Psychotic People Quotes & Sayings

Some parents were awful back then and are awful still. The process of raising you didn't turn them into grown-ups. Parents who were clearly imperfect can be helpful to you. As you were trying to grow up despite their fumbling efforts, you had to develop skills and tolerances other kids missed out on. Some of the strongest people I know grew up taking care of inept, invalid, or psychotic parents
but they know the parents weren't normal, healthy, or whole. — Frank Pittman

A little girl of seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is a delusion. The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from 'reality' than many of the people on whom the label 'psychotic' is fixed. — R.D. Laing

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like'. Where planned obsolescence leaves off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity. — Richard J. Foster

To be a film-maker, you have to lead. You have to be psychotic in your desire to do something. People always like the easy route. You have to push very hard to get something unusual, something different. — Danny Boyle

Yes, it was true that Franny had gotten thicker in the last decade, but that was what happened unless you were a high-functioning psychotic, and she had other things to think about. Franny knew plenty of women who had chosen to prioritize the eternal youth of their bodies, and they were all miserable creatures, their taut triceps unable to conceal their dissatisfaction with their empty stomachs and unfulfilling lives. Franny liked to eat, and to feed people, and she wasn't embarrassed that her body displayed such proclivities. — Emma Straub

Antisocial personality disorder," she said, her voice rising. "I looked it up. It's a psychosis." She turned away. "My son's a psychotic." "APD is primarily defined as a lack of empathy," I said. I'd looked it up, too, a few months ago. Empathy is what allows people to interpret emotion, the same way ears interpret sound; without it you become emotionally deaf. "It means I don't connect emotionally with other people. I wondered if he was going to pick that one. — Dan Wells

We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad', 'psychotic' or 'delusional' . . . Clearly there is sanity in numbers. — Richard Dawkins

But unlike people with psychotic conditions like schizophrenia, they are not going insane at all. They are, if anything, suddenly overly aware of reality and existence and of the ways in which their own experience is a distortion of a "normal" sense of a real self. Depersonalization, — Daphne Simeon

I'd always leaned toward the shy side but was never unsocial until I started seeing visions of people from the past. It's a really strange existence, not knowing if the person you're talking to is physically there or not. Not knowing if you're one hallucination away from a psychotic break. — Myra McEntire

You're always feeling powerless in life. If you're in an abusive relationship or working for what we call a psychotic boss sometimes the only option is to leave because you're emotions get so entangled with these manipulative people that staying there you're just helpless because they're good at passive aggressive games and you're not, so you have to leave. — Robert Greene

We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell on them. — Lillian Hellman

Many people say that psychiatrists just want to push drugs. Well I seriously have to say, without medication, I'd be locked up in a VA hospital somewhere. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

He grabbed the legs and addressed their owner ... current owner anyway. "Hold still. I'll get you out in a second." Then he hissed at me "Trash goes in the garbage can, Zeke, not people."
It was clear to me this guy was trash, but Griffin probably wanted to sort him into paper, plastic, glass, and human waste of space. See? Psychotic. — Rob Thurman

In an average moral universal society, good people will try to do the right thing, and psychotic people will do wicked things. But if you want to make good people do wicked things, you need them to be religious. — Bill Maher

Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say "girl"? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you're a saint or you're psychotic. If a few things offend you, deal with them
fairly. If you're often offended by things, you're probably a self-righteous asshole and it's too bad you weren't censored yourself
by your mother in an abortion clinic. — William T. Vollmann

Are you sure you want to go out with someone with that kind of history? ... He could have a psychotic break. I read that people get those when they're twenty-eight. — Maggie Stiefvater

Are people who have been crazy held to unfair standards?
Of course, but it's not in your best interest to complain. If you're paranoid and people are looking at you funny it's best to let it pass. Psychotic people have an uncanny knack for making their own worst dreams come true. Depressing things happen to depressed people way beyond what you would expect from random distribution. — Mark Vonnegut

The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from 'reality',than many of the people on whom the label 'psychotic' is affixed — R.D. Laing

I was glad I wasn't in love, that I wasn't happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers. — Charles Bukowski

I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants; to study animals; to study primitive people; to be psychoanalyzed; to have a religious conversion and get over it; to have a psychotic episode and get over it; or to have a love affair with an old Russian. And I stopped saying that when a little dancer in the front row put up her hand and said, 'Does he have to be old? — Margaret Mead

