Download or read book Bipolar Poems Before After Lithium written by Gene Olson and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty years have passed since Gene Olson spent many a lonely night on fire and security watch at the Guam Naval Transient Barracks. With long hours, no books or magazines, and only a lizard as company, he picked up a pen and paper and began writing poetry. Though once dead, these pages have been resurrected in his new book. Bipolar Poems: Before and After Lithium is a fascinating poetry collection that spans half a century. Some of the poems were written during Olson’s time in the military, before he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with lithium, offering an interesting contrast with his work of later years. These poems are raw, courageous, compelling, and entertaining—shedding some much-needed light on the shadows of mental illness. I was trying to catch my ship The USS Tioga County (LST-1158), last seen somewhere in Vietnam waters. No one knew her exact whereabouts. In Guam I was assigned at the Naval Transient Barracks as an all night Fire and Security Watch. Once an hour I would walk through the barracks and then call a report to the OD, Officer of the Day. I would also collect orders from late sailors and assigned sleeping quarters etc. All through the night I had only one companion. A lizard was hiding behind a large oval clock. When a fly came near, he would slowly crawl out. His tongue was swift, the fly had no chance! With many hours, no book, no magazines, I picked up a pen and paper and started writing poetry. It was poetry only for myself. I never showed it to anyone. I never dreamed someday it would be published. Fifty years have passed since my poetry attempts started on the Guam Naval Transient Barracks. BIPOLAR POEMS BEFORE AND AFTER LITHIUM, was partly gathered over this time period. Though once dead, the pages have been resurrected. I sometimes wonder if these poems are worthy of print at all. Or if I’m just being a “Proud Peacock.” Time will tell.
Download or read book Odes to Lithium written by Shira Erlichman and published by Alice James Books. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Captivating poems and visual art seek to bring comfort and solidarity to anyone living with Bipolar Disorder. In this remarkable debut, Shira Erlichman pens a love letter to Lithium, her medication for Bipolar Disorder. With inventiveness, compassion, and humor, she thrusts us into a world of unconventional praise. From an unexpected encounter with her grandmother’s ghost, to a bubble bath with Bjӧrk, to her plumber’s confession that he, too, has Bipolar, Erlichman buoyantly topples stigma against the mentally ill. These are necessary odes to self-acceptance, resilience, and the jagged path toward healing. With startling language, and accompanied by her bold drawings and collages, she gives us a sparkling, original view into what makes us human.
Download or read book Robert Lowell Setting the River on Fire written by Kay Redfield Jamison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • In this magisterial study of the relationship between illness and art, the best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison, brings an entirely fresh understanding to the work and life of Robert Lowell (1917-1977), whose intense, complex, and personal verse left a lasting mark on the English language and changed the public discourse about private matters. In his poetry, Lowell put his manic-depressive illness (now known as bipolar disorder) into the public domain, and in the process created a new and arresting language for madness. Here Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell’s story, illuminating not only the relationships between mania, depression, and creativity but also how Lowell’s illness and treatment influenced his work (and often became its subject). A bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was—both despite and because of mental illness—a passionate, original observer of the human condition.
Download or read book Lithium A Doctor a Drug and a Breakthrough written by Walter A. Brown and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable untold story of a miracle drug, the forgotten pioneer who discovered it, and the fight to bring lithium to the masses. The DNA double helix, penicillin, the X-ray, insulin—these are routinely cited as some of the most important medical discoveries of the twentieth century. And yet, the 1949 discovery of lithium as a cure for bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the most important—yet largely unsung—breakthroughs of the modern era. In Lithium, Walter Brown, a practicing psychiatrist and professor at Brown, reveals two unlikely success stories: that of John Cade, the physician whose discovery would come to save an untold number of lives and launch a pharmacological revolution, and that of a miraculous metal rescued from decades of stigmatization. From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration to exile, Brown chronicles the troubling history of the diagnosis and (often ineffective) treatment of bipolar disorder through the centuries, before the publication of a groundbreaking research paper in 1949. Cade’s “Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement” described, for the first time, lithium’s astonishing efficacy at both treating and preventing the recurrence of manic-depressive episodes, and would eventually transform the lives of patients, pharmaceutical researchers, and practicing physicians worldwide. And yet, as Brown shows, it would be decades before lithium would overcome widespread stigmatization as a dangerous substance, and the resistance from the pharmaceutical industry, which had little incentive to promote a naturally occurring drug that could not be patented. With a vivid portrait of the story’s unlikely hero, John Cade, Brown also describes a devoted naturalist who, unlike many modern medical researchers, did not benefit from prestigious research training or big funding sources (Cade’s “laboratory” was the unused pantry of an isolated mental hospital). As Brown shows, however, these humble conditions were the secret to his historic success: Cade was free to follow his own restless curiosity, rather than answer to an external funding source. As Lithium makes tragically clear, medical research—at least in America—has transformed in such a way that serendipitous discoveries like Cade’s are unlikely to occur ever again. Recently described by the New York Times as the “Cinderella” of psychiatric drugs, lithium has saved countless of lives and billions of dollars in healthcare costs. In this revelatory biography of a drug and the man who fought for its discovery, Brown crafts a captivating picture of modern medical history—revealing just how close we came to passing over this extraordinary cure.
