| Madness: A Bipolar Life | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 34 reviews)
Sales Rank: 8316
Category: Book
Author: Marya Hornbacher
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 299
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0618754458
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8950092
EAN: 9780618754458
ASIN: 0618754458
Publication Date: April 9, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 uncalled for August 18, 2008
I did not like the way this book was written at all. I also thought she was just rambling on and on. She allowed herself to live in so much madness for so long because she would not listen to her Dr.s advise and when she knew one of the Doctors were not giving her the right treatment by knowing she was indeed drinking to much or even drinking while taking meds at all then dismissing it altogether she did not seek someone else to treat her even though she knew her drinking was way out of control and it helped her mania become worse. She went through a lot as well as putting her family through a lot. Mostly it was because she would not do what she needed to do to get well and live a close to normal life that she could for so many years.
 couldn't put it down August 18, 2008
I found this book to be extremely captivting. I could not put it down. I have a family member who is bipolar, and I really think this was a wonderful account of the disease. I would recommend this to anyone who wants an inside look at this disease.
 false claims, immaturity, and bad character August 17, 2008
I have to say,
I have had bipolar/other mood disturbances and severe PTSD for many years and I doubt the author is telling the truth here.
that she has a mood disorder? OK. but that she was very severe severe severe bipolar from age 4 or 5? not diagnosed for 20 years? and that she lived a life of chaos while having accomplishments that sound 'impressive'?
I think she is a liar, playing up the mental illness stigma to deceive people and evade the consequences of her actions.
there are 2 truths about mental illness:
1) managed care has reduced illness to a matter of 'take your pills' when often, talk therapy is needed as well.
2) in this climate, there is a lot of shame and stigma. and the people who do speak out about their "illness" are often sociopaths, exhibitionists, and liars. most other people are too ashamed to say anything.
**by speak out, I mean, build a life or professional identity on "I am mentally ill." not writing reviews or even writing books per se, but telling people
How Very Important Troubled Different and Special You Are, for Hundreds of Pages, Because You Have A Diagnosis Of Bipolar Disorder,
and then building a professional and personal identity on that view of oneself.
Kay Redfield Jamison is an exception to this. I really like her work. but she stresses calmness and recovery. she also spends a lot of time pointing out that there is a lot more to her than a bipolar diagnosis. finally, she shows, not just gives lip service to, the importance of pursuing treatment.
but not everyone has integrity as Jamison does, clearly.
I do not support going back to complete silence about mental illness.
but I do think that people who seem fairly RABID to embrace the label of mentally ill and describe a ton of very dysfunctional behavior, including admitting that her book on mental illness was written while manic, they need to be looked at carefully.
I cannot prove she is a liar but I think she is b/c what she is saying does not add up. IF her bipolar was THAT serious, then she went off and drank like a fish and indulged mania for years. she'd be dead. period end of sentence.
especially given that she "documents" one of the purportedly most severe eating disorders on earth.
it is very very very common for people to have "comorbid" issues, that is, more than one problem. and for her I think she is a narcissist who is grabbing attention based on pathological behavior.
other people with the label "bipolar" are different people. individuals.
in this climate of stigma and FEAR of mental illness, there is a great deal of prejudice. one manifestation of it is to assume that people with a similar mental illness are alike. and we are not.
it is not any more valid to say that "bipolars" are alike than it is to say that Blacks or women or Jews or....fill in any group - are the same.
there may be things in common, but.
Hornbacher also very clearly documents coming from an artistic, screwed up family. where her parents were actors, she was hanging around backstage from a very young age, and she was not in school on a regular basis.
when she didn't feel like going to school, she didn't go.
she also says that her parents yelled at each other a lot.
and that's the thing. I think she had anything BUT a stable upbringing, but rather than face that *with a combination of talk therapy and medication* she exaggerates her mental illness.
which has the dubious benefit of keeping her probably messed-up family in her life, but it does NOT help the rest of us.
I think there is a lot of truth IN what she says about herself. but I also believe she is simultaneously engaging in dramatic license, sort of like Frey but not that far, and also failing to be honest about the effect of her parents' instability on her.
**her book Wasted is banned on eating disorder units b/c it hurts the vulnerable. young women and men with eating disorders get ideas on how to deceive treatment providers, lie, and harm themselves from it.
given that is the case,
I find it *exceptionally* difficult to believe that Hornbacher has been as close to death as she says she has. mentally and physically. b/c people that close to death USUALLY pull through b/c they have a strong love of life.
if they chose to indulge destructiveness as well, then they are just not going to make it. not while manic repeatedly, and drinking like a fish, and avoiding medication, and almost dead from starvation (or living with the effects of that), or.
people like that, I mean there are logistical things like, how was she safe driving? why didn't she crash the car during a manic episode, while she was drunk? how did she avoid committing suicide if she was *that* committed to self-harm? or being murdered? somehow, she claims a lot of sex with anonymous partners but no real sexual violence, despite her severe instability.
I am sorry but this TALE does not add up.
and to other people with bipolar, etc. my suggestion would be: find a compassionate therapist/psychiatrist and - my personal input is that I do far better when I avoid melodramatic, probably vastly exaggerated trauma drama like this book. which I read, every. last. page. of. it. and I found it exceptionally painful reading.
b/c to me this book documents corruption in the publishing industry. she makes extreme claims in here that should have been fact-checked, and I doubt they were.
 Amidst all, a love story August 17, 2008
Not to detract from the seriousness of the author's journey, Madness: A Bipolar Life also contains a very sweet love story. It is not easy to love someone with mental health complications, and during the book I kept expecting to read of an unbalanced relationship, where he was the protector, and she was the victim. Instead, Ms. Hornbacher distills a mix of humor, uncertainity and unyielding affection to show a real relationship with her husband, Jeff. In doing that, she gives hope to us all.
O This Poor Brain! Ten Thousand Shapes of Fury are Whirling There and Reason is No More - Henry Fielding August 14, 2008
It seems that every bipolar believes that they need to write a book about themselves. Look at me. I am writing a blog. I have read a bunch of them. That says more about me than about the books. Some are pretty good. Some are not so hot. But I like this one.
Marya is bipolar I. I'm sure every bipolar I would say, "What's so weird about her life." The rest of us would say, "I'm glad I'm not her." She takes us everywhere; professional life, love lives (of course she drove lovers away), family life, suicides, nuthouses, medications, all that.
She is actually a writer. She paints a visual and emotional picture of the real thing. I was invited to become part of her life and I accepted the invitation. I was in the doctor's office crawling on the file cabinets with her. I was riding in the car with her on a bipolar trip to California. She could have left that out of the book. I have already done that one.
It doesn't seem that she makes any part of her life out of bounds. It is a real book about a real person. I don't guess that anyone who is bipolar needs to know what it is like to be bipolar, but maybe family, friends, or someone else does. Or if you have allowed yourself to fall back into self-pity this might be good company. I thought the book was a good one.
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