schizoaffective

some kids hear and feel and see stuff
we cannot. when they finally confide in someone
they are often disbelieved they
must be crazy. distracted from their schoolwork 

they become anxious and depressed
even suicidal. things will only get better when 

they find someone they can talk to who believes 

and maybe introduces them to a psychiatrist 

too if there is no other way

#katyamills

Review: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kay Jamison has spent most of her adult life studying mood disorders and living with bipolar illness. In this memoir, she faithfully shares her experience. She takes us inside a manic episode as she remembers it, and then the subsequent deep depression. Even breathing becomes a chore. She details the times she spun out and how the beauty of the world through fresh mania soon becomes lost in a whirlwind of racing thoughts and confusion. Anyone who has needed medication may relate to the resistance to taking it Kay describes so well, and the consequences of refusing meds when you need them. For years she started and stopped Lithium, and even when she knew she needed it, she would stop when either she fell dreamy in love with the memory of her mania, or the side effects became too much to bear. Turns out she was on a much higher dose than she needed. But the side effects of Lithium were nothing compared with the devastation which came of allowing her mania to resurface. Her marriage and friendships were poisoned. She maxed out her credit cards. Her professional life suffered. She wanted to end her life.

Miraculously, with the help of family and friends and therapy and meds, she was able to run a mood disorder clinic at UCLA, gain tenure, and today stands as a highly regarded clinician at Johns Hopkins. But most importantly she survived it all. Bipolar illness, aka manic-depression (although the latter usage has fallen out of fashion in diagnostic circles, she believes it sums up the experience), takes lives. People get attached to their mania, they dream of their mania, and some never come around to accepting they need meds. This book is a must read for anyone with bipolar illness.

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mental - quattro

He was showing me unconditional positive regard.
I was telling him all the ways and places I was scarred.
He was chewing on the fat of my tales.
I was eating all my fingernails.
He was redirecting me like a train conductor.
I saw red and charged like a bull.
He was charging me through the teeth.
Paid in full.

I was waxing poetic.
His thoughts told him I was pathetic.
I gussied up to him like a whore.
He had his back to the door.
I blasted him for offering me Prozac.
He looked at me like I was crazy.
Called me a fucking throwback.
Or was it the voices in my head?

I slit my wrists and put them in his face.
He let me bleed out. Unconditionally.
I paid to have his carpet cleaned.
To keep my credit clean.
He was showing me unconditional positive regard.

I asked for a cup of tea.
He fifty-one fiftied me.

I ran away before the sedation.
Into the flickering movie
of guided imagery.

He was golden showering me
with unconditional positive regard.
I had clearly drawn up my knees,
drawn up my guard.

He drew checks off my back account.
I drew pictures of infinity.
He rented Girl, Interrupted. 
Then handled me with
more or less
care.

I was embryonic again.
Statuesque.
He wore a Buddha smile on his face.
I was unfashionably broke
and stressed.
Developmentally-challenged.
Locked up in chemical
arrest.

He poisoned me with
unconditional
positive
regard.