Mood Indigo

Those on the bipolar spectrum may operate within a much wider bandwidth of "up" and "down" than the rest of the population. What may come across as unusual behavior to others may be perfectly ordinary - and even beneficial - to someone disposed to thinking deep or inclined to exuberance. On the other hand, normal is often an extremely frightening place, with no break from the raging storms that play out inside the brains of its victims. At the same time, it is also the repository of all that is good inside of us, together with all of our hopes and dreams.

NOT JUST UP AND DOWN challenges the simplistic notion that bipolar disorder is an episodic illness characterized by extreme shifts in mood from depression to mania. Instead, John McManamy presents a more coherent picture of bipolar as a cycling illness with the brain in perpetual motion, extremely sensitive to nature's slightest whims.

In this book, award-winning mental health journalist and author John McManamy seamlessly integrates expert scientific and patient wisdom, as seen through the eyes of someone who must face the daily challenge of his illness.

Among other things, you will learn how to distinguish your depressive and manic "traits" from your depressive and manic "states." Not everything is as it seems.

You will also gain insights into:

*The bipolar spectrum, which overlaps with depression and anxiety and personality.
*The mysterious interplay between genes and environment and temperament.
*Your own true "normal," which needs to be regarded as a mood episode in its own right.
*Your own anomalous behaviors, ranging from creativity to road rage to exuberance to thinking deep.
*The bipolar's dilemma, namely: Do you take a chance on exerting yourself and thus risk triggering a mood episode, or do you play it safe, only to succumb to isolation and despair?

In the process of learning to "know thyself," you will grow to take stock in yourself and become your own expert patient, in a position to manage your own recovery and set your own goals in life.

John McManamy has produced a brilliant book, north of normal, south of crazy. It’s as good an education about depression and manic states, and about psychiatry in general, as I’ve seen in one place, written from a first-person perspective of someone who’s experienced what he’s writing about. It’s well-informed, based on careful study, explaining complex concepts simply but not simplistically, citing all the right people, and the wrong ones too (on purpose). Read it, and it’ll cure you of your average-itis.
– Nassir Ghaemi, Professor of Psychiatry, Director, Mood Disorders Program, Tufts Medical Center
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