Customer Reviews

Nothing Was the Same

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This book is beautifully written. In keeping with Ms. Jamison's other books, it is an explosion of language unlike anything you will have read for a long time, all of it aimed at describing something very unusual in American literature: a happy marriage.

As readers of An Unquiet Mind will remember, Kay Jamison is an academic expert on manic depressive illness who is herself a manic depressive; her description of the illness in that book is the most vivid and understandable I have ever read.

I have been a friend both of Kay's and of her late husband, Richard Wyatt's. Knowing him did not prepare me for Nothing Was the Same. Richard was a man of great professional attainments and personal charm. Women will read about him and fall in love with his inconceivable thoughtfulness and powers of expression. Men will read about him and feel hopelessly inadequate (How could he so consistently say the right thing and come up with the right gesture? Who knows.)

It is hard to know who will pick up this unusual book. Those who do will enjoy it a great deal.

"Nothing was the Same" is a jewel. Kay Jamison is a world renowned expert in bipolar illness whose personal struggle with the illness was brilliantly elucidated in her earlier memoir "Unquiet Mind". This sequel is about her relationship with her deceased husband Richard Wyatt, an outstanding schizophrenia researcher. It is a love story including illness and death, followed by mourning and healing. Opening the front cover, one reads copies of love letters exchanged between them at the start of their relationship. The letters are very revealing about their character and are an augur of what follows. Jamison's writing is precise, perceptive, witty, and very elegant. It is a joy to read. Great writing offers the opportunity of enriching one's personal experience by viewing the experience differently or in a more nuanced manner. My son died of a cocaine arrythmia eight years ago. Her description of mourning is elegant and helped me be aware of nuances that I would have previously been unable to express. "Nothing was the Same" deserves to become a classic book on mourning joining "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis.

Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison's new memoir Nothing Was the Same is a love story like no other--two exceptional people, each doctors, each contending with a life-threatening illness.

At age seventeen Dr. Jamison was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness. She lived through mania, paralyzing depressions, and a mercifully failed suicide attempt. In her Prologue she writes that manic depression is a kind of madness, such that she was determined to "avoid .perturbance. (such as falling in love). She believed she needed to "coddle" her brain and modify her life and thus her dreams.

The renowned and charming scientist, Dr Richard Wyatt fell in love with her and she with him; they married and enjoyed nearly twenty years together until his sorrowful death from Hodgkin's disease. This brilliant scientist and beautiful human being had the added burden of dyslexia which required that he work four or five extra hours each day as he made his way through college, medical school, internship, residency, and his subsequent scientific career.

This stunningly well-written memoir is about grief...grief and the beauty and complexity of their relationship...a relationship that was doubly fraught with the common misunderstandings of two human beings due to the debilitating, threatening illnesses they each suffered. One incident in particular serves as an example. Realizing that Dr. Wyatt's medical bag was at home, Dr. Jamison had a premonition and looked through its contents, finding in the bottom of the bag; hidden in its recesses what she feared: a syringe and a vial of antipsychotic medication. She was angered that he believed this was necessary. The last thing he intended was to hurt her and his reaction to her distress was heartfelt and painful. It was a difficult moment for him. "Medicine is imperfect." Wyatt tells her, quietly. "I am imperfect."..."You are imperfect."..."Love is imperfect." His patience, kindness and wisdom in the way he dealt with her erratic moods seem boundless and, in time, she changed; she learned to trust him.

Nothing Was the Same has distinctive qualities that emerge from a talented writer who has the soul of a poet and the knowledge of an internationally esteemed psychiatrist. Dr. Jamison writes about her grief with the clear-thinking mind of a physician and the lyrical and sensitive nature of an artist's sensibilities, combining her love story with her intimate understanding, both private and professional, of the nature of grief. This grief, she relates, plunged her into a dangerous darkness. Grief "...has its own territory." "...a minute of sweetness and belief, and then the blackness comes again....this illness will always bring me to my knees. I accumulate sorrow and grief inside, which only wait until the next time to go out again, to remind me how always tides go out once in."

Discussing the sometimes difficult-to-distinguish differences between the closely allied emotions of depression and grief, she writes that their emotions overlap, and are related like cousins, yet they are distinct. "...grief," she writes, "compelled solitude. Time alone in grief proved restorative. Time alone when depressed was dangerous. The thoughts I had of death after Richard's death were necessary and proportionate. They were of his death, not my own. When depressed, however, it was my own death I thought about and desired. It was my own death I sought out. In grief, death occasions the pain. In depression, death is the solution to the pain."

