posted April 03, 2009 12:00 AM           

“I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn’t work for me, the answer would be a simple no and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question.

Strangely enough I think I would choose to have it. It’s complicated. Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images… So why would I want anything to do with this illness? Because I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters… and slowly learned the values of caring, loyalty and seeing things through. …Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster and loved faster than most I know.”

-Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind

http://chrysti.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/an-unquiet-mind/

posted April 03, 2009 01:51 AM           

Did you check out the youtube link?

She reads the introduction,
and the first chapter, i think.

posted April 03, 2009 02:49 AM           

A - Z List of People W/ Bi-Polar Disorder
_________________________________________

Abraham Lincoln
Charles Baudelaire
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Jeff Buckley
Jim Carey
Kurt Cobain
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Charles Dickens
Robert Downey Jr.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
F. Scott Fitzgerald
William Faulkner
Graham Greene
Jimi Hendrix
Ernest Hemingway
Herman Hesse
Abbie Hoffman
Daniel Johnston
John Keats
Edvard Munch
Isaac Newton
Sinead O'Connor
Edgar Allen Poe
Robert Schumann
Nina Simone
Mark Twain
Vincent Van Gogh
Kurt Vonnegut
Robin Williams
Brian Wilson
Virginia Woolf

posted April 09, 2009 12:15 AM         

quote:

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We've all seen with that true eye. For a moment, somewhere, we looked on things in a spirit of poverty, simply. Saw how only nature is perfect and pure, and all the works of men, even those we most admire, bear the stamp of something at once silly and scary, childish and exaggerated. We stood in the silence, and were a part of the silence, humble, and without knowing ourselves to be profound. We had to become self-conscious, distanced in an instant from 'that hollow note', dragged, as if by some great and implacable whirlwind, back into the roar of the familiar, before we could know just what had happened. What had we touched? What had we lost, in that instant, and maybe forever? Walking amidst the bookshelves, you know the poetry speaks of moments like these, but the books are tombs, enshrined bones, obstinate facades, - somehow, there is no taking them down, no opening, no entering into the life of them for us. We might thumb at them, trying to recapture that devout and elusive magic which springs forth unsummoned, and only at some strange, unforeseen time, when soul and book are perfectly matched by providence; though neither is capable of holding in itself that ineffable nature; that true splendor which shines through of its own accord, in its own patient and impossible hour. -- Or, when you stepped over branches, shielded heavy leaves from your path, to get somewhere through the woods, and you caught scent of something unmistakable, something real, and stopped dead in your tracks to notice it gone. Now, the path is familiar, and you brush those leaves away with annoyance, and hardly remember (or remember with annoyance) having been there once, and felt, for a precious instant, the presence of grace, the breath of God on your nape. And the sadness that is a deadening of soul drags you down and down, and forgetfulness, like a curtain, closes off to you the life that once was so real and true, if only for an instant. And you think that it is gone forever, and that thought is both the seal of your tomb, and the emptiness from which all new things are born, and receive their immaculate spark of life.

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posted April 09, 2009 02:40 AM           

That will be page 1

A Grain of Salt
___________________

posted May 23, 2009 01:44 PM         

I agree that, after a point, the book starts to read like an extended ad for Lithium, and that turned me off. Most of your objections, though, dont strike me as meaningful. So what if she mentioned (in her memoir) that she thought she looked good in a negligee? Thats your idea of "erotica"? It seems puritanical, or nit-picking, to find fault with that, or with almost anything she shared about her experiences while under the influence of bi-polar. What does refusing hospitalization signify, other than a possible phobia (or healthy skepticism?) of hospitalization, and a perhaps stubborn attachment to her relative autonomy? I do not know why you conclude that she is "deceptive" just because there are two dates floating around for her birth. Anyone can post on Wikipedia. And what is all this about her being "perfect", but a "product", etc.? I dont think she is perfect, or a hero, and I don't know anyone who has suggested as much. Just because she had a priviledged background, in many ways, doesnt discount the background of severe depression, or her emergence from it. You speak for "many readers", but are you sure there are any readers, other than yourself, who felt that her experience has no relevance for people who dont grow up priviledged? Perhaps you also think it could only have relevance for people who grew up as "military brats", shifted from place to place, unable to form sustained friendships or relationships? She is a person who suffered, found a way to mitigate her suffering, and wrote a book about it. I disagree with her on many things, but I'm not going to accuse her of being a puppet because she likes Lithium, or convict her of dishonesty for no reason, or take offense with the fact that she doesnt shy away from discussing her sexuality. What relevance does any of that have? As for "clinician" -- perhaps the ambiguity is yours? Is she or is she not a clinician?

quote:

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Without mentioning any name on my part, the two psychiatrists immediately put on defenses and refused to comment further but only some very ambiguous remarks. They knew whom I was talking about.

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Did they say they knew who you were talking about? Or did they just shy away from commenting, as a disinterested person might do (and as a disinterested person might expect them to do)? For one thing, they get paid handsomely for answering those questions, and giving those "second opinions". A few more possibilities: They would not wish to contradict another doctor. And/or possibly feed into a personal drama you might be trying to enlist them in. They would not be able to answer without more information. They were hungry and anxious to go to lunch. They didnt feel like it. Could it be that you were just being suspicious, and seeing only what appeared to fit in with your suspicions?