This section will be composed of reviews of books, films, and other events that we think that have something to do with bipolar disorder or depression.
August 24, 2008
Hurry Down Sunshine
By Michael Greenberg:
A review
Hurry Down Sunshine is Michael Greenberg’s story of the summer his 15 year old daughter was “struck mad.” She was diagnosed as bipolar 1 after a particularly bad manic episode which resulted in her being hospitalized. The book describes her stay in the hospital and subsequent outpatient treatment that enabled her to get her ready for the first day of school that fall. The book is due for release on Sept 8, but has already been serialized to Oprah Winfrey for publication in her magazine. At this writing it is due to be published in 13 countries.
With early acclaim like this you expect quite a book and Greenberg does not disappoint. The story is gripping from the first page to the last. As much as it is a description of what happened to his daughter, it is also a description of what the experience of a family members’ “madness” was like for him and his family. It reads very much like a novel and once I got started found it hard to put it down until I was done.
He is open and honest about his family. The characters we meet seem real and if you have had any type of experience with bipolar or psychiatric hospitals probably will remind you of people you know. Particularly striking was his portrayal of what the experience of psychiatric hospitalization was like. My wife was hospitalized about a year ago with bipolar disorder and I could relate to his experience with his daughter. It’s like finding yourself in a ballgame that nobody told you was starting, with rules that everyone expects you to know, that you are not sure you are supposed to ask about, that you are not supposed to break or question less you do something to harm the welfare of the person you love. The message is stand aside while the experts do what experts do.
Greenberg eloquently shows that the “discovery” of mental illness changes everything. You first try to find out if it really is what it really is. You try to bargain, but mental illness allows no bargain. You hope that it is something else. After all things like this only happen to other people. You question what it means about your loved one and worry what it means about you. You wonder how it is that you missed it, since in retrospect it now appears like it was right in front of your face all the time. You begin to understand that you can’t go back. And you wonder where you are going. Relationships have to be refigured and recalibrated. There is a tremendous sense of loss. Things feel very out of control and very scary. Bipolar is a vicious disease and this book shows clearly how it ravages and tries to destroy everything in its path.
I really liked the way the book had no pretensions. He tried only to describe things as they were and no more. The treatment his daughter received seemed to me to be inadequate. At 15 she was given mega doses of haldol and other heavy duty drugs that, in my experience, are not usually used with adolescents. She was put on an adult unit, rather than a unit where she would have peers. Most treatment approaches seem to recognize the power of peers in helping people to put there life together and there seemed to be little of that here. The approach seemed to be when in doubt medicate and then medicate some more. I felt sorry for him as a parent trying to deal with something he was told was necessary, that seemed so unnecessary and harmful. Too many people come out of psychiatric hospitals diminished for the experience and I was afraid for his daughter.
The book also dealt well with the issue of stigma. Do you tell? Who do you tell? How will people react? Is somebody still there after they are diagnosed with a mental illness or are they nothing but their diagnosis. All of these are such critical questions and the book talks about how Greenberg and his family dealt with them.
Bipolar doesn’t go away and it didn’t for his daughter. In the postscript he talks about what has happened since this summer. As she grew into young adulthood she had to be hospitalized more than one time as things got out of control. His daughter near the end of the book tells him, “You saved my life.” I got the feeling that when she said this that she,in one sense, saved his. Bipolar is vicious and never gives up. You learn to be thankful for the good times and ready for the bad. I know this is the lesson I learned in my own life and I had the feeling that Michael Greenberg has learned it too.
August 19, 2008
I will not be broken:
A review
I will not be broken by Jerry White is one of the most important books I have read in recent years. His book is subtitled: “5 steps to overcoming a life crisis” and he describes the process as well as anybody I have ever heard. I don’t know if he even mentions mental illness in his book, but what he says has more to do with recovery than most “recovery” books I have read. I walked away thinking I sure wish I knew what he knew a long time ago.
