An Unquiet Mind : A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Rating:
Summary: The Madness
Review: For a while now I been reading a book called An Unquiet Mind, it's a memoir of the moods and problems Kay Jamison was going through in her life. It's about a women going though manic depressions and trying to go to school to become something in life. As she was growing up she was raised on a military base while her dad was in the navy. She had always loved medical and had scientific interest. Going thought her adolescence stage she started trying to pursue her interest. Then she started to become very depressed in high school and she didn't want anyone to notice her and this was a problem because she was a very outgoing person. Kay was only a senior in high school when she went thought her first manic attack. After surviving high school she continue on to college at the age of eighteen going to University of California. At UCLA she continues to study her love and interest in medicine, she wasn't too sure what she wanted to be yet in the medical field, but later on she became her professor assistant in UCLA Department of Psychiatry. It shows the detail of the ups and downs in her life and the struggles she went through.

My Opinion of the book it's a good book to read if you interested in medical things and want to learn about manic-depression. Yes, I would recommend this book to people and especially to the audience of people that's studying in the medical field.


Rating:
Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about bipolar disorder
Review: This author has used personal experience to describe her illness. It's not just another academic project full of research and interviews. The fact that she actually has the illness and can write about it so well is a testament to her strength and bravery to share it with the world. Sam Vaknin writes extremely well about narcissism, as he himself is a narcissist. Kay R Jamison is an expert on bipolar disorder. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking a career in counseling or psychotherapy.

Rating:
Summary: Provided great insight
Review: As a frequent reader of memoirs of those suffering from various disorders, I found this book to measure up equally to the others, particularly in the amount of insight it provided with respect to bipolar disorder itself. It answers important questions and even tackles the semantics of the change from the term "manic-depressive illness" to "bipolar disorder" and this change's psychological implications for sufferers of this illness (stigma, accuracy, etc.).
This is definitely an important read if you or someone you know has bipolar disorder, as it may clue you in to aspects of yourself or friends that you may have not previously understood. Furthermore, the fact that the author herself is a psychiatrist adds another level to her coping strategies and what she went through during an era in which the stigma against the illness was extremely high.
The only negative point about this book is that she did a great deal of telling instead of showing, which may have inhibited her from getting the extent of her extreme feelings across to her readers.

Rating:
Summary: I read this to understand someone with bipolar disorder.
Review: A very creative, vibrant person, but someone who seemed to break with reality at some point, and only those close to her could see it for the madness it was. That is why I am so glad that Kay is willing to use the word madness -- because it is truly baffling to people around a person who is having psychotic episodes. And yes, that did surprise me, that psychoses can sneak up on a manic/depressive. The importance of medication seems the key, and Kay Redfield Jamison's honest discussion of both her father's flights of mania that ruined his career and her own struggles with admitted psychotic episodes was revealing. A biochemical disease deserves a biochemical treatment; just like in diabetes, for instance.

It would be a terrible waste to lose these often creative, trail blazing people in our world because of this disease. I wish all those with bipolar disorder the best, and let's also understand how this disease can affect those closest to such persons -- who may be suffering under the effects of 'mad' behavior. Especially when a bipolar person has authority, this can be a very difficult road for those close to a person with this disorder. How do they prevent errors in judgement from hurting others?

We need to be open and honest about this disease so that everyone involved can express what is happening -- so all can benefit from proper medical treatment.

Rating:
Summary: So Clear
Review:
Several items are clearly outlines within this awe inspiring,truth telling book. That is-abuse comes in many forms. Whether it is abuse at your own hands or that of someone elses. I also learned from reading this memoir and several others...that illnesses such as this can be brought on by the terrors that children live with early in life. I applaud this author for speaking clearly and concisely...for letting us in to the thoughts that run through the mind. Also for making us more aware.
Also recommended: Nightmares Echo-Katlyn Stewart, A Child Called It-David Pelzer,Lucky-Anna Salter


Rating:
Summary: An Unquiet Mind Review
Review: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison is about a woman and her struggles with manic-depressive illness (also know as bipolar disorder). Because it is a very complicated and complex disease, much of the book was dedicated to explaining the effects of the disease and all the aspects of it. Before I read this book, I did not know much about the illness. The most that I knew about it was mainly textbook definitions. Reading this book gave me a much better understanding about manic depression. I was able to get an insiders point of view about the disorder. It was interesting to see how the disease affected the author's life, her friends, her family, and her profession. Also, she told about her struggles through accepting her diagnosis and the treatment that she received.
This memoir was different than other memoirs that I have read. Most of the memoirs that I have read have told about specific events that have happened in ones life and that have had a large impact on an author's life. I felt that this book was more general than that. Although the author did focus on a few specific scenes that she remembered, she did not go into detail that much about specific incidents. She devoted sections to specific topics, but it seemed that she jumped around from different aspects of that topic throughout the sections. Because I expected more stories than were told, I was at first a bit disappointed, but as I continued to read I found that the style used was most effective for the book because there is so much to tell about manic depression.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. After reading it, I feel that I have a better, more realistic comprehension of the book and I feel that Jamison did a fine job portraying the disease and the effects it has on her life.


Rating:
Summary: I understand
Review: I, like the author, would not give up my life as a person with manic depression. I've read a few reviews where people take offense to her statements to that effect. Even with medication, the condition is a part of who I am. Not only do I have to accept that reality, I might as well make the best of it. It is common knowledge that many people with manic depression are quite creative. My creativity does not go away when I take medication, as some people think. Given a choice to be someone else or be me, I'd stay me (duh). There is nothing offensive about this attitude. I respect Jamison for her bravery in making this statement.

I could not put this book down. Great writing and pure honesty.




Rating:
Summary: Excellent Account
Review: Having dealt most of my life with Manic-Depression, this is one of the better books to read, both from the Doctor's point of view as well as one that is living with the situation. I wish it would have touched a little more on the why it happens but thankfully there are several boos out there that explain the why's such as:
Skywriting, Brilliant Madness and Nightmares Echo.

Rating:
Summary: A comfortable distance
Review: For a memoir written by a psychologist about a life with mental illness this is strangely lacking in introspection. Many of us with persistent mental illness look back on a life filled with poor decisions and opportunities lost when our lives have spun out of control, which Jamison surely knows; yet somehow her life seems to have worked out very well indeed. How? By the end of the book I found her lack of interest in the question maddening. Is the only solution lithium and a circle of friends consisting of psychologists and psychiatrists?

But I did read to the end, long after I lost interest in the author herself, simply because she writes so well, without artifice or cliche.

Rating:
Summary: A tremendously moving book -
Review: This is the best book I know about manic - depression. It is a tremendously moving personal account. Where she is especially insightful , and I believe will give understanding to many who have no direct experience of the subject is in her description of her ' manic times'. No one has not seen a truly manic person in all their strange power and often charm and strength can understand how difficult and painful the ' up side' can be. Kate Jamison tells her own story with great narrative skill . She is just a wonderful writer, illness or no illness. She gets in this book to depths of feeling and understanding which no other non- fiction work I know approaches.
This book could not be more recommended.
However I would caution the reader, that however romantic this disorder might seem it is truly not that at all, and truly a place you should never want to be.
One important and hopeful point is Kay Jamison's own example of with all the suffering still achieving much in her life. The greatest manic- depressive I have ever known did this also. And he too had a tremendous power of poetry and language so beyond the ordinary as to move you with his slightest utterance. Though he said ' no a thousand times no' many many times he also on his good days and when he was not too high could make you laugh and cry and even love life as this book also does.