Rodolfo Martins Martins থেকে Myakinino, Moskovskaya oblast', রাশিয়া
Kay Redfield Jamison's memoir of her manic-depressive illness (a term she prefers to bipolar, because it implies that mania is so far from depression, when she experiences them both as an awful out-of-control state) does a great job of evoking what it's like as an intelligent, accomplished adult to live with manic depression. She can't help the fact that she's so very accomplished, I became annoyed with her after awhile. Her manic side leads her to be mercurially brilliant, popular with the guys, and emotionally wrecked--but she has an amazing family and friend support system which never lets her fall through the cracks. Even people without manic depression can sometimes fall through the cracks. She manages to take lithium only intermittently for about a decade, but still rises to be a star in her field of clinical psychology. She seems lucky and unusual. Definitely not a portrait of a typical manic depressive, or even a typical middle-class individual--she's kind of a rock star in her field, and it became grating to spend time with her after awhile. Still, a great description of the day-to-day life of a person so smart she resists treatment for a life-threatening mental illness, until it almost does her in.