Jerry White is a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and a leader of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He is also a co-founder of Survivor Corps. In 1984 he lost his leg and almost his life to a land-mine in Israel. The book tells the story of his recovery, but that only scratches the surface. He tells the stories of many, many people both famous and ordinary who have had to deal with tragedy of all kinds in their life and what they have done. From the reality of many lives and many tragedies he has distilled a set of principles that he says can help people survive and prosper in even the worst of circumstances. Just reading the stories filled me with gratitude for the many blessings in my life as well as admiration for the courage of so many good people who had so many bad things happen in their life.
His primary idea is that you can learn to survive. It is not just simply a matter of effort or how hard you try. It is a matter of applying specific principles. The more you practice them the better you get. The people he talks about are in the most part ordinary people. White sees himself as an ordinary person. He says to all of us, “You can cope with tragedy. All kinds of people just like you have.”
His principles are simple:
- Face facts- Acknowledge that something terrible has happened and you can’t make it go away or change. It means not only accepting the external facts, but the internal ones: your feelings and thoughts. You have accepted the facts when your attitude towards life is “so now what.”
- Choose life- You must make a daily decision about what you say no to and what you say yes to. It is about even though a tragedy has happened saying to yourself “despite what happened life is not over. A good life is possible.”
- Reach out- Let the people in your life in your life. Break past the isolation that is so often part of coping with a tragedy. Coping is something you do with people. A support network, family, friends, relationships—all these are so essential.
- Get moving- Generate momentum in your life. Do positive and meaningful things. One action leads to another. Positive momentum means something.
- Give back- You never do so well as you do when you are helping others. AA preaches the value of service as does almost every other system of recovery. Human beings are at their best, not just when they feel like they are getting something out of life, but also when they feel like they are giving something to life.
Later in the book he describes the other end of the spectrum. He tells what the people who crumble in the face of tragedy are like. As I read his description I could only think how easy it is to slip and slide and how often in my life his words could have been a description of me.
- Live in the past- never move forward. Forever replay the bad things. Life is never going to happen. It is just a rerun of past feelings, past conflicts, and past events.
- Self-pity- forever feel sorry for yourself. Comfort yourself in your victim status.
- Resentment- Don’t reach out to others. Attack them for being the reason that life is so bad.
- Blaming- Don’t worry about making things better. Blame others for life being so bad.
- Taking- Life is about you and what you can get. The world does not revolve around the sun. It revolves around you. The only two questions in life are what can you get and what can you keep.
If you have bipolar disorder or are a family member or friend of someone with bipolar the relevance of what you just read should be obvious to you. According to White you still have the ability to thrive in life despite the bad things you must deal with. The five things he describes are the essence of recovery. The five things not to do are the most common mistakes people make that sabotage their recovery.
This is a real important book and I hope you will read it. What I have written just gives the barest flavor for the treasures this book gives. Tell others about it. They will never be sorry you did. Neither will you.
August 14, 2008
Bipolar for Dummies:
A review
Last year Linda was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a lifetime of problems. We immediately began trying to understand what that meant and found out quickly that bipolar was confusing and often misunderstood—and that only described the reaction of many professionals. We knew we were in a boat, but had no idea where to find the paddles.
Two things happened that saved our life. We got involved with the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance and we found this book. When I read the title I knew that this book was what I was looking for. I was most certainly a dummy and thought, “Well at least this book won’t talk down to me.”
What I found was a jewel. Dr. Candida Fink and Joe Kraynak take something that is very complex and break it down into digestible bits, each that build on the ones that proceed it. The key to any puzzle is to figure out how the pieces fit together, and in that, the authors succeed admirably. They do not assume any knowledge of the reader going in, and the result is a success for the reader that leaves them feeling, as they get deeper and deeper into the book, that indeed this boat does have a paddle.
The book is a process of discovery for the reader. It helps you to understand among other things:
· How to tell “what you got.”
· What “it” means.
· What you can do about “it.”
· How to help yourself.
· Medication- effects and side-effects.
· Cognitive issues.
· The importance of a support network.
· Managing your life-style.
· Helping someone else with bipolar
· What if your children have “it”
When we first started this website one of our foundational pieces of information was this book. When new people come into our support group this is one of the first things we recommend to them they read. If you are looking for a place to start to understand this horrible disorder and if you are trying to understand what helps this is a good place to start and we recommend it strongly. They also have a great website called Bipolar Blog which we think you will also find great value in.