An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and MadnessNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives—with a new preface by the author. Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide. Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication. |
From inside the book
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... became part of what one remembers forever , surrounded by an almost Proustian melancholy . Long since that extended voyage of my wird and soul , Saturn and its icy rings took on an elegiac beauty , and I don't see Saturn's image now ...
... became part of what one remembers forever , surrounded by an almost Proustian melancholy . Long since that extended voyage of my wird and soul , Saturn and its icy rings took on an elegiac beauty , and I don't see Saturn's image now ...
Page 3
... became for me , that fall morning not quite twenty years ago , a focus of my finely wired , exquisitely alert nervous system . With vibrissae twinging , antennae perked , eyes fast - forwarding and fly faceted , I took in everything ...
... became for me , that fall morning not quite twenty years ago , a focus of my finely wired , exquisitely alert nervous system . With vibrissae twinging , antennae perked , eyes fast - forwarding and fly faceted , I took in everything ...
Page 5
... became , both by necessity and intellectual inclination , a student of moods . It has been the only way I know to under- stand , indeed to accept , the illness I have ; it also has been the only way I know to try and make a difference ...
... became , both by necessity and intellectual inclination , a student of moods . It has been the only way I know to under- stand , indeed to accept , the illness I have ; it also has been the only way I know to try and make a difference ...
Page 12
... for my brother and sister and myself , it was not ours either . Over the next few days it became clear , from the release of the young pilot's final message to the control tower before he died , that he knew he could save AN UNQUIET MIND.
... for my brother and sister and myself , it was not ours either . Over the next few days it became clear , from the release of the young pilot's final message to the control tower before he died , that he knew he could save AN UNQUIET MIND.
Page 13
... became a hero , transformed into a scorchingly vivid , completely impossible ideal for what was meant by the concept of duty . It was an impossible ideal , but all the more compelling and haunting because of its very unobtainability ...
... became a hero , transformed into a scorchingly vivid , completely impossible ideal for what was meant by the concept of duty . It was an impossible ideal , but all the more compelling and haunting because of its very unobtainability ...
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Common terms and phrases
absolutely academic asked beautiful became become behavior believe bipolar brain California clinical clinicians colleagues David death deeply depressive illness difficult dinner Directions Publishing doctors dreadful drug Dylan Thomas emotional enthusiasms everything experience father feel felt finally friends frightened gentle going graduate hospital Hugo Wolf imagine intellectual intense Jamison Kay Redfield Jamison kind knew laughed less living looked Los Angeles Zoo madness mania manic manic-depressive illness medical school medicine mental illness mood disorders mother ness never night normal once one's pain passion patients poem professional professor psychiatric psychiatrist psychology psychopharmacology psychotherapy psychotic question remember restless seemed sense side effects snakebite somehow strange studies suicide taking lithium talk teaching temperament terrible things thought tion told took treatment UCLA understand UNQUIET MIND Vincent Millay walked ward watching wonderful writing