Bipolar Blog

Madness, by Marya Hornbacher, is one of the few personal accounts of bipolar disorder I’ve read that covers the escalating unfolding of the disorder from such an early age (4 years old) to the present. The book covers just about every aspect of the struggle with bipolar disorder – early failures to diagnose it, misdiagnosis, clueless and competent psychiatrists and therapists, stressors, triggers, the tendency to self-medicate, hospitalizations, hyper-sexuality, the terrible side effects of many of the medications used to treat depression and mania, bipolar and career, alcoholism, self-mutilation, relationship dynamics, lack of insight (not realizing when a manic episode is settling in), and the highly productive and invigorating hypomanias that often convince those with bipolar disorder that nothing’s wrong. Her narrative functions almost like a textbook case study of bipolar disorder. (more…)

Book Review

I was recently in the market for a book to help my daughter gain a better understanding and acquire some coping skills for living with a parent who has bipolar disorder. I searched Amazon and couldn’t find anything very promising, so I broadened my search through Google and found a book called I’m Not Alone: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has Mental Illness by Dr. Michelle D. Sherman, PhD and DeAnne Sherman, Michelle’s mother. Michelle sent me a copy of the book to review.

Admittedly, I have a tough time reviewing books written for teenagers. For one, I’m not a teenager and I don’t work with teenagers on a daily basis. I also have two grown children – a son who’s 21 and a daughter who is 18. Even when they were little, I sort of treated them as adults, so I’m a little out of touch with the teen scene. (more…)

The Sunday edition of the New York Times, January 13, 2008, carried a story entitled “Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am” by Terri Cheney, author of Manic: A Memoir, due to hit the bookstores on February 5, 2008. Terri has given us permission to include her article, in its entirety, in our Bipolar Stories section. We invite you to check out Terri’s Article along with stories from our other readers, offer your insights, and share your own story.

If you’re wondering what mania, hypomania, or a mixed state feels like to a person with bipolar disorder, you’ll get your chance to find out when Manic: A Memoir by Terri Cheney hits the bookstores on February 5, 2008. I have read a couple other personal accounts of what living with bipolar disorder is like, and I think Manic captures it best. (more…)