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Young Senior Elder Member
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 11,298
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Young Senior Elder Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 11,298
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More from Kay Jamison's book "An Unquiet Mind"
There are many reasons why I have been reluctant to be open about having manic-depressive illness; some of the reasons are personal, many are professional. The personal issues revolve, to a large extent, arround issues of family privacy - especially beause the illness under consideration is a genetic one - as well as a general belief that personal matters should be kept personal. too, I have been very concerned, perhaps unduly so, with how knowing that I have manic-depressive illness will affect people's perception of who I am and what I do. There is a thin line between what is considered zany and what is thought to be - ghastly but damning word - "inappropriate," and only a sliverish gap exists between being thought intense, or a bit volatile, and being dismissively labeled "unstable." And, for whatever reasons of personal vanity, I dread the fact that my suicide attempt and depressions will be seen by some as acts of weakness or as "neurontic." Somehow, I don't mind the thought of being seen as intermittently psychotic nearly as much as I mind being pigeonholed as weak and neurotic. Finally, I am deeply wary that by speaking publicly or writing about such intensely private aspects of my life, I will return to them one day and find them bleached of meaning and feeling. By putting myself in the position of speaking too freely and too often, I am concerned that the experiences will become remote, inaccessible, and far distant, behind me; I fear that the experiences will become those of someone else rather than my own.
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