An Unquiet Mind, a galvanizing memoir that tugs at the heartstrings of the manic-depressed and their loved ones, is required reading for anyone who is bipolar or who has a loved one who is. My family and I read it cover-to-cover within weeks of my diagnosis.
The book opened up my mind to my new world and helped me understand what was happening to me and why. Same goes for my family. They wanted to know what bipolar disorder was all about, and this book delivered a helpful and pragmatic description of it. After reading this book, they were filled with sympathy. It was an impetus for sensitivity. And that’s the biggest takeaway from An Unquiet Mind: compassion and understanding.
In her autobiography, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, recounts her own experiences with manic depression (her preferred nomenclature for the disease; bipolar is the vernacular these days).
Jamison is the authority on all things bipolar. As a doctor herself, she lives on both sides of the fence – as patient and psychologist. She’s been down in the trenches of depression and up in the galaxies of mania. From a suicide attempt to intense mania to excruciating depression, Jamison has been through it all. It’s her dual experience with the disorder that makes her book educational, genuine, and gripping all at the same time.
Wise words abound in An Unquiet Mind. She describes depression in vivid, authentic detail:
“Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome… you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re ‘not at all like yourself but will be soon,’ but you know you won’t.”
That’s a spot-on description of depression, which could only be illustrated by someone who’s personally been overwhelmed by it.
During a depressive episode, Jamison attempted suicide by taking a bottle of lithium, as I once did. She was brought back from near-death by a trip to the ER.
Mania is also described eloquently in this book:
“When you’re high it’s tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty… Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one’s marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends’ faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against — you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind.”
Yes, yes, and yes.
As with many of us, her manias were marked by excessive shopping sprees. On one such occasion, she bought 12 snakebite kits because she felt it was urgent to have them around. She bought three watches within the span of an hour “in the Rolex rather than the Timex class.” She also purchased precious stones and expensive furniture.
“During one spree in London I spent several hundred pounds on books having titles or covers that somehow caught my fancy.” Personally, I did this buying a one-foot-high stack of vinyl LPs even though I didn’t own a record player at the time.
What is lacking from An Unquiet Mind? For one, there is no advice given to those stricken by bipolar disorder, no how-to component. The book is merely a description of Jamison’s depressive moods and mania. The book could benefit from a how-to section or even a service-oriented directory of good psychiatrists who specialize in bipolar.
What transpires in An Unquiet Mind is a whirlwind of anecdotes that chronicle what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder. It’s a raw, unfiltered memory of a woman gone wild who bounced back via psychotherapy and medication.
An Unquiet Mind is testament that if we take our meds as prescribed and actively participate in psychotherapy, we who are bipolar can live extraordinary and successful lives. That is what we aspire to. And some of us can reach lofty goals, despite our illness. We can write bestsellers. We can teach at prestigious universities. We can conquer our disease as best we can and go on to live near-normal lives.
