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An Unquiet Mind

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Submitted By bgilson77
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An Unquiet Mind

Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder marked by exceedingly grand and elevated moods along with exceptionally horrible periods of depression. The alters in mood and period of time in each excessive mood seem to be unpredictable and random. This very dangerous disease has a suicide rate nearing 10% with a self harm rate of around 40%. Kay Redfield Jamison, within her very unsettling, yet insightful book named An Unquiet Mind, bravely attempts to display and explain the disease to the public; which seems to have only a miniature grasp of the disorder. People, even well versed and educated at that, still associate certain stigmas with the disease. Jamison's main purposes for this very dark, yet necessary piece is to inform, educate and advocate. Within the later parts of her book, she states “I have become fundamentally and deeply skeptical that anyone who does not have this illness can truly understand it.” (page 174) However, even saying this, she still is determined to put the spotlight on this diseases and elucidate the problems one faces upon developing the disease. She tells of her horrific experiences due to bipolar disorder and how extremely long it took for her to accept the “rather bittersweet exchange of a comfortable and settled present existence” in exchange for a “troubled but intensely lived past.”(page 211). I found four themes as overwhelmingly evident and relevant throughout the entirety of the novel, being confusion, addiction, rejection and ignorance.
Within An Unquiet Mind, confusion is displayed in different ways throughout the text. Firstly, confusion becomes present within the book when Jamison was ironically in school training to become a psychiatrist, when she was actually learning how to diagnose certain diseases and disorders like bipolar disorder. She declares "Despite the fact that we were being taught how to make

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