Brain Drain

My past few days have been anxiety ridden and I’ve found myself just wanting it to all go away, angry at myself for not trying hard enough to break out of old habits, old ways of thinking.   But when things get rough I’ve been finding myself returning to Jamison’s epilogue in her memoir, An Unquiet Mind. She reminds me to both reflect on what my OCD has taken away from me, but to also be thankful for what it’s given me in return (and maybe, too, how it can enlighten my own work despite how hard it is to meet the demands of the academic structure when going through a rocky time). Jamison strives to accept who she is, what she’s struggled with, and she “no longer makes attempts to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces” (218). Try t

Before starting Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, I was interested in memoir’s relation to mental illness. I wondered, are memoirs like Jamison’s successful? Are they able to capture the true nature of the illnesses they discuss? Do they work to change perceptions concerning mental illness?  What are the benefits and detriments of these types of personal narratives?  

I just finished reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, which describes her long journey with manic-depressive illness. It was a wonderful read and really depicted the roller coaster ride that comes with mental illness—its highs and lows, triumphs and defeats, beauty and despair. Anne and I are particularly interested in talking about An Unquiet Mind because it very much relates to Margaret Price’s Mad at School. Jamison, who works in psychiatry, reveals throughout her book the struggles of coping with her own illness in the academic setting, and more specifically the field of psychology.