity. I have become the man that I always wanted to be. — Diriye Osman

Losing one's mind is surely like losing one's virginity. Lose a little, lose a lot. — Martha Grimes

Is it possible to specialize in more than one element?"
She laughed and shook her head. "No. Too much power. No one could handle all that magic, not without losing her mind."
Oh. Great. — Richelle Mead

Reading is a way of closing out the real world and losing yourself in a new one. This is also called "active meditation" - a state of mind that you attempt to reach to rid yourself of tension and make yourself feel better. — Henry Mckinnon

I'm saying the structure and f the entire culture is flawed, chip said. I'm saying the bureaucracy has arrogated the right to define certain states of mind as 'diseased.' A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental health is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying. And I'm saying that I personally am losing the battle with a commercialized, medicalized, totalitarian, modernity right this instant. — Jonathan Franzen

The most fundamental principle of the organized mind, the one most critical to keeping us from forgetting or losing things, is to shift the burden of organizing from our brains to the external world. — Daniel J. Levitin

Does it matter?
losing your legs? ...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after football
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?
losing your sight? ...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?
those dreams from the pit? ...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know that you've fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit. — Siegfried Sassoon

Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either
not entirely.
It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it.
Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig. — Neal Shusterman

Her strategy for honoring the dead had always been to take action - solve the mystery, punish the criminal. But what did you do when there was no one to punish? When there were no answers to find? How do you assimilate that kind of loss without losing your mind? — Rob Thomas

One becomes vulnerable when one stops to think about winning, losing, taking advantage, impressing or disregarding the opponent. When the mind stops, even for a single instant, the body freezes, and free, fluid movement is lost. — Kisshomaru Ueshiba

Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever subtler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left behind. ( ... ) Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you. Believe me, you will not regret. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you think that one day you gonna lose the all data, you are kind of right from point of view of dead, yeah you will lose it in your mind. Your mind doesn't come in heaven or hell, does it?

From other point of view, from cyber point of view again yeah, you are right... one day everything dies. — Deyth Banger

Don't give me some stupid lecture about war when the person we're talking about losing is you!" I said, surprised by the savagery in my tone. At least my voice didn't shake.
His face blurred and I tasted salt on my lips. It was warm, warm like Pritkin's hands coming up and framing my face, his thumbs brushing over my eyelids, soft as his fingers in my hair. "One person is not so important in the scheme of things", he said, and his voice was gentle, gentle when it never was, and that almost broke me.
But you are important, I thought. And yet he couldn't see that. In Pritkin's mind, he was an experiment gone wrong, a child cast out, a man valued by his peers only for his ability to kill the things they feared. Just once, I wished he could see what I did.
"Then neither is this", I said, leaning in and pressing my mouth to his, the kiss lightened by desperation and weighted down by everything he meant to me. — Karen Chance

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, [ ... ] and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names [ ... ] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest ... — Sylvia Plath

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans. — John Steinbeck

The material and the spiritual are but two parts of one universe and one truth. By overstressing one part or the other, man fails to achieve the balance necessary for harmonious development ... Practice the art of living in this world without losing your inner peace of mind. Follow the path of balance to reach the inner wondrous garden of Self-Realization. — Paramahansa Yogananda

There is nothing left to seek for in this world when it can be exchanged for another one. No thought of gain or loss, winning or losing, success or failure ever had any meaning. Fantasy is not real and dreaming is not Being One. You are ready to Awaken to Oneness. And as you awaken the whole world awakens as well. For the world was never more than a misperception. As perception becomes whole, the single mind sees only wholeness. At last you are ready to see with Inner Vision, and you realize that physical sight was nothing but the illusion of being in the dark. The Light has come and it is time to rejoice! It is time! — David Hoffmeister

The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when ... you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out".'
There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight. That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may [the world] be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends. There are only the three positions. — Joseph Campbell

I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day. — Matthew Quick

What happens to the mind after bereavement makes no sense until later... what the mind does after losing one's father isn't just to pick new fathers from the world, but pick new selves to love them with. — Helen Macdonald

Here I want to stress that perception of losing one's mind is based on culturally derived and socially ingrained stereotypes as to the significance of symptoms such as hearing voices, losing temporal and spatial orientation, and sensing that one is being followed, and that many of the most spectacular and convincing of these symptoms in some instances psychiatrically signify merely a temporary emotional upset in a stressful situation, however terrifying to the person at the time. Similarly, the anxiety consequent upon this perception of oneself, and the strategies devised to reduce this anxiety, are not a product of abnormal psychology, but would be exhibited by any person socialized into our culture who came to conceive of himself as someone losing his mind. — Erving Goffman

Your NOT FALLING APART, i tell my self. IF ONLY YOU KNEW, its HARDER TO BREATH with out you. THE AIR I BREATH is not the same with out you. I dont want to LOVE SOMEBODY else. MAKES ME WONDER if i could ever tell you, but I'm OUT OF GOODBYES. I don't want to lose you. This is MISERY, I CANT LIE, i am LOSING MY MIND over you. NOTHING LAST FOREVER, but THIS LOVE dose. Its a TANGLED mystery. ONE MORE NIGHT goes bye with no reply. The FORTUNE TELLER said you would never be mine. I end up BACK AT YOUR DOOR, when THE SUN comes back to life. This is are LAST CHANCE, RUNAWAY with me tonight. And lets never say goodbye. — Rhyan Roads

People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain. That is why it is such nonsense to pretend that those who have 'come down in the world' are to be pitied above all others.
The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start,
and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind. — George Orwell