From Madness to a Gorilla and a Bird

I am re-reading "A Quiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison.  Here is an earlier post I wrote about the first time I read this book.  I'm about half way through it now.  For some reason, it doesn't attract me like it did the first time.  It seems hard to read somehow.  I have six memoirs about bipolar, three by women and two by men.  The way the men write is incredible.  How they describe their bipolar experiences is mind-blowing.  But such is unmedicated  bipolar disorder.

I liked "Gorilla and the Bird" by Zach McDermott very much for its detailed description of a manic episode run amok.  He describes his psych. hospital experiences with so much detail- including his penchant for streaking naked through cornfields and down hospital hallways- that you are on the edge of your seat, not able to wait for what comes next!

"Electroboy" by Andy Behrman but such a ride!  I kept waiting for "the real story" to begin as if he were just talking about his past and would start describing his hospital visits like Marya Hornbacher does in "Madness".  She, too, is hard to put down.  Her descriptions of her hospital stays and the workings of her brain read with ease.  Restrained and loaded with Haldol, she drifts in and out of consciousness, tied down to beds and screaming.   With both, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to get to the next one.  Behrman's book is one wild ride after another, as we follow him through his unmedicated manias, spending sprees, sexual indiscretion and breaking the law.  And Hornbacher's description of self harm at the beginning of her book is visceral.  Behrman's book, too, starts with a bang of a manic episode, but we don't know that's what it is, at first; we are just following this very odd, possibly-drug-induced tangle of thoughts along with descriptions of what he is feeling.  Its a roller-coaster ride, for sure.  I read it in two days, thirsting for more.

"Haldol and Hyacinths" by Melody Moezzi follows a woman of Persian decent through her journey with ease.  She toggles back and forth between what its like to live in the Midwest and the Middle East.  Like, Hornbacher and Terri Cheney, she does not have to worry about money. 

"Manic" by Terri Cheney is a fun ride through the mind of a bipolar woman.  She touches on aspects of the disease that not everyone understands at first.  Her balancing of her law career and her raging manias works nicely to outline just how wild her manias and suicidal dark depressions can be.

"The dark side of innocence" by Terri Cheney follows Cheney through her bipolar childhood.  Seen through the eyes of a child, it is at once scary and endearing.  

If you have to pick one of these books to start with (check Amazon), Try "Gorilla and the Bird" and "Madness".  One is by a man and the other a woman.  Bipolar shows no preference for one or the other, but I find it interesting to see which aspects of the disease stand out for each of them and which parts each author choses accentuate.  Of course, you should read ALL of these books!