An Unquiet Mind

Jamison writes that her awareness of her illness was gradual, rather than sudden: “I did not wake up one day to find myself mad […] Rather, I gradually became aware that my life and mind were going at an ever faster and faster clip until […] they both had spun wildly and absolutely out of control” (68). Further confusing the issue was that as she began her faculty position, she went without serious mood swings for more than a year. Nevertheless, the demands of her job meant that she wasn’t sleeping much, which is a symptom of and cause of mania. Her mania continued to push boundaries, including one particularly bizarre event at the chancellor’s welcome party to new faculty members; the experience was particularly interesting because, though she remembers herself as charming and interesting throughout the night, her soon-to-be psychiatrist was at the same party and remembers her very differently, as “somewhat wild-eyed and frenzied” (70): “He says he remembers having thought to himself, Kay looks manic. I, on the other hand, had thought I was splendid” (71).

At another point, Jamison “got into a frenzy of photocopying” (72). Interestingly, though, is that there was sense to the photocopying—everything she did had solid reasoning behind it; it was the action itself that betrayed the mania.