Mental Health Awareness Month: An Unquiet Mind

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison is a fearlessly, brutally honest 1995 memoir examining the exhilarating highs and soul-crushing lows of bipolar disorder (which was clinically called manic-depressive illness during the events of this book) from the perspective of a psychiatrist trapped in the disease. Her frank and intimately personal insights bring bipolar disorder’s cycles of terror, elation and crushing, abject despair into stark and sometimes heartbreaking clarity.

The book was recommended to me soon after I was diagnosed as bipolar in 2008, and it grabbed me on every level—from its smart writing to the recognizable, relatable, almost comforting details of its narrative—and I all but literally didn’t put the book down until I’d finished it.

I have an indelible memory of reading it on the Red Line EL train home from work one night in Chicago, and a man who’d clearly seen me reading it made sure we made eye contact as he stood up to leave and then he patted me reassuringly on the shoulder as he got off at the Sheridan stop. That encounter—a direct extension of this book—made me literally weep the rest of the way home as I was coming to grips with the label “mentally ill” and discovering the signs I’d never thought to notice until then that I wasn’t alone … and realizing that everywhere I go I’d never be alone.

If you are or love someone who is bipolar—or struggling with any mental illness—this book will make you weep, give you hope and quite possibly change your life.

The horrors of Depakote

Facebook is reminding me that seven years ago today was my first attempt at functioning in public (specifically at work) on the hardcore anticonvulsant Depakote:

Depakote either works wonders for you or it destroys you, and I was DEFINITELY on its no-fly list. The pharmacist who filled my first prescription actually pulled me into a consultation room, warned me about the horrible, terrifying things I might experience, and literally held onto my hand as she talked to me. I'll never forget the look in her eyes that was a mix of both kindness and visible concern.

[Don't get me started on the hack Chicago psychiatrist who'd prescribed it without saying any of this to me and who obviously made zero attempt to set up a line of communication should I have problems in my first terrifying, confusing days and weeks.]

Once I got home that night, I took my first dose with much trepidation, went to bed on the guestroom bed my parents slept in on their visits so I could maybe feel somehow close to them if I needed to ... and right on schedule I was immediately flooded with such graphic nightmares of being hunted and murdered over and over that they're seared in my brain and I can still replay them in my head with absolute clarity.

That was a Friday night, and all weekend I'd hallucinate intruders in black hiding in my apartment and wake up screaming when I tried to sleep. But psych drugs can have side effects like these as you ramp up, and I was at least self-aware enough to know (or be pretty sure I knew) that the hallucinations weren't real and the nightmares would eventually go away.

Which they never did. I was taking Depakote with the more established anticonvulsant Lamictal (which I'd been on for years) and at least one other drug (but probably two or three) that I can't remember, and in the weeks that followed it seemed to be the tipping point from barely managing my bipolar swings to living in terrifying hallucinations and falling into daylong blackouts where I'd come to riding the Red Line north to parts of Chicago I'd never been to or sitting on a bench in the Lincoln Park Zoo without my coat or my phone.

I seem to recall that seven years ago today I was able to hold myself together at work, but I do know that the abovementioned blackouts caused me to start missing entire days of work. I can't remember how long I gave Depakote to finally level out in my head and maybe start working, but I do remember it never did. And my hack psychiatrist eventually had me quit it cold-turkey as he threw some other random drug at me. And I was too meek and confused and overcome with self-doubt to challenge him on any of it.

And it was all awful. Just ... awful.

But it DID give me an opportunity to make a big-gay-musical pun (that wasn't half bad, imho) about it on Facebook seven years ago today. So there's that.

And it took another four years before I found my magic psych cocktail that's kept me stable and functioning and able to laugh at everything I went through. Especially that awesome big-gay-musical pun.

And if you're struggling through your own parade of trial-and-error psych meds (hopefully not with that hack psychiatrist at the helm), try to be be patient and diligent and even optimistic about your adventures. I made it. There's every chance you will too.

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

This fearlessly, brutally honest 1995 memoir examines the exhilarating highs and soul-crushing lows of manic-depressive illness (now more commonly called bipolar disorder) from the perspective of a psychiatrist trapped in the disease. Her frank and intimately personal insights bring the disease's cycles of terror, elation and crushing, abject despair into stark and sometimes heartbreaking clarity. It was recommended to me soon after I was diagnosed as bipolar in 2008, and it grabbed me on every level—from its smart writing to the recognizable, relatable, almost comforting details of its narrative—and I all but literally didn’t put the book down until I’d finished it. 

I have an indelible memory of reading it on the Red Line EL train home from work one night in Chicago, and a man who’d clearly seen me reading it made sure we made eye contact as he stood up and then he patted me reassuringly on the shoulder as he got off at the Sheridan stop. That encounter—a direct extension of this book—made me literally weep as I was coming to grips with label mentally ill and discovering the signs I’d never thought to notice until then that I wasn’t alone. 

If you are or love someone who is bipolar—or struggling with any mental illness—this book will make you weep, give you hope and quite possibly change your life.