Could be good for someone with bipolar disorder, but not necessarily applicable to all cases ( )

Dr Kay Redfield Jamison is one of the world’s greatest authorities on mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder, which was previously called manic-depressive illness or manic depression, and she is a tenured professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, after holding a similar position at UCLA, and an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrews. She is a highly gifted writer who has published several superb books; I can recommend "Exuberance: The Passion for Life", "Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir", and "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament." As if this wasn’t enough, there are two other things that make Dr Jamison even more remarkable: she is a clinical psychologist, not a psychiatrist, which is unusual in a medical school department, especially one with the reputation of Johns Hopkins, and she has suffered with bipolar disorder since she was a teenager.

In "An Unquiet Mind," Dr Jamison describes her own difficulties as a sufferer of severe bipolar I (manic depressive) disorder and how she fought taking lithium for years before finally accepting that this highly effective medicine would provide her with the inner peace that she was long searching for, and how she somehow managed to be a highly effective clinician, and one who brought her own knowledge of the disorder to the table and allowed the trainees who worked under her to provide the best care for the patients who were treated at Hopkins, while conducting research and writing prolifically.

In addition to being a highly interesting story "An Unquiet Mind" is a page turner that I found nearly impossible to put down. I read it for the first time shortly after it was published in 1995, during my last year or two of medical school, and I knew that I would reread it again someday. I had no idea that I would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder this year, so it was an easy decision to borrow it from my local library system. It was just as good the second time around, and I’m certain that I’ll be reading more of Dr Jamison’s books in the coming months. ( )

"It is, after all, not just an illness, but something that affects every aspect of my life; my moods, my temperament, my work, and my reactions to almost everything that comes my way. not talking about manic-depressive illness, if only to discuss it once, generally consigns a friendship to a certain inevitable level of superficiality."

My therapists are inconsistent as to whether or not they diagnose me manic-depressive/bi-polar or simply clinically depressed, but I find most of Jamison’s story to be profoundly familiar. ( )

Intense and personal--the story of manic depression and how one person lived through it. Very sad, to see how people live with this illness. I kind of don't understand why she was not interested in taking her lithium like she was supposed to, especially with all that background she had dealing with mental illness. Amazing what our brain chemicals can do to us. ( )

it wasn't like, the most amazing memoir I've ever read, but it was really interesting. It got a little repetitive and I feel like I got the gist of it once I was halfway through. ( )