Book Review -- Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir, by Mark Vonnegut, MD was another one of the first books I've turned to when Brian got his diagnosis. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is going to be a great review, or just a huge thank you to Dr. Vonnegut for writing this book, and sharing his life with us. My reaction after reading his book, is "wow" his family is at least as crazy as mine. The genetics of mental illness shine through both through his family and mine. My other reaction is a feeling of hope. Yes, you can still have a mental illness and go on to have a successful career and relationships. One other thing I enjoyed about the book is for such a serious subject, the tone is light and there are some very funny things that happened in his life. In my own experiences, sometimes funny things are done by mentally ill people, or just happen along the course of the illness. You aren't always able to laugh about them right away, but as time passes, you'll find yourself telling stories that at the root should not be funny, but yet, they are.

I'm not really going to give much more of a "review" in my words, but to leave you with some quotes from the book that really touched me in one way or another. [I read this book on my Kindle, so I apologize for not really having page numbers here.]

"The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I've saved myself trying to be normal."

"A psychotic break is the exact opposite of not taking up much space and being as little trouble as possible." [After having witnessed Brian's psychotic break, I really appreciated this description.]

"Attitude was creating reality."

"Maybe I just had to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, with being scared out of my mind, and to let it go past like it wasn't about me."

"The first truth is that none of the thoughts going by are worth drinking over." p. 124 [Kindle activated a new service where page numbers became available around Feb. 20 or 21] [This is good advice for anyone.]

"There are no people anywhere who don't have some mental illness. It all depends on where you set the bar and how hard you look. What is a myth is that we are mostly mentally well most of the time." p. 166 [yep, I believe this! Could be considered the theme of the book.]

"What so-called normal people are doing when they define disease like manic depression or schizophrenia is reassuring themselves that they don't have a thought disorder, that their thoughts and feelings make perfect sense." p. 166

"As hard as addiction is, it's always possible to quite and change your perception of the world from one where you do drugs and just about nothing good is possible to one where you don't do drugs and good things can happen." p. 187 [I hope this is true for my brother's sake.]

 

Book Review -- Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness

When faced with illness of any sort, John & I often turn to books, and the internet as a means of educating ourselves. Interestingly, he turns to the "fact" books, and I tend more toward the human interest types of books, and A Brilliant Madness was one of the first I turned to.

Written by actress Patty Duke and Gloria Hochman, this tells the story of Patty Duke's struggle with mental illness. The chapters are alternately written by Ms. Duke, telling the story in her words, and then Ms. Hochman explaining the facts and treatments of manic depressive illness.

Why did I choose this one first, and what did I think? Well, I chose it, I think, because after my brother was diagnosed as bipolar in 1991, my mother started learning more about this disease. Patty Duke was one of the first celebrities that I had ever heard also being bipolar, and she has been quite outspoken about it since her diagnosis in 1982. When my brother was diagnosed, I did contemplate learning more about it then, but my plate was full, or so I thought, and I left it up to my mom to handle things.

So, is it a useful book to read? Yes, and no. For me, it was heartbreaking to read how she struggled for many years with depression, wild manic episodes and multiple suicide threats and attempts. But it was also reassuring in that as bad as it had been for her, now that she had a diagnosis and a treatment plan, life could go on in a more or less normal fashion. Originally written in 1992, the chapters on the illness itself were interesting, but now, in 2011, I found much of the information to be outdated, and I found myself skimming those chapters.

"There comes a point where the mental illness has to stop being the focus of your life. Once you are treated, your world is no longer about depression or mania. It is about living your life -- making a nice dinner, reading a book, or writing one, going to a PTA meeting, and feeling comfortable about it. It's no longer thinking of yourself as a "patient." But you still have to deal with reality. And reality is hard."

Patty Duke, A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness,  p. 291.

We're not at that point yet, but there is hope.