Kay Redfield Jamison: An Unquiet Mind
Selected Excerpts
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere this changes. The fast ideas are too fast, and there are far too many, overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friend's faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against … you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and emerged totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.
It goes on and on, and finally there are only other's recollections of your behavior … your bizarre, frantic, aimless behaviors … for mania has at least some grace in partially obliterating memories. What then after the medications, psychiatrist, despair, depression, and overdose? All those incredible feelings to sort through. Who is being too polite to say what? Who knows what? What did I do? Why? And most hauntingly, when will it happen again? Then, too, are the bitter reminders … medicine to take, resent, forget, take, resent, and forget, but always to take. Credit cards revoked, bounced checks to cover, explanations due at work, apologies to make, intermittent memories (what did I do?), friendships gone ordained, a ruined marriage. And always, when will it happen again? Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild impulsive chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, disparate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither. Virginia Woolf, in her dives and climbs, said it all, "How far do our feelings take their colour from the dive underground? I meant, what is the reality of any feeling?””
Discussion Questions
Kay Jamison discusses her experience with manic depression in her memoir An Unquiet Mind. What stood out to you in this excerpt? Did anything surprise you?
“Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild impulsive chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, disparate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.”
Jamison has chosen to identify herself by the term “manic depression” rather than the more conventional term “bipolar disorder.” Does this passage from Alexander Linklater’s review of Jamison’s book shed light on that choice?
“Jamison, writing in the mid-90s, says she felt personally affronted by the term "bipolar". She was not afraid of admitting that she herself suffered episodes of "madness" – nor did she feel the need to be de-stigmatised by politically correct terminology. A psychiatrist who has suffered from the illness for most of her life, she prefers the term manic depression because it is both more expressive of her experience and, ultimately, more clinically accurate.”
How do you define yourself?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“The line “Which of the me’s is me?” really stood out to me. It’s the perfect encapsulation of various patients I’ve had in the past who weren’t taking their prescribed meds, and pushing thru psychoses, bc they were afraid of not feeling like their true selves”—@natashaabadilla
“Her experience makes me question the premise of a fixed self. We are so many things and states and experiences. That's perhaps most extreme for someone who experiences mania and depression, but is also true for everyone at some level”—@colleenmfarrell
“To me there’s an intimacy to “manic depression” that doesn’t exist with bipolar. Bipolar describes the process & gives the illusion of ping ponging back & forth. Manic depression describes the quality of the feeling state. It brings you a little bit closer to the thing itself”—@PoojaLakshmin
“I think this gets to the heart of self-labeling or self-identifying rather than BEING labeled or pigeonholed. It's an active demonstration of controlling one's terminology, and thereby maintaining/defining identity.”—@alessacolaMD
About this #MedHumChat
An Unquiet Mind was paired with “Perdition Days,” an essay by Esmé Weijun Wang for a #MedHumChat discussion August 7, 2019 exploring Mental Illness & Identity.
We were honored to be joined by special guest Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, MD (@PoojaLakshmin), a Psychiatrist and Clinical Assistant Professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. She specializes in women’s health and reproductive psychiatry. You can learn more about her here.
The pieces for this chat, along with the discussion questions, were selected by Margot Hedlin.
About the Author
Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison is a writer, clinical psychologist, and professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her work focuses on bipolar disorder, or manic depression, which she has had since early adulthood. You can learn more about her here.