Download or read book A Spectrum Approach to Mood Disorders Not Fully Bipolar but Not Unipolar Practical Management written by James Phelps and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-06-20 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to understand your clients' true illnesses, not just their DSM checklists. Though the DSM discusses the criteria for mood disorders in absolute terms—either present or absent—professionals are aware that while such dichotomies are useful for teaching, they are not always true in practice. Recent genetic data support clinicians' longstanding recognition that a continuum of mood disorders between unipolar and bipolar better matches reality than a yes/no, bipolar-or-not approach. If we acknowledge that continuum, how does this affect our approach to diagnosis and treatment? In A Spectrum Approach to Mood Disorders, nationally recognized expert James Phelps provides an in-depth exploration of the signs, symptoms, and nuanced presentations of the mood disorder spectrum, focusing on the broad gray area between Major Depression and Bipolar I. Combining theoretical understanding and real-world scenarios, Phelps offers practical treatment guidelines for clinicians to better understand the subtle ways mood disorders can show up, and how to find the most beneficial path for treatment based on the patient's individual pattern of symptoms. Is it trauma, or is it bipolar? Borderline? Both? Phelps's expertise and wealth of personal experience provides readers with unparalleled insight into a subject that is by nature challenging to define. His emphasis on non-medication approaches, as well as chapters on all the major pill-based treatments (from fish oil to lithium to the avoidance of atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants), creates a comprehensive resource for any clinician working with patients on the mood spectrum. Appendices on the relationship between bipolar diagnosis, politics, and religion; and a plain-English approach to the statistical perils of bipolar screening, offer further value. Phelps has written an invaluable guide of the critical information professionals need to treat patients on the mood disorder spectrum, as well as a useful tool for highly motivated families and patients to better understand the mood disorder that effects their lives. This book seeks to alter the black and white language surrounding these mood disorders to influence a shift in how patients are diagnosed—to insure that treatment matches their specific needs.
Download or read book Chemical Poems written by Mario Markus and published by DOS Madres Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. "How many gorillas must disappear, so that we can talk comfortably on our cell phones? Tantalum, the chemical element number 73, abundant in African ores, gives us the answer. It makes its confession, along with other ingredients of the world, under the researching pen of Mario Markus. This work removes the threshold between the visible and the invisible, indifference and surprise, science and poetry. The chemical elements are more than gadgets of the universe: they are some of the wonderful responses that shape our bodies and fill our spirits with a lasting plenitude. Markus' frank and rich poetry shows this to us as he relates the elements to wine and pencils, music and lamps, mirrors and the courtship of butterflies. From verse to verse, the periodic table becomes no longer a rigid information scheme, but a window into creation and its most precious truth, which is life."—Fl via Alvares Ganem, Brazilian poet
Download or read book Detour written by Lizzie Simon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-06-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the fall of 1999, 23-year-old Simon hit the road on a journey that took her across the United States. Her inspired interviews with other young men and women suffering from manic depression comprise the heart and soul of this remarkable memoir.
Download or read book An Unquiet Mind written by Kay Redfield Jamison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply powerful memoir about bipolar illness that has both transformed and saved lives—with a new preface by the author. Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide. Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication.
Download or read book Sorrow and Bliss written by Meg Mason and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brilliantly faceted and extremely funny. . . . While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know." — Ann Patchett “Improbably charming...will have you chortling and reading lines aloud.” — PEOPLE The internationally bestselling, compulsively readable novel—spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark, and tender—that combines the psychological insight of Sally Rooney with the sharp humor of Nina Stibbe and the emotional resonance of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out. Because there’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks. And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London—to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her. But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself—and she’ll find out that she’s not quite finished after all.
Download or read book The Death of Small Creatures written by Trisha Cull and published by Harbour Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-18 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her lyrical memoir The Death of Small Creatures, Trisha Cull lays bare her struggles with bulimia, bipolar disorder and substance abuse. Interspersing snatches of conversations, letters, blog entries and clinical notes with intimate poetic narrative, Cull evokes an accessible experience of mental illness. In The Death of Small Creatures, Cull strives to cope with her hopelessness. She finds comfort in the company of her two pet rabbits until one of them dies as a result of her lethargy. She numbs herself with alcohol. She validates her self-worth by seeking the love of men—any and all men—and three relationships significantly impact her life: her marriage to Leigh, a much older man; her unrequited love for Dr. P, her therapist; and her healthier relationship with Richard, an American she meets through her blog. She tries drugs—Neo Citran, Ativan, Wellbutrin, crack, crystal meth—and after two hospitalizations, she undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. Haunting and expressive, this immersive memoir explores love in all its facets—needy, obsessive, healthy, self-directed—and plunges the reader headlong into the intense and immediate experience of mental illness.
