Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar

Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar

Author: Liz Casper

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2024-07-26

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

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Brilliant, Beautiful, Bipolar is an autobiographical account of former physician Liz Casper’s diagnosis of and treatment for bipolar disorder. In this first book, Casper chronicles her unique experience as her world fell apart while trying to start a new life for herself in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Buoyed by the endless future opportunities and possibilities, combined with her limitless energy, Casper was unaware there was a far more sinister side to her life that would soon surface. Through her gut-wrenching and honest account of her life, Casper gives us an unusual insight into the mind of an actively manic, albeit brilliant mind; and the devastation that can occur along the way. As is common, Casper rejected the diagnosis until it became too great to ignore, her losses too deep, her pain too great to continue. This fast-paced story will leave you with jaw-dropping moments, brutally honest storytelling, and ultimate inspiration for anyone experiencing a mental health crisis. Casper’s account gives deep insight and hope to anyone suffering from any medical illness. Her book - filled with contemporary relevance - will leave you wanting more of her life stories; more of her revealing and highly entertaining prose; and more of her much-needed, sage advice.


Rock Steady

Rock Steady

Author: Ellen Forney

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1683961013

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Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice From My Bipolar Life is the eagerly awaited sequel/ companion book to Forney’s 2012 best-selling graphic memoir, Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me. Whereas Marbles was a memoir about her bipolar disorder, Rock Steady turns the focus outward, offering a self-help survival guide of tips, tricks and tools by someone who has been through it all and come through stronger for it.


Brilliant Madness

Brilliant Madness

Author: Patty Duke

Publisher: Bantam

Published: 2010-01-13

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0307572765

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In her revealing bestseller Call Me Anna, Patty Duke shared her long-kept secret: the talented, Oscar-winning actress who won our hearts on The Patty Duke Show was suffering from a serious-but-treatable-mental illness called manic depression. For nearly twenty years, until she was correctly diagnosed at age thirty-five, she careened between periods of extreme euphoria and debilitating depression, prone to delusions and panic attacks, temper tantrums, spending sprees, and suicide attempts. Now in A Brilliant Madness Patty Duke joins with medical reporter Gloria Hochman to shed light on this powerful, paradoxical, and destructive illness. From what it's like to live with manic-depressive disorder to the latest findings on its most effective treatments, this compassionate and eloquent book provides profound insight into the challenge of mental illness. And though Patty's story, which ends in a newfound happiness with her cherished family, it offers hope for all those who suffer from mood disorders and for the family, friends, and physicians who love and care for them.


Bipolar Faith

Bipolar Faith

Author: Monica A. Coleman

Publisher: Broadleaf Books

Published: 2022-02-08

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1506487106

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Overcome with mental anguish, Monica A. Coleman's great-grandfather had his two young sons pull the chair out from beneath him when he hanged himself. That noose remained tied to a rafter in the shed, where it hung above the heads of his eight children who played there for years to come. As it had for generations before her, a heaviness hung over Monica throughout her young life. As an adult, this rising star in the academy saw career successes often fueled by the modulated highs of undiagnosed Bipolar II Disorder, as she hid deep depression that even her doctors skimmed past in disbelief. Serendipitous encounters with Black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems were countered by long nights of stark loneliness. Only as Coleman began to face her illness was she able to live honestly and faithfully in the world. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God. Written in crackling prose, Monica's spiritual autobiography examines her long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death in light of the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that masked her family history of mental illness for generations.


Marbles

Marbles

Author: Ellen Forney

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-11-06

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1101617195

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Cartoonist Ellen Forney explores the relationship between “crazy” and “creative” in this graphic memoir of her bipolar disorder, woven with stories of famous bipolar artists and writers. Shortly before her thirtieth birthday, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity. Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to “cure” an otherwise brilliant mind. Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney’s memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist’s work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.


Beautiful Bipolar

Beautiful Bipolar

Author: Danielle Workman

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-06-15

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 9781548219581

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"I was Bipolar. I AM Bipolar." Danielle Workman, a once blogger turned author, was faced with what she deemed terminal in her ill mind; a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. In this book she details her adventures and her experiences with this mental illness, including the bouts of mania, depression and her current thoughts on living life with it. This is a raw and real collection of truths about Bipolar Disorder, and is a beautiful tell-all novel.


The Dark Side of Innocence

The Dark Side of Innocence

Author: Terri Cheney

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-13

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1439176248

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From the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Manic: A Memoir" comes a gripping and eloquent account of the awakening and unfolding of Cheney's bipolar disorder.


Birth of a New Brain

Birth of a New Brain

Author: Dyane Harwood

Publisher: Post Hill Press

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1618688006

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After the birth of her baby triggers a manic maelstrom, Dyane Harwood struggles to survive the bewildering highs and crippling lows of her brain’s turmoil. Birth of a New Brain vividly depicts her postpartum bipolar disorder, an unusual type of bipolar disorder and postpartum mood and anxiety disorder. During her childhood, Harwood grew up close to her father, a brilliant violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic who had bipolar disorder. She learned how bipolar disorder could ravage a family, but she never suspected that she’d become mentally ill—until her baby was born. Harwood wondered if mental health would always be out of her reach. From medications to electroconvulsive therapy, from “redwood forest baths” to bibliotherapy, she explored both traditional and unconventional methods of recovery—in-between harrowing psychiatric hospitalizations. Harwood reveals how she ultimately achieved a stable mood. She discovered that despite having a chronic mood disorder, a new, richer life is possible. Birth of a New Brain is the chronicle of one mother’s perseverance, offering hope and grounded advice for those battling mental illness.


Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness

Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness

Author: Icarus Project

Publisher:

Published: 2013-03-15

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 9780985820817

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This book emerged out of a website, the Icarus Project, which has been helping a brilliant and disparate group of folks find ways to talk about manic depression that make sense to the people living with it, and helps them to live better lives rather than backing them into corners. This book began as a way of bringing these conversations onto the written page and into the hands of people who might not spend time on the internet. It has evolved to be a set of alternative roadmaps for people who are trying to take care of themselves and live out their dreams. Now in a new revised, expanded tenth anniversary edition!


An Unquiet Mind

An Unquiet Mind

Author: Kay Redfield Jamison

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2009-01-21

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 0307498484

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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.