躁郁症英文叫manic-depressive illness, 又称bipolar disorders, 是一种精神疾病。从英文名称上就可以看出，它是两种疾病的合称，即狂躁症与忧郁症。根据作者书上所言，一般是先有狂躁症，后有忧郁症紧紧相随。通常情况下，病人狂躁时，像一匹脱缰的野马，狂野疯癫，行为怪异可怕，但同时精力旺盛亢奋; 忧郁时，阴郁焦虑，绝望厌倦，疲惫不堪，梦魇般的生活甚至让患者产生自杀倾向。整个过程伴随着痛苦、孤独、恐惧、兴奋。情绪高涨时，人的想法、情感汹涌澎湃，思维飞快，像流星般划过(常常自己一个句子说到一半已经忘了句子的开头)。这种亢奋强烈地充斥着他们的神经和骨髓。
《躁郁之心》(An Unquiet Mind)是一本自传回忆录，作者以躁郁症患者和研究者/医生这样一个双重身份来大胆剖析自己的病情和与其抗争的心路历程。书出版于1995年。作者Kay Redfield Jamison是一位精神科研究员和医生，就职于UCLA和John Hopkins大学的心理所。她本人是一个长期患有躁郁症的患者，从高中最后一年开始出现第一次躁郁症一直到年老。她曾经自杀过，认为既然人的一生短而没有意义,既然人生最后都是走向死亡, 那何不早死早超生。她想过跳楼自杀，可不忍父母收尸时看到的惨剧，最后她服用大剂量的lithium试图自杀。未遂，被兄弟救起。作者后来是靠药物lithium控制，从大剂量慢慢过度到剂量的减轻，后来情况一直比较稳定。
从她书中所陈述的内容可以得出结论，躁郁症是要靠药物治疗的，她文章提及的lithium(锂)是一个很有效的药物，能非常有效控制病情。但是这种药物副作用很大，比如服用后，患者会恶心、呕吐，注意力和记忆力都会受影响。像许多患者一样，病人病情一旦得到控制缓解，往往会拒绝接着服用lithium。可问题是，一旦停服，病就会卷土重来，而且会加重，最后又不得不重新服用。大剂量lithium的药物治疗，会导致病人反应迟钝，注意力无法集中,记忆力衰退。比如作者，她曾经是一个非常喜欢阅读的人，一星期要读3到4本书。可是患病服药后， 她十年里没有正儿八经从头到尾读完一本严肃的文学作品或非小说类的著作，只能读杂志文章这些短篇幅的东西。即便如此，她还是觉得读得费劲，有时候一行字要反复读才能理解意思。更让人沮丧的是，读的东西记不住。最后作者只能靠做一些像针线活，比如做了无数个垫子，来打发时光，分散注意力。
作者本人有几段感情生活史，她离过一次婚，后来遇见一位英国心理医生David，两人相爱，当要谈婚论嫁时，David却意外的心脏病去世了，享年44岁那一年，作者32岁。数年后，她遇见另一位绅士Richard，两人组成家庭。因为Richard已经有三个孩子了，所以虽然作者想要孩子，却没有再生育。
现代社会，因为压力、环境各方面原因，患这种躁郁症的人越来越多。从医学角度上说，躁郁症是具有家族遗传性的。但是，社会不能就此剥夺精神病人的生育权利。作者书中提到，她自己曾经想跟前男友David生一屋子(a houseful)的孩子，还曾经因为有一位医生告诫她最好不要孩子，而十分生气地甩门就走。在作者眼里，有这种疾病倾向的人对社会发展是有着积极一面的，这世上很多音乐家、画家、诗人都是躁郁症患者。因为躁郁症，人的大脑游荡在极限的边缘，想象力，创作力都超乎异常，精力也特别旺盛。如果人类故意限制，不让这类人繁衍生存下去，那么躁郁症患者会像斑点猫头鹰、云豹一样成为"濒临灭绝"的物种。
这本书除了让人了解躁郁症病人的一些信息和他们的心里世界，读者似乎也可以得出这样一个启示: 要正确认识和看待精神病人，这世界本来就是由各种各样的人、物组成，因为不同，这世界才炫丽多姿，丰富多彩。正像作者Kay在申请John Hopkins教职，告诉部门负责人她有躁郁症时，那位负责人非常正面地回答并且录用了她。 他说，"如果我的部门是清一色的正常人，那这个部门太boring了。"由此可见，专业人士对这种疾病患者的接受程度。只要有药物控制着，他们远没有我们想象的那么可怕。
此书的文字非常优美。在当今数以万计因为忧郁症自杀的大环境下，这本1995出版的书已经被翻译成三十种语言，它的作用意义和受欢迎程度自然是不言而喻。我准备继续再借她的书，太喜欢她的文字了。
Quotes:
“Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.”
“We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.”
“Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it, an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide.”
“Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.”
