CrossXroads:
Bipolar Disorder Support Blog
Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.
Recommended Readings
Throughout my journey with Bipolar Disorder, I have looked for information and support though many different facets, but none were more informative than the books below. Life is all about perspective, and whether the book was informative or a narrative, it established a different way of thinking about my disorder...We are not alone!
An investigation into the surprisingly deep correlation between mental illness and successful leadership, as seen through the lives of some of the most important political figures in history
In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center, offers a myth-shattering exploration of the powerful connections between mood illnesses (depression and bipolar disorder) and leadership. He sets forth a controversial, compelling thesis: the very qualities that mark those with mood disorders—creativity, resilience, empathy, and realism—also make for the best leaders in times of crisis. From the importance of the “depressive realism” and creativity of mentally ill or mentally abnormal figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to the lackluster leadership of “mentally normal” men such as Neville Chamberlain, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair, A First-Rate Madnessoverturns many of our most cherished perceptions about greatness and the mind and provides a unique insight for understanding our current political leaders and presidential candidates going into the next election season.
A First-Rate Madness includes profiles of Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Tecumseh Sherman, Ted Turner, among other famous leaders.
An Unquiet Mind
By Kay Redfield Jamison
In her bestselling classic, An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison changed the way we think about moods and madness.
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. An Unquiet Mind is a memoir of enormous candor, vividness, and wisdom—a deeply powerful book that has both transformed and saved lives.
Welcome to the Jungle
by Hilary Smith
Bipolar is currently the most commonly diagnosed emotional/psychiatric condition, and diagnosis tends to come when one is in one’s late teens or early 20s. And yet almost nothing has been written about it from eye level and a young person’s perspective. This book brilliantly fills that gap.
“When I was diagnosed at age 19, my parents went to a bookstore and bought me a pile of books about bipolar. I threw them away in disgust (actually, exchanged them for books of poetry)—not because I wasn’t curious about bipolar, but because all the books treated the subject with clinical rubber gloves. They were dry, annoying, and made me feel like a disease, not a person. I wrote this book because it’s the book I should have been given when I was diagnosed.”
With chapters of advice on everything from how to get off the floor after the blow of a bipolar diagnosis to how to think about psychiatry and manage your meds to how to deal with thoughts of suicide to “hippy shit” like meditation, herbs, and other non-medical bipolar helpers to navigating the healthcare system, this is the first self-help book by a bipolar young adult to other bipolar young adults.
Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder
by Julie A. Fast and John Preston, PsyD
A 4-step Plan for You and Your Loved Ones to Manage the Illness and Create Lasting Stability
About the Authors
JULIE A. FAST is founder of Bipolar Happens, an internationally popular online resource for people with bipolar disorder that advocates treating the illness using both mainstream and proven comprehensive alternative therapies. Fast is a columnist for BP magazine and is the author, along with John Preston, PsyD, of Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder. She herself was diagnosed with the disorder at young age. To learn more about Julie Fast, please visit her web site.
JOHN PRESTON, PSYD, ABPP is a faculty member of the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, Sacramento Campus. He has written eleven books on a variety of health topics. His book You Can Beat Depression, is endorsed by the National Mental Health Association as well as the chapter "Drugs in Psychiatry" in the Encyclopedia Americana. Preston is the recipient of the Mental Health Association's President's Award and is a national speaker and sought-after authority in the field of bipolar disorder.
Manic: a memoir
by Terri Cheney
An attractive, highly successful Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer, Terri Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder for the better part of her life—and concealing a pharmacy’s worth of prescription drugs meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal." In explosive bursts of prose that mirror the devastating mania and extreme despair of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster existence with shocking honesty, giving brilliant voice to the previously unarticulated madness she endured. Brave, electrifying, poignant, and disturbing, Manic does not simply explain bipolar disorder—it takes us into its grasp and does not let go.
Less Than Crazy: Living Fully with Bipolar II
by Karla Dougherty
Bipolar II is a form of bipolar disorder in which a person, when in a manic cycle, is crippled by anxiety, irritability, and highs just intense enough to be embarrassing. Instead of being the life of the party, someone with Bipolar II might be too nervous to go to the party at all. And, unlike the Bipolar I sufferer who may attempt suicide in a depressive cycle, the Bipolar II might be incapacitated by guilt over an imaginary crime. InLess than Crazy, health writer and Bipolar II sufferer Karla Dougherty shares her story, presenting the first patient-expert’s guide to recognizing and living well with this condition. Covering both adults and children, this accessible, all-in-one resource includes information on diagnosis, conditions that may mimic Bipolar II, and treatments.
The first book to tackle one of the leading concerns of women with manic depression and related disorders
You have bipolar disorder and want to start a family. There is so much to know and manage when thinking about becoming pregnant and having an optimal pregnancy and postpartum period. What are the risks? Can I go off my meds? How will my partner react? Will my child also become bipolar? How do I navigate through the often confusing and ever-changing research on mental disorders and pregnancy?
Kristin K. Finn was diagnosed with manic depression as a teenager. Upon deciding to become pregnant, she and her husband also had questions, concerns, and fears. Recognizing that there was no go-to guide that helps women with manic depression navigate pre-natal, pregnancy, and postpartum issues, Finn collaborated with geneticists, obstetricians, psychologists, and psychiatrists to bring you this ultimate support-group-in-a-book and pregnancy resource.
In Bipolar and Pregnant, Finn shares her insights and techniques that she developed through two pregnancies, as well as the advice of her esteemed team of experts. In addition, Bipolar and Pregnant:
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Provides information on medical aspects of pregnancy and gives advice on minimizing the risks of psychiatric flare-ups, avoiding episodes, monitoring behavior, and preparing to go off mediation as pregnancy looms
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Discusses medical aspects of pregnancy, preparing for pregnancy, and optimizing the chances of getting pregnant
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Provides the latest research on medications used to treat bipolar disorder and their effect on developing babies.
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You and your entire support team will be armed with the knowledge necessary to help you optimize your pregnancy, subside anxiety, and feel confident that you are doing the very best for you and your new family.
Bipolar and Pregnant
by Kristin K. Finn
Madness: A Bipolar Life
by Mayra Hornbacher
An astonishing dispatch from inside the belly of bipolar disorder, reflecting major new insights
When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder.
In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage -- where bipolar always beckons -- is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.
Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not alone: millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists.
Ten years after Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, this storm of a memoir will revolutionize our understanding of bipolar disorder.
My Kind of Crazy: Living in a Bipolar World
by Janine Crowley Haynes
"The author lures us into her Bipolar world by injecting humor into the serious subject of mental illness. She acts as a tour guide and takes the reader on her manic journey and then steers us straight into the abyss of her depression." --Diane Urban, PhD, NYS Licensed Psychologist, Adjunct Professor at Manhattan College and Westchester Community College, SUNY
"MY KIND OF CRAZY is an important contribution which sheds light on the often hidden world of mental illness. The line between reality and psychosis is impossible to comprehend unless one has seen the world from both perspectives. The author unlocks the door to a locked psychiatric facility and allows the reader cross the threshold. The story is further enhanced by glimpses of her experience through the eyes of her husband and son." --William M. Dince, Phd, NYS Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Neuropsychologist