Nothing was the Same is intense because it is personal and honest; Dr. Jamison reveals her inner life without restraint. It grabbed my attention and held my interest from first page to last. Although about grief and depression, I did not find it depressing. Rather, it shares a magnificent love story, a eulogy to the sacred experience of grief and depression. We are made to realize we can grow and learn from these challenging emotions; they are necessary. It inspired in me waves of empathy, admiration, and affection for this sensitive author.

by Duffie Bart
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

The extended illness and death of a spouse is an experience that is both intimate and incomparable and yet so common as to have been the subject of countless memoirs.

What makes "Nothing Was the Same" remarkable is that this account is told by the talented clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison who went public with her own bipolar illness in her acclaimed 1995 autobiography "An Unquiet Mind." Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Her husband, Richard Wyatt, M.D., was a leading researcher on schizophrenia and became Chief of Neuropsychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health. Jamison was 38 and Wyatt 45 when they met. He died after almost 20 years of marriage to Jamison in 2002 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Jamison and Wyatt's relationship was compelling on a number of levels. Both were mental health researchers and clinicians with their own unique challenges: Jamison suffered from bipolar illness while Wyatt was afflicted with extreme dyslexia. Jamison discloses that she was something of a "project" for Wyatt who kept careful records on her illness. This is not to say, however, that husband and wife treated each other as patients. Rather, this reads as quite the love story, infused as much by warmth and devotion as by professional interests. As Jamison writes, "It is strange, I think now, that love could soothe and draw together such different souls, and provide for them such hope, such happiness."

While the professional lives of this couple continue to play a role in their story, as Wyatt's illness progresses and after all the medical alternatives are exhausted, the human pathos of dying comes into the foreground. Jamison's account is moving. Dying can be that most exquisite form of closeness. As Jamison says, "The intimacy of being together during the approach of death is unimaginable."

Jamison's memoir is likely to appeal to two types of readers: those who have already taken this journey with a spouse or partner and those who wonder what it will be like. This will be a rewarding account for both.

I found this memoir difficult to put down and difficult to read at the same time! Her telling of this engaging relationship is nothing short of profound and simple. Profound in that two people of such keen sharp minds sustained a loving bond and dealt with adversity that would break an ordinary marriage. Simple in that they were passionately in love, counting the days and moments before death would bring it to an earthly conclusion. Difficult to read, but so fulfilling to have savored the feelings!

Clinical psychologist Kay Jamison was lucky enough to meet and marry the one person who not only loved her unconditionally but also complemented and understood her as well as anyone could. Loving her was, she admits, no easy task. Jamison, who suffers from bipolar disorder, has been to hell and back. If you doubt this, read "An Unquiet Mind" (which Richard encouraged her to write), in which she vividly describes her harrowing descent into madness that nearly ended in suicide. Kay freely acknowledges that meeting Richard Wyatt, a gifted doctor and scientist with a funny and affectionate nature, was one of the best things that ever happened to her. The two spent nearly twenty years together. Sadly, Kay's "husband, colleague, and friend" passed away in 2002. As she watched Richard give up his hold on life with his accustomed grace and dignity, she began the process of grieving. She learned that "grief is a generative and human thing," and she shares her hard-won knowledge about its nature in her poignant memoir, "Nothing Was the Same."

This book is a warm and candid tribute to an unselfish man who was a respected psychopharmacologist, a brilliant researcher, an exceptional teacher, and a comforting presence to all who knew him. Richard taught Kay that if she neglected herself by skipping her medication or eating and sleeping irregularly, then she would doom herself to an episode of mania that could spiral out of control. "Having lost my heart, I would then lose my mind." Richard instilled in his wife the idea that taking care of herself was pure common sense. To do otherwise would be foolish and dangerous.

Everyone who knew Richard was inspired by his accomplishments. Although he was dyslectic, through hard work and perseverance, "he received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, did his psychiatric residency at Harvard, and became Chief of Neuropsychiatry at the National Institute of Mental health." His severe dyslexia did not stop him from writing hundreds of papers and six books. He did pioneering work that contributed to "the understanding and treatment of schizophrenia and other diseases of the brain."

