Nidhi Patel's 'An Unquiet Mind'

An Unquiet Mind
Nidhi Patel
MISA
July 28, 14

I have a family member (male cousin) who is bi-polar. He got diagnosed two years ago and since I am not around him much, I had to call him for this paper. When I called him, I told him that I have an essay to write about and the prompt is, Write about some of the individuals you know who have a psych disorder. How did they deal with it? Did they cope well or did they struggle. He couldn’t help but laugh out loud and tell me to come over to his house because this was going to be a long conversation. So I went over and he started by telling me how there are different forms of bipolar and that the first thing to know is that “I am supposed to be on my medications but most of these
medications are terrible for my body and gives me this level headnesses that I just absolutely hate.
This is why I used to drink so much- form of self-medication- you are probably used to this-since you work with crazies like me.” He told me that most of “us” bipolar people love being in our manic stage- it is such a great feeling, almost like a drug rush. He explained that it gives him a feeling of euphoria and that he is on top of the world. However, following that he explained that while I loved my manic stage, I hated everything that came after it. Following the manic stage is the crash and depression. It hurts so much to be in that stage. He said, “I feel so helpless, useless, empty, like there is a dark hole right in the middle of my chest and everything is just flowing straight through me.” Hearing him say that was so difficult for me. I couldn’t believe that I was unaware about this until I asked my mother if we
knew anyone with bipolar. He said when I crash being productive goes straight out the window.
Following that he explained to him how him and his sister don’t speak anymore because he has a manic attack during her wedding causing a huge scene, which led to her fiancé, and his family leaving the wedding. He told me that she blames him for her being alone. I asked him how that made him feel and he said, “Imagine knowing that you are doing something that is hurting someone you love so much but whenever you try to stop going that it gets worse and eventually the whole situation goes out of control, well that is my life…majority of my life.” It was so painful hearing all this. It is so easy to sit in class and watch those YouTube videos about bipolar disorder but actually having someone physically sit in from of me and asking him to describe his life with this illness is overwhelming. He said, “I know plenty of people that are bi-polar and are happy with their lives. Their families on the other hand have a hard time handling it. I know my family does. I have heard my sister crying about how she wished that it would just stop. “ He told me that he overheard his sister ask his mother why my medications weren’t working, and what did she do that I turned out this way. “It is so hard hearing something like that from your family, the people you think are your support system.”
He told me that he struggled a lot in the beginning, it was almost a continuous phase of denial but how he has learned to just deal with it, simply accept that he has it and that it’s not the end of the world. He has learned to find things in life that makes him happy and he just incorporates that into his life. He also told me that he has learned not to let his cycles get the best of him. He has learned to recognize how much he can handle so that he does not bit off more than he can chew. He said, “Whenever I feel like I am on top of the world, I remind myself that I am manic and my feelings are not real right now. I have to sit down and repeat to myself that this feeling won’t last. This feeling won’t last. This feeling will not last at all.” He told me that he has also learned to make sure that he gets the maximum amount of sleep possible because the sleep helps him with his highs and lows. He explained that it is so important to be aware of the toll it has on the family and to make sure that my family does not take too much into their hands all at once. He told me that he has to constantly remind himself to sleep, to make sure he doesn’t over book himself, and to really properly recognize his cycles and triggers. “I have to stay away from speed, speed is the worst thing for me and any other bipolar person. It is also soooo very important to understand that myself and other bipolar people will go out to get help when we are depressed not when we are happy so it is so easy to get misdiagnosed. Prozac and other antidepressants tare the worst for me.” He then joked about how the only positive of being a bipolar is the disability check but he won’t even sign up for that because he can make more money working. He explained that the government aid is useless.
Following that he told me about how his own relationship just ended. He explained that, his girlfriend and him had been dating for several years, when suddenly things started to change and he started to feel more manic episodes. He told me that since he didn’t know what was happening, he couldn’t control himself and that he believes that it scared her away. I noticed that he was very understandable because he told me that he understood why she left and that she has the right to do so. “It is so important for both family members and the bipolar person to truly accept that our cycles are unpredictable. People keep thinking that we only go from one extreme emotion to another - that is bullshit. It all depends on that is happening in my life at that moment.” He told me that in order for him to be able to live a normal life he had to learn how to process his emotions and had to learn to control them. “Life becomes a lot easier when you just accept that we are crazy and that we have crazy cycles that will come out at any moment. “
In my personal opinion, An Unquiet Mind is a very good book to read, especially, if you are in the field of psychology. Author, Kay Redfield Jamison has written about her experience with manic-depression, which she prefers over calling it bipolar. Not a single reader can go untouched by her memoir; it is such a powerful, insightful and eloquent depictions of life with bipolar. Dr. Jamison had lived with bipolar for more than three decades. She had dealt with its peculiar kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror.
Today, Dr. Jamison is a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine and a coauthor of the standard medical text on manic-depressive illness. Knowing about her great achievements, makes her book so fascinating- reading about her struggle against lithium, which we see saves her life. She talks about how for a period of time she believes that she can handle her illness without the help out her medications and how dealing with the severe side effects made that much more difficult for her to take them.
She also goes on to talk about her deep resistance to surrendering the exhilarating highs of the illness. She describes it as the “intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness of my mind's flight"--for a life that seemed restrictive, less productive, and "maddeningly less intoxicating." She eventually gives in to Lithium because she learns that her only other alternative was insanity or death.
Her book also offers a captivating description of her recovery process. She talks about how important medications, psychotherapy and having healthy helping relationships is when trying to handle a life with this illness. She gives the readers fully access to her personal resilience in a struggle that took her to the “blackest caves of the mind.” In the book she says, "One of the advantages of having had manic-depressive illness for more than thirty years is that very little seems insurmountably difficult."
The layout of the book is really helpful when it comes to trying to understand her struggle. The book’s arrangement is essentially chronological, staring with her childhood and adolescence. She discusses the emergence of the disorder, the uncompromising course, and its unbreakable hold on her life. She goes into detail about her severest symptoms of depression and mania, her visual hallucinations and her deliberate and nearly deadly overdose on lithium. She also has areas where she has a discussion about the positive aspects of this disorder, including the relationship between bipolar disorder and creativity. However, I believe that it takes a certain level of courage to be able to write such a personal memoir but I found her take on the positive aspects of having this disorder a little unsettling. It made me feel like she was trying convince her readers that it is a disorder worth having.
An Unquiet Mind is a type of a book, which lingers in your thoughts even after you are long finished with it. It is more than just a book about a person with disorder of moods and madness, the book is a deep journey into the heart of our humanity through the eyes of his unpredictable illness. Her use of humor, grace and truthfulness makes the journey that much more memorable. From reading the book and talking to my cousin, I learned that it is all about patient- as a family member it is important for me to educate myself and try and understand what goes through his mind when he is having these cycles. What is his typical day like inside his head and outside in the real world.