Word: jamison
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During mild mania, people with the illness are infused with energy and vision. They think faster, more clearly and with greater originality. "I could fly through star fields and slide along the rings of Saturn,'' writes Jamison of her episodes. Were it not for her disease, she says, "I would not have accomplished the same things." Nor, she maintains, would many famed artists...
That's a dangerous idea, some critics say, arguing that Jamison romanticizes the illness. She bristles at the suggestion. "It's a fact that a dis pro portionate number of artists appear to have the disease compared with the general population," she says. "Why is that so hard to stomach? If 80% of composers had thyroid disease, no one would have a hard time accepting that . And I've said over and over again that you don't have to have manic depression to be creative. In fact, most creative people...
With or without creativity, Jamison cautions, there is nothing glamorous about manic depression: "It's a horrible disease." In her manic phases, her restless energy helped destroy her first marriage and sent her on financially ruinous shopping sprees. Then, in her blackest despair, she tried to kill herself...
...Jamison was not, in the paradoxical jargon of psychiatry, a "successful" suicide. But it took years for her to accept the fact that she had to stay on medication. What really saved her life, she says, was psychotherapy. In an age that believes drugs alone can defeat disease, Jamison remains a staunch supporter of what Freud called "the talking cure." "Lithium moderates the illness," she observes, "but therapy teaches you to live with...
...Nowadays Jamison has achieved a more settled existence. At Hopkins there is the routine of teaching, research and counseling. In Washington, at home with her second husband Dr. Richard Wyatt, a schizophrenia researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, she writes her books, sees close friends and takes long walks. But like many who have lived life at the highest pitch, Jamison finds being "normal" a "bittersweet exchange." "I know without lithium I'd be dead or insane," she says. And yet "I don't see Saturn's image now without feeling an acute sadness...