Lithium in process 1

The book Katie was reading is An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, written by Kay Jamison. I looked it up on Amazon to get a glimpse of the book. The review on Amazon.com says:
In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist, turned a mirror on the creativity so often associated with mental illness. In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her illness, and its paradoxical benefits: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness.... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality." This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. "We are all, as Byron put it, differently organized," Jamison writes. "We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities." Jamison's ability to live fully within her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our particular burdens may be. --Mary Ellen Curtin

I also found a summary of the book on Professional Pastoral-Counseling Institute's website:

Kay Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins School of Medicine and takes us through her maze of manic/depressive illness also known as bi-polar disorder. She has known the heights of creativity and exhilaration. The high at first seemed wonderfully breath-taking but eventually led to exhaustion, a racing mind that knows no bounds, and eventually led to the underworld of deep dark depression that seemed unbearable.

Her journey begins in childhood where she is very aware of her heightened sense of wonder, beauty and sounds. Through her teen years she became more aware of her dad’s darkening moods. We are taken on a roller coaster ride through undergraduate and graduate school where she experienced her boundless energy and night-long forays into endless discussions and study. This is wonderful but frightening as she realizes more and more she is out of control and fears going mad.

Dr. Jamison eventually sought medication and treatment as more of her colleagues and friends could no longer keep up with her hectic pace. This was back in the 70’s when lithium was the only drug doctors had discovered that could restore the patient to some form of normalcy. But like many who suffer from this disease, Kay Jamison would not stay on lithium and lose, she thought, her wonderfully creative mind. She, thus, soon returned to her chaotic world only in a more severe state.

She came to realize that if she were to continue her work as a Professor in UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and later as director for their Mood Disorders Clinic, she needed to do something about her own disease process. She found a psychiatrist with whom she felt safe and who tried to insist on her being faithful to medication. Like many patients with more severe mood disorders she thought she could make it on her own which ended in a suicidal attempt.

The author takes us through the medical breakthroughs in treating this disease in a humorous, non-pedantic way so that any lay person or clinician can follow the road she travels and easily accompanies her. Her disease process was instrumental in ending her first marriage when her spouse could no longer tolerate her mood swings but she acknowledges the importance of his kindness and love. She found love twice more in her life and recognizes the importance of love and understanding in the healing process as well as the medication and therapy. Her family, colleagues, and friends stood by her for the most part through the lightness and deep darkness of the disease.

Now I have a better idea on what the book is about, I go back to the text Katie chose to use and see if any words jump out to me:

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting starts, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are fas too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.

7-17-75 Patient has elected to resume lithium because of the severity of her depressive episodes.

7-25-75 Vomiting.

8-5-75 Tolerating lithium. Feeling depressed at realization she was more hypomanic than she believed.

9-30-75 Patient has stopped lithium again. Very important, she says, to prove she can handle stress without it.

10-2-75 Persists in not taking lithium. Already hypomanic. Patient well aware of it.

10-7-75 Patient has resumed lithium because of increased irritability, insomnia, and inability to concentrate.

I think these words can provide me concepts and be elaborated on when I improvise dance to the music.