Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind

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Recommended: Major depressive disorder essay

In An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison describes in vivid detail her life and struggles with major depressive disorder. How she truly enjoyed the extreme manic episodes and how she battled with intense feelings of self-harm and suicidal ideation. The benefits of medical drugs based on lithium and the downward spiral she experienced when the medications are not taken. Her romantic and often tragic experiences with men, from divorce to premature death to marriage again. Kay acutely describes her internal struggles dealing with her disorder, who and when to tell, how they will react, if it will impact her personally and in some cases, more importantly professionally. An Unquiet Mind is unique in the fact it is written by a person that has first-hand experience of the disorder and is extremely well educated in the field of study the disorder resides. Additionally, because of Kay’s profession she has many friends in related fields that she can consult with. These aspects of Kay’s life make her book “real,” genuine, accurate. It is written as experienced, it is not second-hand, it is not an abstract theory of a disorder. Additionally, the author is blatantly honest, little if anything is sugar coated this reinforces the impact the book had for me. …show more content…

Because I chose to listen to the book this section of the review is in regards to listening to it. The book is read by the author, I found her voice to be extremely monotone and difficult to listen to. I had to divide my listening time into 10-20min sections, her voice would put me to sleep. Also, I believe I have a strong vocabulary, which while listening to this book was very helpful. In my opinion at different times in the book Kay chose to use obscure, difficult words. It appeared she was more interested in flaunting her advanced vocabulary then telling her

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