Madness: A Bipolar Life (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I will not go to sleep..." (more)
Key Phrases: San Francisco, Crazy Sean, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hornbacher, who detailed her struggle with bulimia and anorexia in Wasted, now shares the story of her lifelong battle with mental illness, finally diagnosed as rapid cycling type 1 bipolar disorder. Even as a toddler, Hornbacher couldn't sleep at night and jabbered endlessly, trying to talk her parents into going outside to play in the dark. Other schoolchildren called her crazy. When she was just 10, she discovered alcohol was a good mood stabilizer; by age 14, she was trading sex for pills. In her late teens, her eating disorder landed her in the hospital, followed by another body obsession, cutting. An alcoholic by this point, she was alternating between mania and depression, with frequent hospitalizations. Her doctor explained that not only did the alcohol block her medications, it was up to her to control her mental illness, which would always be with her. This truth didn't sink in for a long, long time, but when it did, she had a chance for a life outside her local hospital's psychiatric unit. Hornbacher ends on a cautiously optimistic note—she knows she'll never lead a normal life, but maybe she could live with the life she does have. Although painfully self-absorbed, Hornbacher will touch a nerve with readers struggling to cope with mental illness. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

Like a horror-movie sequence that threatens never to end, Hornbacher’s testimony grabs and doesn’t let go through episode after episode of bulimia, substance abuse, and promiscuity. Mania with its attendant voices plagued Hornbacher ever since she can remember. Extreme mood swings finally led to diagnosis at 24 of bipolarity. Possibly genetic, given a family history rife with anecdotes implying mental instability going back for generations, Hornbacher’s bipolar disorder is a label she initially rejected, though she responded to medication for it. She married, and threw herself into overworking that triggered recurrences of the mood swings, two years of repeated hospitalization, then electroconvulsive therapy. With cutting perception and skill, she makes palpable not only madness’ losses but the things gained as well. --Whitney Scott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (April 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618754458
• ISBN-13: 978-0618754458
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #85,699 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally Honest, April 25, 2008

By	Joe Kraynak - See all my reviews

Madness is one of the few personal accounts of bipolar disorder I've read that covers the escalating unfolding of the disorder from such an early age (4 years old) to the present. The book covers just about every aspect of the struggle with bipolar disorder - early failures to diagnose it, misdiagnosis, clueless and competent psychiatrists and therapists, stressors, triggers, the tendency to self-medicate, hospitalizations, hyper-sexuality, the terrible side effects of many of the medications used to treat depression and mania, bipolar and career, alcoholism, self-mutilation, relationship dynamics, lack of insight (not realizing when a manic episode is settling in), and the highly productive and invigorating hypomanias that often convince those with bipolar disorder that nothing's wrong. Her narrative functions almost like a textbook case study of bipolar disorder.

The book has a solid chronological structure that leads the reader through the escalating and exhausting mood cycles Hornbacher experienced. She is a highly skilled writer who keeps the narrative progressing at a quick pace while revealing dazzling insights about the disorder, about people, and about life in general along the way.

What I found particularly helpful about the book is Hornbacher's descriptions of how her mood episodes began so seemingly innocent enough. One day, life seems to be just fine and then over the course of several days, weeks, or months becomes wonderful - everything is clicking and Hornbacher's energy and joy seduces all those around her - and then, just as suddenly, her world crashes in on her. People who haven't experienced this, don't know what it's like. They wonder why people with bipolar disorder can't tell when their moods are cycling or why a loved one didn't step in sooner. I think Hornbacher's accounts can help people gain a better understanding.

As co-author of Bipolar Disorder for Dummies and as someone who's "married to bipolar," I could relate to just about everything in Madness. Hornbacher does an incredible job of taking the reader on the roller coaster ride that is bipolar disorder, revealing the wreckage that bipolar leaves in its wake, and filling those who battle it in their own lives with an appreciation of the positive aspects of the disorder and hope for a better future.

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another brilliantly-written memoir by Marya Hornbacher, March 31, 2008

By	Melissa Galligan "Melissa Galligan" (Melbourne, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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'Madness' lives up to Ms. Hornbacher's first memoir, 'Wasted', and in the same take-no-prisoner style that is hers almost exclusively, gives readers a first-hand glimpse inside the head and heart of a typical victim of the insanity that is (untreated) bipolar. She is honest and unapologetic, she is in-your-face, and she is raw. I sympathized with Marya so much in this memoir that I couldn't help but feel elated when she found moments of peace, and desperate during each of her countless hospitalizations...even if some of them were hastened by her own hand. She shows readers that a person can be both severely mentally ill and outrageously successful at the same time. She dispels many myths about mental illness in this book, as she did with eating disorders in 'Wasted.' Marya Horbacher is brilliant, and the unimaginable setbacks she has suffered in her young life have done nothing to change that; in fact, they have made her stronger and infinitely more compassionate. With a quick wit and self-deprecating humor, Ms. Hornbacher has penned another brilliantly intense memoir that, in my opinion, is on-par with any of Elizabeth Wurtzel's writings, and perhaps even better.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Inside Looking Out, July 7, 2008

By	rgh "Book Addict" (Burbank, CA) - See all my reviews

Having recently entered into the confusing world of having a child diagnosed with bi-polar, trying to tease out a distinction between mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction, watching different psychiatrists prescribe different medications, along with the child being a hostile patient, i.e. doesn't want to talk about what's going on---this book is a brilliant insight into what's going on inside a rapid cycle bi-polar head. I recognized some actions of my son throughout this book and finally got a sense of what it must be like inside his brain. This book gave me a new appreciation for the pain he is trying to hide or run away from. And also gave me insight into how I can better be there for him in his mental illness while not enabling his addictive behavior. This illness is not fun and there seems to be a lot of differences in how to treat it, especially as the field of study on bi-polar appears to be expanding and new treatments are on the rise but not consistently throughout the psychiatric profession.

Marya Hornbacher has done a great service for me by writing in such vivid prose her ongoing dilemma. Admittedly, my reading on bi-polar is not exhaustive, but this is the first book I've read that truly captured the tyranny of this illness. Ms. Hornbacher is a truly gifted writer. I do not envy her the ongoing struggle she faces, but she sure dug deep to write this. Throughout the the painful descriptions of behavior and feelings shines a courage that lifts my hopes for my own son.