Download or read book Robert Lowell in a New Century written by Thomas Austenfeld and published by Camden House (NY). This book was released on 2019 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New essays providing fresh insights into the great 20th-century American poet Lowell, his writings, and his struggles.
Download or read book The Bipolar Book written by Aysegül Yildiz and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bipolar Book covers not only clinical and pathophysiological matters, but also technical aspects of the evidence accumulation for treatment of bipolar disorder. This approach brings in stimulating discussions on available data originating from current randomized controlled trials with specified considerations of bipolar mania, depression, and prophylaxis by providing accompanying recommendations for an improved evidence formation and synthesis. The Bipolar Book provides a clinician-friendly view of debatable issues on the existing randomized trials based evidence and the ways of improving them by respecting distinctive fluctuating pattern of bipolar disorder.
Download or read book Mental written by Jaime Lowe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting memoir and a fascinating investigation of the history, uses, and controversies behind lithium, an essential medication for millions of people struggling with bipolar disorder. It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just sixteen. She stopped sleeping and eating, and began to hallucinate—demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary, and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventually, hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pills—lithium. In Mental, Lowe shares and investigates her story of episodic madness, as well as the stability she found while on lithium. She interviews scientists, psychiatrists, and patients to examine how effective lithium really is and how its side effects can be dangerous for long-term users—including Lowe, who after twenty years on the medication suffers from severe kidney damage. Mental is eye-opening and powerful, tackling an illness and drug that has touched millions of lives and yet remains shrouded in social stigma. Now, while she adjusts to a new drug, her pursuit of a stable life continues as does her curiosity about the history and science of the mysterious element that shaped the way she sees the world and allowed her decades of sanity. Lowe travels to the Bolivian salt flats that hold more than half of the world’s lithium reserves, rural America where lithium is mined for batteries, and tolithium spas that are still touted as a tonic to cure all ills. With unflinching honesty and humor, Lowe allows a clear-eyed view into her life, and an arresting inquiry into one of mankind’s oldest medical mysteries.
Download or read book 50 Shades of Bipolar written by Stephen Bratakos and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 50 Shades of Bipolar is Stephen Brakatos fi rst book, a collection of poetry written while unaware that he suffered from bipolar disorder. Throughout his mental struggle, he wrote over 50 poems that reflect the power of mania and depression associated with his thoughts and emotions while grappling with mental illness. The poetry refl ected displays the various emotions he encountered ranging from love, depression to anger, and madness. He currently resides in Los Angeles CA, with his two sons.
Download or read book Modern Madness written by Terri Cheney and published by Hachette Go. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terri Cheney ripped the covers off her secret battle with bipolar disorder in her New York Times bestselling memoir, Manic. Now, in this "stigma-buster" and "must-read", she blends a gripping narrative with practical advice (Elyn Saks). Cheney flips mental illness inside out, exposing the visceral story of the struggles, stigma, relationship dilemmas, treatments, and recovery techniques she and others have encountered. Sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing, Modern Madness is the ultimate owner's manual on mental illness, breaking this complex subject down into readily understandable concepts like Instructions for Use, Troubleshooting, Maintenance, and Warranties. Whether you have a diagnosis, love or work with someone who does, or are just trying to understand this emerging phenomenon of our times, Modern Madness is a courageous clarion call for acceptance, both personal and public. With her candid and riveting writing, Cheney delivers more than heartbreak; she promises hope.
Download or read book Nothing Was the Same written by Kay Redfield Jamison and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kay Redfield Jamison, award-winning professor and writer, changed the way we think about moods and madness. Now Jamison uses her characteristic honesty, wit and eloquence to look back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who died of cancer. Nothing was the Same is a penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself.
Download or read book Bipolar Not So Much Understanding Your Mood Swings and Depression written by Chris Aiken and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching depression as a complex disorder with many different facets rather than all-or-nothing. Now available in paperback with an updated preface. Depression confuses the mind, strips away hope, and causes people to blame themselves for an illness they never asked for. This book presents a revolutionary new understanding of the concept of depression and offers readers skills and strategies to manage it. No longer is this a one-size-fits-all diagnosis, and antidepressants are no longer the one-size-fits-all treatment. Mood disorders are now seen to form a spectrum of problems, from common depression on one end to full bipolar disorder on the other. In between these extremes are multitudes of people who are on the middle of the mood spectrum, and this book is for them. The first part of the book helps readers answer the question, “Where am I on the mood spectrum?” By laying the foundation for understanding this spectrum, Aiken and Phelps highlight the key distinctions that define unipolarity, bipolarity, hypomania, mania, and depression. Readers will be able to discern which definition best fits their experience, and use this understanding to learn which treatment methods will work best. The authors also empower readers to look beyond antidepressants. They walk readers through new medications for the mood spectrum, and offer a guide to non-medication treatments that anyone can use on their own, from diet and lifestyle changes to natural supplements. The book also discusses other innovative technologies that can aid in recovery, including dawn simulators, mood apps, and blue-light filters. This thoughtful and beneficial book will offer readers skills and strategies, as well as hope, in the face of debilitating mental challenges.
