I recently read An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. It is an older book, published in 1995. In it, Jamison details her life events beginning in childhood through adulthood with Bipolar I disorder.
She focuses mainly on the mania part of her disorder and on the love relationships of her adult life, as well as on her experiences with lithium, the drug used to treat her bipolar disorder. Much detail is given to her academia life as a psychologist, and to her world travels as woman who never had children, making this memoir a bit inaccessible to me as a homemaker and stay-at-home mom.
Moreover, I have bipolar type II, have never been on lithium, nor have I experienced the extreme manic highs of Bipolar type I disorder, so I couldn’t identify with much of her story, making this book a bit of a disappointment to me and a waste of money for me.
However, if you have Bipolar I and long-term treatment with lithium, you will be able to identify with a lot of what Jamison writes.
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I’ve been wanting to read that book for awhile so thank you for the review. I have no idea if I’M BP I or BP II because the doctors went back and forth and back and forth and finally told me it doesn’t matter since the meds are working. I may just read the book to see how aligned I am with BP I
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Her manias were fairly severe, so it would give you a good feel for what they are like. She had some hallucinations and delusions as well which I have never experienced. If you end up reading it let me know what you think.
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Nice review! While it is unfortunate that you yourself could not connect much to what Jamison had to say, I am glad that you would still recommend this book to others, as I am sure it would benefit many people who either have bipolar I or want to learn more about it.
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