Madness: A Bipolar Life

Madness: A Bipolar Life
Marya Hornbacher

A searing, unflinching and deeply moving account of Marya Hornbacher’s personal experience of living with bipolar disorder.From the age of six, Marya Hornbacher knew that something was terribly wrong with her, manifesting itself in anorexia and bulimia which she documented in her bestselling memoir ‘Wasted’. But it was only eighteen years later that she learned the true underlying reason for her distress: bipolar disorder.In this new, equally raw and frank account, Marya Hornbacher tells the story of her ongoing battle with this most pervasive and devastating of mental illnesses; how, as she puts it, ‘it crept over me like a vine, sending out tentative shoots in my childhood, taking deeper root in my adolescence, growing stronger in my early adulthood, eventually covering my body and face until I was unrecognizable, trapped, immobilized’. She recounts the soaring highs and obliterating lows of her condition; the savage moodswings and impossible strains it placed on her relationships; the physical danger it has occasionally put her in; the endless cycle of illness and recovery. She also tackles the paradoxical aspects of bipolar disorder – how it has been the drive behind some of her most creative work – and the reality of a life lived in limbo, ‘caught between the world of the mad and the world of the sane’.Yet for all the torment it documents, this is a book about survival, about living day to day with bipolar disorder – the constant round of therapy and medication – and managing it. As well as her own highly personal story, the book includes interviews with family, spouses and friends of sufferers, the people who help their loved ones carry on. Visceral and inspiring, lyrical and sometimes even funny, ‘Madness’ will take its place alongside other classics of the genre such as ‘An Unquiet Mind’ and ‘Girl, Interrupted’.

Madness

a bipolar life

marya

hornbacher

Copyright (#ulink_f8447acc-1cc3-5c4c-9529-935b64e05e36)

HarperPress

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harperperennial.co.uk (http://www.harperperennial.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2008

Copyright © Marya Hornbacher 2008, 2009

PS Section copyright © Hannah Harper 2009, except ‘Lives Too Often Kept Dark’ by Marya Hornbacher © Marya Hornbacher 2009

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Marya Hornbacher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007250646

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN 9780007380367

Version: 2015-03-26

CONTENTS

Cover (#ucef0b98d-711b-59c3-a20f-2b5a1bef2931)

Title Page (#ud8928705-a2d9-512c-a158-237ede53cd2e)

Copyright (#ud1730cc9-5e83-5f0a-a480-20443ce9bce9)

Prologue (#u1f4006c1-23f0-5de6-90a7-5d65c9c71f53)

Part I (#u7b3a06ce-ee74-529b-b337-46abdb242d48)

The Goatman (#ua728963f-f548-5fdd-9f51-ac76a67134c8)

What They Know (#u72df9ec4-31ed-50ad-ad0f-0a22f6b043b8)

Depression (#u54482077-ca8e-5f3d-8dac-63cdc962eeae)

Prayer (#u798fdfd7-1583-53de-9439-3ee1b763ac25)

Food (#u23e241ae-c313-555b-aeee-7a53fe6c22c7)

The Booze under the Stove (#uf25cbd6b-f785-5ee6-b54a-0bfa4f921f9d)

Meltdown (#uaf5a2b1a-0fb2-52e5-9851-e056a2c860ca)

Escapes (#uede4e9c3-1f49-5636-af7d-787ff9f39eda)

Minneapolis (#u5507ecbf-70b7-5013-ab48-428e423f746a)

California (#uc35383ea-50b7-562f-821a-26bfc213767b)

Minneapolis (#u7409e791-3c2f-54c1-bb8b-9029320348df)

Washington, D.C. (#u1c9def12-739f-5862-94e9-d0cefe8cdf0f)

Full Onset (#ub10d86d7-19e8-5f96-b950-9022a8250d20)

Part II (#ua50f43b6-d78b-5482-a34b-447c920b446a)

The New Life (#ud8ba9832-7ec1-55cc-ba99-7b6e10595dd3)

The Diagnosis (#ub91697c7-a8f0-510c-ad33-f9bbf0eabab0)

The Break (#ue04851e4-4995-50b9-af88-746fba363193)

Unit 47 (#u1bc63e84-0a6e-5d85-b12d-48869bb37a34)

Tour (#litres_trial_promo)

Hypomania (#litres_trial_promo)

Jeremy (#litres_trial_promo)

Therapy (#litres_trial_promo)