 |
| European Southern Observatory, Flickr creative commons |
'Coming back into self after a crisis is as slow as mending bone. Psychiatric illness affects the deep centres of the brain that govern perception, emotion, behaviour and personality. These areas - the prefrontal cortex, the thalamus and limbic system manifest the hidden experience of the mind as opposed to the core motor and sensory function of the brain.
In the night I slip past the night staff and go out into the courtyard, lie down on a bench and look up at the sky. The night air ripples. According to Scottish mathematician J. S. Haldane, "the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." This gives me comfort. The stars are out - gleaming cantos of space. In the wide, wide night, there is only the essential smallness of self and the tiny equilibrium of earth and air on which we exist.'
Kate Richards, 2013, Madness: A Memoir, Penguin.
https://katerichardsaustralia.wordpress.com/