There are people who are avaricious parasites. There are psychotic geniuses in control of this planet, and to them human beings are only a commodity to be bought and sold and traded. — Alex Jones

Everyone who doesn't want to believe in supernormal powers says the people who experience them are psycho. What the hell kind of a world is this if all magic moments are psychotic? — Carol Plum-Ucci

In the US the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed. — George Ryan

This is all made worse by the fact that I'm competitive. Not normal-people competitive. Not friendly competitive. Scary-psychotic competitive. Never hand me a volleyball. Don't ask me to play a fun hand of cards. I have never heard of a casual round of Scrabble. — Shonda Rhimes

Dangerousness A fairly common perception is that people with mental illness are disproportionately involved in violent crime. This is true in one respect but not in another. A small subset of people with mental illness, those who are actively experiencing serious psychotic symptoms, are more violent than the general population. Research suggests several factors associated with this group's violent behavior, including drug and alcohol abuse, noncompliance with medication requirements, and biological or biochemical disorders.[8] In general, however, "violent and criminal acts directly attributable to mental illness account for a very small proportion of all such acts in the United States. Most persons with mental illness are not criminals, and of those who are, most are not violent." [9] — Gary Cordner

We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.' ... It is time to awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. — Richard J. Foster

Desperate psychotic people do desperate psychotic things when they're exposed. I refuse to grant them immunity from exposure out of fear of their reaction. When you do, the desperate psychos wind up in charge. — James S.A. Corey

What do you mean 'warn me'?" Why did they both think I was going to claw her eyes out? The old me must've been psychotic."

"I told you she has a soft spot for me."

"Yeah, and I have a soft spot for tater tots, but that doesn't require me to warn people."

"I think I can safely say she doesn't feel about me like you feel about tater tots," Cheney said, unsuccessfully trying to suppress his amusement.

"I don't know, I really like tater tots," I mumbled.

Cheney's laughter filled the room. "I stand corrected. Apparently your love for fried potato nuggets is much deeper that I gave credit. — Liz Schulte

A man like Kappler might become angriest, most detached, even sickest at those times his psychiatrist edges closest to the truths about his life. The rage and even the psychosis has to be seen for what it is: the flamethrower of a fortress under siege. Pleasantries, humor, and easy exchanges might be clues that no real work is being done.
There can be no retreat on the psychiatrist's part. One patient with a psychotic illness has written: "the doctor has to feel sure he has the right to break into the illness, just as a parent knows he has the right to walk into a baby's room, no matter what the baby feels about it. The doctor has to know he's doing the right thing ... some people go through life with vomit on their lips. You can feel their terrible hunger but they defy you to feed them." (95, The Strange Case of Dr. Kappler) — Keith Ablow

Yes, give us books about the psychotic behavior and peripheral weirdness we see all around every day
and we will laugh in its face.
We are a proud people.
We are Floridians. — Tim Dorsey

In addition to its elements of adolescent titillation, the world of JA2 contains racism, sexism, xenophobia, government-sponsored torture, child labor, and extreme economic inequality. And yet it's difficult to say what the game's overall stance is on these issues. JA2 is highly pluralistic, allowing you to play all sorts of characters from all sorts of backgrounds. That pluralism leads to a kind of moral relativism. While you can have a squad of friendly heroes who help each other as well as the downtrodden people of Arulco, you can also play as a squad of psychotic good ol' boys who ignore issues of social justice, seeking only to get a paycheck for putting a bullet in the queen's head. — Anonymous

Someone has to puncture the prevailing fiction that we're a "family" here, we "associates" and our "servant leaders," held together solely by our commitment to the "guests." After all, you'd need a lot stronger word than dysfunctional to describe a family where a few people get to eat at the table while the rest - the "associates" and all the dark-skinned seamstresses and factory workers worldwide who make the things we sell - lick up the drippings from the floor: psychotic would be closer to the mark. — Barbara Ehrenreich

Normal people hadn't been molested or reared by a clinically psychotic mother, an alcoholic father, or a perversely mad psychiatrist who wore a Santa hat and performed toilet bowl readings. These were normal people, and I lived among them now. I thought, This must be what I want. — Augusten Burroughs

He didn't know what beget what, but he quickly learned that people with money to hide were powerful, and powerful people were violent. It was reliable math: as the amount of money being conveyed increased, so too did the level of paranoia; the psychotic behavior of his clients increasing with every figure added to the sum. — T. Mountebank

