An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison Page B
Authors: Kay Redfield Jamison
Ads: Link
grandiose and expansive manias, a strong family history of manic-depressive illness, and my manias precede my depressions, rather than the other way around—but the drug strongly affected my mental life. I found myself beholden to medication that also caused severe nausea and vomiting many times a month—I often slept on my bathroom floor with a pillow under my head and my warm, woolen St. Andrews gown tucked over me—when, because of changes in salt levels, diet, exercise, or hormones, my lithium level would get too high. I have been violently ill more places than I choose to remember, and quite embarrassingly so in public places ranging from lecture halls and restaurants to the National Gallery in London. (All of this changed very much for the better when I switched to a time-released preparation of lithium.) When I got particularly toxic I would start trembling, become ataxic and walk into walls, and my speech would become slurred; this resulted not only in several trips to the emergency room, where I would get intravenous drips to deal with the toxicity, but,much more mortifying, make me appear as though I were on illicit drugs or had had far too much to drink.
One evening, after a riding lesson in Malibu during which I twice fell off my horse into the poles of a jump, I was pulled over to the side of the road by the police. They put me through an impressively thorough roadside neurological exam—I walked a not very straight line; was not able to make my fingertip reach my nose; and was hopelessly bad at getting my fingertips to tap against my thumb; God only knows what the pupils of my eyes were doing when a police officer blared a light into them—and until I got out my bottles of medication, gave the officers the name and telephone number of my psychiatrist, and agreed to whatever blood tests they wanted to order, the police refused to believe that I was not on drugs or hadn’t been drinking.
Not long after that incident, shortly after I learned to ski, I was on a very tall mountain somewhere in Utah and unaware that high altitude coupled with rigorous exercise can raise lithium levels. I became completely disoriented and totally incapable of navigating my way down the mountain. Fortunately, a colleague of mine who knew I was taking lithium, and who was himself an expert on its medical uses, became concerned when I didn’t catch up with him at the time we had arranged to meet. He concluded that I might have become toxic from it, sent the ski patrol after me, and I came down the mountain safely, although rather more horizontally than I would have liked.
Nausea and vomiting and occasional toxicity, while upsetting and embarrassing at times, were far less important to me than lithium’s effect on my ability to read, comprehend, and remember what I read. In rareinstances, lithium causes problems of visual accommodation, which can, in turn, lead to a form of blurred vision. It also can impair concentration and attention span and affect memory. Reading, which had been at the heart of my intellectual and emotional existence, was suddenly beyond my grasp. I was used to reading three or four books a week; now it was impossible. I did not read a serious work of literature or nonfiction, cover to cover, for more than ten years. The frustration and pain of this were immeasurable. I threw books against the wall in a blind fury and sailed medical journals across my office in a rage. I could read journal articles better than books, because they were short; but it was with great difficulty, and I had to read the same lines repeatedly and take copious notes before I could comprehend the meaning. Even so, what I read often disappeared from my mind like snow on a hot pavement. I took up needlepoint as a diversion and made countless cushions and firescreens in a futile attempt to fill the hours I had previously filled with reading.
Poetry, thank God, remained within my grasp, and, having always loved it, I now fell upon it with
One evening, after a riding lesson in Malibu during which I twice fell off my horse into the poles of a jump, I was pulled over to the side of the road by the police. They put me through an impressively thorough roadside neurological exam—I walked a not very straight line; was not able to make my fingertip reach my nose; and was hopelessly bad at getting my fingertips to tap against my thumb; God only knows what the pupils of my eyes were doing when a police officer blared a light into them—and until I got out my bottles of medication, gave the officers the name and telephone number of my psychiatrist, and agreed to whatever blood tests they wanted to order, the police refused to believe that I was not on drugs or hadn’t been drinking.
Not long after that incident, shortly after I learned to ski, I was on a very tall mountain somewhere in Utah and unaware that high altitude coupled with rigorous exercise can raise lithium levels. I became completely disoriented and totally incapable of navigating my way down the mountain. Fortunately, a colleague of mine who knew I was taking lithium, and who was himself an expert on its medical uses, became concerned when I didn’t catch up with him at the time we had arranged to meet. He concluded that I might have become toxic from it, sent the ski patrol after me, and I came down the mountain safely, although rather more horizontally than I would have liked.
Nausea and vomiting and occasional toxicity, while upsetting and embarrassing at times, were far less important to me than lithium’s effect on my ability to read, comprehend, and remember what I read. In rareinstances, lithium causes problems of visual accommodation, which can, in turn, lead to a form of blurred vision. It also can impair concentration and attention span and affect memory. Reading, which had been at the heart of my intellectual and emotional existence, was suddenly beyond my grasp. I was used to reading three or four books a week; now it was impossible. I did not read a serious work of literature or nonfiction, cover to cover, for more than ten years. The frustration and pain of this were immeasurable. I threw books against the wall in a blind fury and sailed medical journals across my office in a rage. I could read journal articles better than books, because they were short; but it was with great difficulty, and I had to read the same lines repeatedly and take copious notes before I could comprehend the meaning. Even so, what I read often disappeared from my mind like snow on a hot pavement. I took up needlepoint as a diversion and made countless cushions and firescreens in a futile attempt to fill the hours I had previously filled with reading.
Poetry, thank God, remained within my grasp, and, having always loved it, I now fell upon it with
Similar Books
