躁鬱症英文叫manic-depressive illness, 又稱bipolar disorders, 是一種精神疾病。從英文名稱上就可以看出，它是兩種疾病的合稱，即狂躁症與憂鬱症。根據作者書上所言，一般是先有狂躁症，後有憂鬱症緊緊相隨。通常情況下，病人狂躁時，像一匹脫韁的野馬，狂野瘋癲，行為怪異可怕，但同時精力旺盛亢奮; 憂鬱時，陰鬱焦慮，絕望厭倦，疲憊不堪，夢魘般的生活甚至讓患者產生自殺傾向。整個過程伴隨著痛苦、孤獨、恐懼、興奮。情緒高漲時，人的想法、情感洶湧澎湃，思維飛快，像流星般劃過(常常自己一個句子說到一半已經忘了句子的開頭)。這種亢奮強烈地充斥著他們的神經和骨髓。
《躁鬱之心》(An Unquiet Mind)是一本自傳回憶錄，作者以躁鬱症患者和研究者/醫生這樣一個雙重身份來大膽剖析自己的病情和與其抗爭的心路曆程。書出版於1995年。作者Kay Redfield Jamison是一位精神科研究員和醫生，就職於UCLA和John Hopkins大學的心理所。她本人是一個長期患有躁鬱症的患者，從高中最後一年開始出現第一次躁鬱症一直到年老。她曾經自殺過，認為既然人的一生短而沒有意義,既然人生最後都是走向死亡, 那何不早死早超生。她想過跳樓自殺，可不忍父母收屍時看到的慘劇，最後她服用大劑量的lithium試圖自殺。未遂，被兄弟救起。作者後來是靠藥物lithium控製，從大劑量慢慢過度到劑量的減輕，後來情況一直比較穩定。
從她書中所陳述的內容可以得出結論，躁鬱症是要靠藥物治療的，她文章提及的lithium(鋰)是一個很有效的藥物，能非常有效控製病情。但是這種藥物副作用很大，比如服用後，患者會惡心、嘔吐，注意力和記憶力都會受影響。像許多患者一樣，病人病情一旦得到控製緩解，往往會拒絕接著服用lithium。可問題是，一旦停服，病就會卷土重來，而且會加重，最後又不得不重新服用。大劑量lithium的藥物治療，會導致病人反應遲鈍，注意力無法集中,記憶力衰退。比如作者，她曾經是一個非常喜歡閱讀的人，一星期要讀3到4本書。可是患病服藥後， 她十年裏沒有正兒八經從頭到尾讀完一本嚴肅的文學作品或非小說類的著作，隻能讀雜誌文章這些短篇幅的東西。即便如此，她還是覺得讀得費勁，有時候一行字要反複讀才能理解意思。更讓人沮喪的是，讀的東西記不住。最後作者隻能靠做一些像針線活，比如做了無數個墊子，來打發時光，分散注意力。
作者本人有幾段感情生活史，她離過一次婚，後來遇見一位英國心理醫生David，兩人相愛，當要談婚論嫁時，David卻意外的心髒病去世了，享年44歲那一年，作者32歲。數年後，她遇見另一位紳士Richard，兩人組成家庭。因為Richard已經有三個孩子了，所以雖然作者想要孩子，卻沒有再生育。
現代社會，因為壓力、環境各方麵原因，患這種躁鬱症的人越來越多。從醫學角度上說，躁鬱症是具有家族遺傳性的。但是，社會不能就此剝奪精神病人的生育權利。作者書中提到，她自己曾經想跟前男友David生一屋子(a houseful)的孩子，還曾經因為有一位醫生告誡她最好不要孩子，而十分生氣地甩門就走。在作者眼裏，有這種疾病傾向的人對社會發展是有著積極一麵的，這世上很多音樂家、畫家、詩人都是躁鬱症患者。因為躁鬱症，人的大腦遊蕩在極限的邊緣，想象力，創作力都超乎異常，精力也特別旺盛。如果人類故意限製，不讓這類人繁衍生存下去，那麽躁鬱症患者會像斑點貓頭鷹、雲豹一樣成為"瀕臨滅絕"的物種。
這本書除了讓人了解躁鬱症病人的一些信息和他們的心裏世界，讀者似乎也可以得出這樣一個啟示: 要正確認識和看待精神病人，這世界本來就是由各種各樣的人、物組成，因為不同，這世界才炫麗多姿，豐富多彩。正像作者Kay在申請John Hopkins教職，告訴部門負責人她有躁鬱症時，那位負責人非常正麵地回答並且錄用了她。 他說，"如果我的部門是清一色的正常人，那這個部門太boring了。"由此可見，專業人士對這種疾病患者的接受程度。隻要有藥物控製著，他們遠沒有我們想象的那麽可怕。
此書的文字非常優美。在當今數以萬計因為憂鬱症自殺的大環境下，這本1995出版的書已經被翻譯成三十種語言，它的作用意義和受歡迎程度自然是不言而喻。我準備繼續再借她的書，太喜歡她的文字了。
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 Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one?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.