What did Owen ever see in you?" "Oh, I don't know," I said, my voice as cold and calm as hers was. "Maybe the fact that I'm not a psychotic bitch who tortures people for kicks. — Jennifer Estep

There is also evidence from epidemiological studies that psychotic-like experiences are much more common than has hitherto been thought (with about 10% of the population affected) and that these experiences exist on continua with healthy or 'normal' functioning: instead of the world falling into two groups (the psychotic and the non-psychotic) people vary in their disposition to psychosis and only a minority of people who have these experiences require or seek help. — Richard Bentall

Psychosis does not live in the head. It lives in the in-between of family members, and in the in-between of people," Salo explained. "It is in the relationship, and the one who is psychotic makes the bad condition visible. He or she 'wears the symptoms' and has the burden to carry them." (341) — Robert Whitaker

Unfortunately, some family members are so psychotic that no matter how hard you try to forge a healthy relationship, nothing will help. Now that you're an adult, take refuge in the fact that some things are beyond your control. You owe it to yourself to steer clear of people who are harmful to your health. — Andrea Lavinthal

Sanity is actually a pretence, a way we learn to behave. We keep this pretence up because we don't want to be rejected by other people - and being classified insane is to be shut out of the group in a very complete way.
Most people I meet are secretly convinced that they're a little crazier than the average person. People understand the energy necessary to maintain their own shields, but not the energy expended by other people. They understand that their own sanity is a performance, but when confronted by other people they confuse the person with the role.
Sanity has nothing directly to do with the way you think. Its a matter of presenting yourself as safe. — Keith Johnstone

Because you have no survival instinct, Grace. You're like a tank, you just chug along< thinking nothing can stop you, until you meet up with a bigger tank. Are you sure you want to go out with someone with that kind of history?" mom seemed to warm her theory. " he couldhave a psychotic break. I read that people get those when they're twenty-eight. he could be almost normal and then suddenly go slasher. I mean, you know I've never told you what to do with your life before now. But what if-I told you not to see him?"
I hadn't been expecting that. My voice was brittle. "I would say that by virtue of your not acting parental up to this point, you've relinquished your abiblity to wield any power now. Sam and I are together. It's not an option."
Mom threw her hands up as if trying to stop the Grace-tank from running over her. "Okay. Fine. Just be careful, okay? Whatever. I'm going to get a drink."
And just like that her parental engergies were expendede. — Maggie Stiefvater

People with mental illness are very much like people without mental illness only more so. What we lose with a psychotic episode is the comforting assurance that we can't lose our mind. When most people look down they see solid ground. When I look down, I'm not so sure.
Crazy thoughts are not the problem. Everyone has crazy thoughts. Hallucinations and delusions tend to catch the attention but aren't the problem. The problem is that the world becomes discontinuous. We can't attend to the world and take care of ourselves. So others try to take care of us and they do an imperfect job of it. There is no substitute for being well. — Mark Vonnegut

Would Terrible actually have killed me if I hadn't agreed to come up?" "It's entirely possible, yeah." She said it like it was no big deal. Like it was normal or something, rather than psychotic. Who the hell were these people? — Stacia Kane

Some of the politicians in this country, in their feverish search for group acceptance, are ready to endorse tumultuous confrontation as a substitute for debate, and the most illogical and unfitting extensions of the Bill of Rights as protections for psychotic and criminal elements in our society. We have seen all too clearly that there are mennow in power in this countrywho do not represent authority, who cannot cope with tradition, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support revolution as long as it is done with a cultured voice and a handsome profile. — Spiro T. Agnew

This sort of behavior is left to the psychotic, dogmatic, fundamentalist believers you see on your TV everyday letting off bombs and killing people in the name of God. Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing. — Maynard James Keenan

Paul R. Linde in his 1994 book, Of Spirits and Madness: An American Psychiatrist in Africa. "Major mental illness cuts across all cultures," Linde writes. "Amazingly enough, or maybe not, acutely psychotic people in Zimbabwe appear very similar to those in San Francisco. . . . They suffer from disorganized thoughts, delusions, and hallucinations. The content of the symptoms, however, is very much different . . . Zimbabweans do not report hearing auditory hallucinations of Jesus Christ, rather they report hearing those of their ancestor spirits. They are not paranoid about the FBI, rather they are paranoid about witches and sorcerers."1 — Dick Russell

