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Far too many doctors--many of them excellent physicians--commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than t..
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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I had gotten a Ph.D., and I was beginning to understand Bob Dylans lines "Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift."
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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Do we risk making the world a blander, more homogenized place if we get rid of the genes for manic-depressive illness
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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Much like crossing the Bay Bridge when there is a storm over the Chesapeake, one may be terrified to go forward, but there is no question of going back.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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This polarization of two clinical states flies in the face of everything that we know about the cauldronous, fluctuating nature of manic-depressive illness; it ignores the question of whether mania is, ultimately, simply an extreme form of depression; and it minimizes the importance of mixed manic-and-depressive states, conditions that are common, extremely important clinically, and lie at the heart of many of the critical theoretical issue..
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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for manics anyway, mania is a natural extension of the economy.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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Far more important, they took me and my interests very seriously. They never tried to discourage me from becoming a doctor, even though it was an era that breathed, If woman, be a nurse.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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I focused on the questions and stopped seeing the body. As has been true a thousand times since, my curiosity and temperament had taken me to places I was not really able to handle emotionally, but the same curiosity, and the scientific side of my mind, generated enough distance and structure to allow me to manage, deflect, reflect, and move on.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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I for many years after my initial diagnosis was reluctant to take my medications as prescribed. Why was I so unwilling? Why did it take having to go through more episodes of mania, followed by long suicidal depressions, before I would take lithium in a medically sensible way? Some of my reluctance, no doubt, stemmed from a fundamental denial that what I had was a real disease. This is a common reaction that follows, rather counter-intuitive..
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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high altitude coupled with rigorous exercise can raise lithium levels. I became completely disoriented and totally incapable of navigating my way down the mountain.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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Reading, which had been at the heart of my intellectual and emotional existence,
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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because the California commitment code is designed more for the well-being of lawyers than of patients, it would have been relatively easy for me to talk my way out of an involuntary commitment.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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Somehow, like so many people who get depressed, we felt our depressions were more complicated and existentially based than they actually were. Antidepressants might be indicated for psychiatric patients, for those of weaker stock, but not for us. It was a costly attitude; our upbringing and pride held us hostage.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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The endless questioning finally ended. My psychiatrist looked at me, there was no uncertainty in his voice. "Manic-depressive illness." I admired his bluntness. I wished him locusts on his lands and a pox upon his house. Silent, unbelievable rage. I smiled pleasantly. He smiled back. The war had just begun."
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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The humor, however, was a bit more in the recounting than in the actual living through it. Unfortunately, this resistance to taking lithium is played out in the lives of tens of thousands of patients every year.
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Kay Redfield Jamison |
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No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one's dark moods. Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always, one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable. Madness, on the other hand, most certainly can, and often does, kill love through its mistrustfulness, unrelenting pessimism, discontents, erratic behavior, and, especially, through its savage moods. The
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Kay Redfield Jamison |