Kay admits that, at times, she and Richard argued. She says, "His acceptance of me was deep, but it was not entire. At times he was enraged when I was ill; at others, he was bewildered or coolly distant." However, he was never judgmental. Richard understood that manic depression is genetic and that Kay was not to blame for being ill. Together, they learned how to work around Kay's severe mood disorder. This beautiful book is Kay's gift to Richard and to her many readers who have endured agonizing losses. She assures us that her sorrow has been alleviated somewhat by the many fond memories she has of Richard, and also by working, visiting with friends and family, reading poetry, and communing with the beauty of nature. "Nothing Was the Same" is an eloquent love letter to a remarkable man and it will serve as a source of comfort to bereaved individuals trying to find their way back from the depths of despair.

This is a beautiful book about life after loss. Dr Kay Redfield Jamison writes about her relationship with her husband Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia.

In recounting her own journey through grief, Dr Jamison writes a celebration of life, of love and of shared experiences. This is a beautifully written and deeply moving memoir which is easy to read and full of insightful self-awareness.

I found many of those insights spoke to me on a very personal level.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I had read "An Unquiet Mind" and was so impressed with the author's writing ability. It was passionately expressed, very eloguent and descriptive. So, when I read that her new book of memoirs about her deceased husband was coming soon, I ordered it in advance. I just finished her book "Nothing was the Same" and appreciated her perspectives about grieving, and the power of taking time to be quiet, to remember and to go through personal affects when the time is right. I found her book to be respectful, sacred and tender. My mother passed away 6 months ago, and so it was healing to go through the process she described along with her. Great book for anyone who has a chronically ill loved one, or who is grieving a death.

I was attracted to read this book because the author and her husband lived in the DC area (where I am a recent transplant) and she tells her account of becoming a widow (which I also experienced in my life.) I have not read anything else by this author. However, I am not a clinical person or have any experience with mental illness or work in this field. This may have contributed to my lack of overall enthusiasm for this book.

I really enjoyed Kay's description of her life and subsequent meeting and marriage to Richard. Her honesty and transparency regarding the trials of her bi-polar condition were very important to the story and appreciated by this reader. Their marriage was beautiful, funny and intimate. We should all be so lucky to find our "Richard". And her inclusion of the DC area, the Rock Creek park and the restaurants, neighborhoods, etc. were a wonderful addition to the book.

However, after Richard's death in the book, I found myself bored and had to make myself finish the book. After the first post-death chapter, I think I understood her grief and the differences between grief and major depression. In the last third of the book, it felt like a HUGE thank you note to her friends. She thanked the hospital, she thanked her friends who took her dinner, she thanked the college...I was personally not interested in all the thank yous. I wanted more of HER story, perhaps more about how she put her life together...which got lost for me in all the appreciation expression.

I was hoping to suggest this book for my bookclub selection, but honestly, I think it would not be appropriate.

This is a book about Grief, and Sickness, and Dying but perhaps above all it is a Love Story. Kay Redfield Jamison tells the story of her twenty years with Richard Wyatt, who like her was an important researcher in the area of mental disorders. She tells the story with taste, restraint, feeling and unfailing intelligence and wisdom. She provides much anecdotal evidence about her remarkable relationship with her husband. And she describes how they lived through the difficult period of his illness. In the last section of the book in which she speaks about her own Grief , she makes strong distinction between Depression and Grief. And she suggests that Grief however painful may have positive elements which Depression does not have.
This book is about two people who were blessed in finding each other, and living together a particularly close intense and even beautiful way.
I believe all readers of this book will have a sense of gratitude to and admiration for what Jamison has done in this work. Her story tells of her own husband's sickness and death, but fundamentally the book is a celebration of life, a story of two people who knew how to love understand and truly help each other.

P.S.Again I could not recommend a book more highly than I do this one. But it nonetheless raised in my mind many questions. However much it is a love story it is far more the story of the author's own feelings of love, and grief than it is the story of her husband's life. In fact we learn nothing in the book of the family which he came from, and the family he made with his first wife. We do get some sense of his mind from description and conversation but we do not really get a good feeling of it. The book is told in a certain tone and time and therefore does not give us in detail the story of the difficult times between the couple , especially during her periods of illness. Again the book is done with restraint and therefore 'uglinesses are kept out , including detailed descriptions of all the medical problems each one went through. All of this is not to in any way denigrate this remarkable book but it is to suggest that it is far different from the seemingly no-holds- barred approach of 'An Unquiet Mind'. That book Kay Redfield, the one which made her wider public name, would as she makes clear never have been written without the urging and care of her husband.