I was telling some people in my dressing room some of my other stories, my psychotic break, and blah, blah, blah, and no, they kind of look at you and it's just not what they wanted to hear. — Carrie Fisher

Who the hell would attack the Steel Horse anyway? What was the thinking behind that? Here is a bar full of psychotic killers who grow giant claws and people who pilot the undead for a living. I think I'll go wreck the place. — Ilona Andrews

Saying that the Palestinian people aren't really a people - that's not a zany thing to say. That's a psychotic thing to say in the midst of all of the politics we live through on a daily basis. — Lewis Black

Dropping in and out of your own life (for psychotic breaks, or treatment in a hospital) isn't like getting off a train at one stop and later getting back on at another. Even if you can get back on (and the odds are not in your favor), you're lonely there. The people you boarded with originally are far, far ahead of you, and now you're stuck playing catch-up. — Elyn R. Saks

I get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic. — Leo Buscaglia

LSD is a psychedelic drug which occasionally causes psychotic behavior in people who have NOT taken it. — Timothy Leary

We are being offered a psychopathic and psychotic moral attitude ... it is psychopathic because this is a total detachment from the, from the well-being of human beings. It, this so easily rationalizes the slaughter of children. Ok, just think about the Muslims at this moment who are blowing themselves up, convinced that they are agents of God's will. There is absolutely nothing that Dr. Craig can s - can say against their behavior, in moral terms, apart from his own faith-based claim that they're praying to the wrong God. If they had the right God, what they were doing would be good, on Divine Command theory.
Now, I'm obviously not saying that all that Dr. Craig, or all religious people, are psychopaths and psychotics, but this to me is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own. — Sam Harris

Powerful men in particular suffer from the delusion that human beings have no memories. I would go so far as to say that the distinguishing trait of powerful men is the psychotic certainty that people forget acts of infamy as easily as their parents birth — Stephen Vizinczey

In the black community when we think of a couselor or sitting down with a therapist there is that taboo attached to people of being psychotic and crazy. Really it's not it's just sitting down having a conversation. — Gabrielle Dennis

When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people. — Thomas Szasz

When John took those naked pictures, the most popular singer was a girl with a tiny stick body and a large deferential head, who sang in a delicious lilt of white lace and promises and longing to be close. When she shut herself up in her closet and starved herself to death, people were shocked. But starvation was in her voice all along. That was the poignancy of it. A sweet voice locked in a dark place, but focused entirely on the tiny strip of light coming under the door.
I drop the rag in the bucket and smoke some more, ashing into the sink,. A tiny piece of the movie from the naked time plays on my eyeball: A psychotic killer is blowing up amusement parks. At the head of the crowd clamoring to ride the roller coaster is a slim, lovely man with long blond hair and floppy clothes and big, beautiful eyes fixed on a tiny strip of light that only he can see. — Mary Gaitskill

There's been fifty-million people that died since Sharon Tate died and I got everybody in Santa Claus land chasing me, trying to make me feel remorse for one psychotic episode of (Tex) Watson. — Charles Manson

If my mom came here today, she'd probably join this red-hat brigade. My mother got my sense of humor, even when I was a kid. I would just do things that tickled my fancy in the moment, and she would ask me who I was entertaining. I'd say, 'Well, me.' And she would tell me that nobody knew that and they thought I was psychotic. Well, I don't ever want people to think I'm psychotic, but I can't help myself from doing these things. — Howie Mandel

The people who are best at telling jokes tend to have more health problems than the people laughing at them. A study of Finnish police officers found that those who were seen as funniest smoked more, weighed more, and were at greater risk of cardiovascular disease than their peers [10]. Entertainers typically die earlier than other famous people [11], and comedians exhibit more "psychotic traits" than others [12]. So just as there's research to back up the conventional wisdom on laughter's curative powers, there also seems to be truth to the stereotype that funny people aren't always having much fun. It might feel good to crack others up now and then, but apparently the audience gets the last laugh. — Anonymous

I'm sure I must have sounded like a fool and a borderline psychotic most of that year, when I talked to people who thought they knew who and where they were at the time ... but looking back, I see that if I wasn't Right, at least I wasn't Wrong, and in that context I was forced to learn from my confusion ... which took awhile, and there's still no proof that what I finally learned was Right, but there's not a hell of a lot of evidence to show that I'm Wrong either. — Hunter S. Thompson