Kay Redfield Jamison: Living with Bipolar

Posted Friday, January 15, 2010

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Imagine being bipolar since the age of 17 but avoiding treatment for years despite a nearly successful suicide attempt and relationships shattered beyond repair. Then imagine becoming a professor of psychiatry, an author of best sellers and co-author of the standard medical textbook on bipolar disorder. That's the story of clinical psychologist Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. She describes her own profound mood swings and how her marriage survived them in a new memoir, Nothing Was the Same. She writes: "At times he was enraged...at others bewildered or cooly distant." Jamison joins host David Molpus Friday 9AM to discuss how her late husband handled her illness and what others touched by bipolar disorder can learn from their experience.

Guests

Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Pyschiatry, John Hopkins University School of Medicine & Codirector, John Hopkins Mood Disorders Center
Terri Miller, Program Coordinator, NAMI Greater Cleveland

Additional Information

"Nothing Was the Same" book review, The Washington Post
NAMI of Greater Cleveland Support Group Schedule
ideastream's Facing Depression resource page
Facts About Bipolar Disorder, The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
Helping a depressed person is a strain on the caregiver that can imperil health, by Kaye Spector, The Plain Dealer

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Scott Crawford 10:35 AM 1/15/10

Just want to pass along my most sincere thanks to the lovely Dr Jamison. Her book “An Unquiet Mind” gave me the inside-out understanding to reconnect to the love I have for my mother following her suicide in 2000, and continues to help me today as I work to provide a safe place for my son who was diagnosed BP last year at 20. (BTW, his middle name is Jamieson - just a fun coincidence, but a good trigger for me to recall compassion).

I will be happily and forever in your debt.

Scott

scott 10:41 AM 1/15/10

Curious about the dual-diagnosis situation commonly found with the disorder. I have a sibling that has struggled for 20 years and has burned many bridges where many felt it was just someone lost to the drug culture. Now, a few of us recognize the substance abuse was more of an attribute of dealing with the mental disorder. The major problem is now finding proper treatment for someone that has lost employment, insurance, many friends and supporters and worse - feels the self medication is not a problem. Seems the resources are so lacking for people who find themselves in such trouble, needing help but well after damage has been done. Affording *proper* treatment seems impossible.

Kathy 3:09 PM 1/15/10

Is there a connection between ADHD and Bi-Polar?
Thank you.

Cleveland 3:16 PM 1/15/10

My husband has bipolar disorder and he is doing well now after some years of struggle. What I find so complicated about this illness is that the symptoms of the disease are easily confused with personality traits-such as irritability, aggressiveness, having poor judgment. This can make it more difficult to separate the disease from the person than in cases of diseases such as Schizophrenia where the symptoms such as hallucinations are more easily distinguishable from the actual person. How do we help our loved ones find out who they are and where the illness begins?

John 3:17 PM 1/15/10

It wasn’t until I was doing a masters in clinical social work that I realized my mother’s off the wall behavior was bipolar disorder. There is a generation or more of children who lived with this illness in a parent and unfortunately carrying this baggage into adulthood.