“No pill can help me deal with the problem of not wanting to take pills; likewise, no amount of psychotherapy alone can prevent my manias and depressions. I need both. It is an odd thing, owing life to pills, one's own quirks and tenacities, and this unique, strange, and ultimately profound relationship called psychotherapy”
“I look back over my shoulder and feel the presence of an intense young girl and then a volatile and disturbed young woman, both with high dreams and restless, romantic aspirations”
“Depression is awful beyond words or sounds or images...it bleeds relationships through suspicion, lack of confidence and self-respect, the inability to enjoy life, to walk or talk or think normally, the exhaustion, the night terrors, the day terrors. There is nothing good to be said for it except that it gives you the experience of how it must be to be old, to be old and sick, to be dying; to be slow of mind; to be lacking in grace, polish and coordination; to be ugly; to have no belief in the possibilities of life, the pleasures of sex, the exquisiteness of music or the ability to make yourself and others laugh.”
“Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.”
“I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist.”
“Chaos and intensity are no substitute for lasting love, nor are they necessarily an improvement on real life.”
“I had a terrible temper, after all, and though it rarely erupted, when it did it frightened me and anyone near its epicenter. It was the only crack, but a disturbing one, in the otherwise vacuum-sealed casing of my behavior.”
“Depression, somehow, is much more in line with society's notions of what women are all about: passive, sensitive, hopeless, helpless, stricken, dependent, confused, rather tiresome, and with limited aspirations. Manic states, on the other hand, seem to be more the provenance of men: restless, fiery, aggressive, volatile, energetic, risk taking, grandiose and visionary, and impatient with the status quo. Anger or irritability in men, under such circumstances, is more tolerated and understandable; leaders or takers of voyages are permitted a wider latitude for being temperamental. Journalists and other writers, quite understandably, have tended to focus on women and depression, rather than women and mania. This is not surprising: depression is twice as common in women as men. But manic-depressive illness occurs equally often in women and men, and, being a relatively common condition, mania ends up affecting a large number of women. They, in turn, often are misdiagnosed, receive poor, if any, psychiatric treatment, and are at high risk for suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, and violence. But they, like men who have manic-depressive illness, also often contribute a great deal of energy, fire, enthusiasm, and imagination to the people and world around them.”
“I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel better or keep me alive? Well, there never was anything he could say, that's the funny thing. It was all the stupid, desperately optimistic, condescending things he didn't say that kept me alive; all the compassion and wamrth I felt from him that could not have been said; all the intelligence, competence, and time he put into it; and his granite belief that mine was a life worth living.”
“It is true that I had wanted to die , but that is peculiarly different from regretting having been born. Overwhelmingly, I was enormously glad to have been born, grateful for life, and I couldn’t imagine not wanting to pass on
life to someone else.”
“[The] persevering steadiness of my mother, her belief in seeing things through, and her great ability to love and learn, listen and change, helped keep me alive through all the years of pain and nightmare that were to come. She could not have known how difficult it would be to deal with madness; had no preparation for what to do with madness--none of us did--but consistent with her ability to love, and her native will, she handled it with empathy and intelligence. It never occurred to her to give up.”
“Slowly the darkness began to weave its way into my mind, and before long I was hopelessly out of control. I could not follow the path of my own thoughts. Sentences flew around in my head and fragmented first into phrases and then words; finally, only sounds remained.”
“Far too many doctors-many of them excellent physicians-commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than the general population, they also have a greater access to very effective means of suicide.”
“I had a horrible sense of loss for who I had been and where I had been. It was difficult to give up the high flights of mind and mood, even though the depressions that inevitably followed nearly cost me my life.”
“The disease that has, on several occasions, nearly killed me does kill tens of thousands of people every year: most are young, most die unnecessarily, and many are among the most imaginative and gifted that we as a society have.”
“From the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night, I was unbearably miserable and seemingly incapable of any kind of joy or enthusiasm. Everything--every thought, word, movement--was an effort. Everything that once was sparkling now was flat. I seemed to myself to be dull, boring, inadequate, thick brained, unlit, unresponsive, chill skinned, bloodless, and sparrow drab. I doubted, completely, my ability to do anything well.....
And always, everything was an effort. Washing my hair took hours to do, and it drained me for hours afterward; filling the ice-cute tray was beyond my capacity, and I occasionally slept in the same clothes I had worn during the day because I was too exhausted to undress.”
“But if love is not the cure, it certainly can act as a very strong medicine.”
“When I first thought about writing this book, I conceived of it as a book about moods, and an illness of moods, in the context of an individual life. As I have written it, however, it has somehow turned out to be very much a book about love as well: love as sustainer, as renewer, and as protector. After each seeming death within my mind or heart, love has returned to recreate hope and restore life. It has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest. It has, inexplicably and savingly, provided not only cloak but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather.”
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against--you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew these caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.
It goes on and on, and finally there are only others' recollections of your behavior--your bizarre, frenetic, aimless behaviors--for mania has at least some grace in partially obliterating memories. What then, after the medications, psychiatrist, despair, depression, and overdose? All those incredible feelings to sort through. Who is being to polite to say what? Who knows what? What did I do? Why? And most hauntingly, when will it happen again? Then, too, are the bitter reminders--medicine to take, resent, forget, take, resent, and forget, but always take....And always, when will it happen again? Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me?”
“People say, when I complain of being less lively, less energetic, less high - spirited, "Well, now you're just like the rest of us," meaning, among other things to be reassuring. But I compare myself with my former self, not with the others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been mildly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In short, for myself, I am a hard act to follow.
