| Unquiet Mind, Can of Madness, Darkness Visible, | | | | childhood figured as a probable genesis of my |
| Best Awful, Girl Interrupted | | | | own disorder; meanwhile as I monitored my |
| It's hard to compare writers on the trouble of | | | | retrograde condition, I felt loss at every hand. |
| mental illness. They each approach the giant | | | | The loss of self-esteem is a celebrated symptom, |
| bubble from a different perspective - some | | | | and my own sense of self had all but disappeared, |
| broadly, some narrowly, some eloquently, and | | | | along with any self-reliance." |
| some in a plain vernacular. Here are five I read | | | | Styron's words were an inspiration to me because |
| who had enough effect on me that I underlined | | | | of his ability to plumb the depths of his feelings |
| their words or commented on their style. None of | | | | and return to express them with so much power. |
| the books I read are technical manuals, but rather | | | | Others that I have read are not equal to this, but |
| are memoirs or stories. | | | | they offer different delights, crazy people doing |
| The Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison, is | | | | crazy manic stuff with some occasions of |
| probably the signature book on the subject of | | | | wonderful description. |
| manic depression. This memoir is written with | | | | Carrie Fisher has explored this subject in several |
| emotional and intellectual breadth, clarity, and | | | | best sellers. Her character Susan Vale, whom we |
| sensitivity. Her story is a compelling one of the | | | | take as a thinly veiled version of the author |
| psychiatrist affected with the disease she treats. I | | | | herself, is very manic. Susan calls herself bipolar, |
| was riveted by her tale. She gives a complete | | | | but we don't get to see much of the polar |
| picture, from the manic highs where: "The ideas | | | | opposite. Mostly it's the manic personality that |
| and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting | | | | gets the play. Susan shops till she drops, gets |
| stars, and you follow them until you find better | | | | tattoos on a whim, runs off to Mexico with any |
| and brighter ones," to the depths of depression | | | | willing stud, and takes prodigious amounts of |
| where: "I went to the eighth floor of the stairwell | | | | drugs. I read her for that side of the pole |
| of the UCLA Hospital and, repeatedly, only just | | | | occasionally finding a pearl or two of poetic |
| resisted throwing myself off the ledge." So much | | | | writing. Take for example this quote from the |
| has been written about this wonderful book that I | | | | Best Awful: |
| can add little more other than to say I treasure it | | | | "Maybe Dr. Mishkin wouldn't notice her ecstatic |
| and thumb through it often. Jamison is the | | | | state too much, somehow not notice that |
| benchmark against which I measure my own | | | | everywhere she went, all light was absorbed |
| work. | | | | directly into her, with no chance to escape. She |
| A Can of Madness, by Jason Pegler, published by | | | | was barely able to sit still, squirming with sunshine, |
| Chipmunka in the UK, is an uneven work, | | | | this chaos of pleasure bubbling up in her rendering |
| awkward, clumsy, rambling, sounding often like a | | | | her barely able to see. So intent was she on |
| drugged-up young person off to a rave. Maybe | | | | these inner workings that she wouldn't be |
| the young afflicted with Bipolar Disorder is the | | | | surprised if her eyes glowed, if every word she |
| target audience. It didn't appeal to me. The writer | | | | uttered pulsed with a knowing, phosphorous glow. |
| formed his own publishing company to print his | | | | Everything outside her looked electric, friendly, |
| work and other works by people with mental | | | | and coated with silvery zinc." |
| illness. Pegler has become a known spokesperson | | | | Carrie Fisher can mine the celebrity end of the |
| in England on the issue of mental health and is to | | | | mental health genre better than anyone else. The |
| be commended for his efforts. He is not, | | | | writing is slick, penetrates deep enough to be |
| however, a compelling writer and his book is | | | | interesting, but not so deep as to be utterly |
| uneven and full of strange transitions, but there | | | | disturbing. For that I turn to a writer whose |
| are moments that flash with a brilliance that | | | | descriptions of the mental hospital struck far too |
| comes to those with mania as in this passage | | | | true to me. |
| which begins oddly but becomes frighteningly real: | | | | Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen is a story of |
| "Anyway back at the ranch. In a confused | | | | being eighteen years old and sent to a psychiatric |
| paradise, I basically rearranged all of Felix's books, | | | | hospital for two years. Her descriptions of the |
| while putting anything that was black in the bath | | | | experience reminded me of my own at Yale New |
| and throwing anything that was white down the | | | | Haven Hospital. The layout of the rooms, the |
| stairs; among other things, I also fixed the cat a | | | | locked doors at the end of the hall, the nurse's |
| fried breakfast and threw all my CDs around the | | | | station midway down the corridor, and the doors |
| flat (because I thought they were flying saucers | | | | across the hall from the nurse's station where the |
| that acted as boomerangs). I was also becoming | | | | shock therapy and ice baths were, was same as |
| more and more confused as my thoughts | | | | the place I was sent. Are all psychiatric wards the |
| became racier. I thought the flat was turning into | | | | same? She describes similar events. I |
| Noah's Ark and I was Noah so I set about my | | | | remembered the poor patients who went into |
| business...I left the bath water running, made a | | | | those shock therapy and ice bath rooms |
| bridge down the stairs, throwing everything I | | | | screaming and came out zombies. The feelings of |
| could find down it, completely trashed my room | | | | being in such a place sends shivers down my |
| and started painting Felix's carpet blue." | | | | spine. Kaysen records feelings of apprehension, |
| Pegler does a good job describing the manic state | | | | anxiety, and fear at being locked away in this |
| in plain terms, but doesn't give a good accounting | | | | institution all too similar to my own. |
| of the depressive cycle. For that we have to look | | | | She, however, recounts a different mental |
| at another writer, a truly great one. | | | | condition that intrigued me. Her obsessive thought |
| Darkness Visible, A Memoir of Madness by William | | | | about velocity and viscosity was nothing like |
| Styron is a book to read many times. Styron | | | | anything I had ever experienced. I did not fixate |
| writes beautifully of the pain and anguish of | | | | on my tongue, its components: the tip, the |
| depression. No one, I believe, has expressed the | | | | smooth part, the back, the bumpy part, the sides, |
| feelings better. He begins with a haunting | | | | and the scratchy part. What is the scratchy part |
| remembrance of his visit to Paris: | | | | of a tongue? Her thought foci were totally |
| "It reappeared, however, that October night when | | | | different from mine, but as she said, "my mind |
| I passed the gray stone façade in a drizzle, | | | | could go in such loops and often does." The mind |
| and the recollection of my arrival so many years | | | | of a mentally ill person can obsess on one thing or |
| before started flooding back, causing me to feel | | | | another, returning to it again and again never |
| that I had come fatally full circle. I recall saying to | | | | letting it go. For Kaysen it was her tongue. For |
| myself that when I left Paris for New York the | | | | me it was circular thought in general. I would not |
| next morning it would be a matter of forever. I | | | | obsess on one thing, but would circle through |
| was shaken by the certainty with which I | | | | thought after thought, always coming back to |
| accepted the idea that I would never see France | | | | some particular origin, exhausted after a round |
| again, just as I would never recapture a lucidity | | | | about journey through thousands of permutations |
| that was slipping away from me with terrifying | | | | of possibility. I would spend hours in this hopeless |
| speed." | | | | spinning of thought, which never resolved itself. |
| Styron's style is spare, but eloquent. He is able to | | | | Kaysen states that those who end up with these |
| penetrate to the core of the emotions centered | | | | kinds of flaws have what she calls |
| around the troublesome bubble of mental illness. | | | | "Stigmatography." This is a curious non-word not |
| He goes on to record: | | | | found in the dictionary, but I like it. I think she is |
| "Loss in all of its manifestations is the touchstone | | | | meaning we are in the topography of stigma, lost |
| of depression - in the progress of the disease and | | | | forever. I hope we the mentally ill can find our |
| most likely, in its origin. At a later date I would | | | | way out. Writing, I believe, is one way of finding a |
| gradually be persuaded that devastating loss in | | | | passage. |