Who may not give up

On March 30, World Bipolar Disorders Day is celebrated. In his famous book “The Restless Mind”, the American psychiatrist Kay Jamison describes this ailment as a researcher and as a patient

When I'm on the rise, I am not worried about money. They will certainly take from somewhere. I have the right. I'm special. God will help. Credit cards are a real disaster, and registered checks are even worse. Unfortunately, mania always has economic consequences. With bank accounts and credit cards, all benefits seem affordable. Therefore, I acquired a dozen sets against snake bites and was sure of the importance and timeliness of this purchase. ”

Everyone who has at least once encountered a bipolar affective disorder, abbreviated bar (before it was called manic-depressive psychosis-MDP), or at least read about it on Wikipedia, will easily notice how classical, “exemplary”, this episode from the Autobiographical book Kay Jamison “The Restless Mind” looks. My victory over bipolar disorder. ”

This classic book was carefully studied, for example, the scriptwriters of the Rodina series to create the image of Carrie Matison, a brilliant CIA analyst that tracks down terrorists and simultaneously makes a great contribution to an open public discussion of a bipolar disorder.

Saturn rings

During the mania, Jamison buys sets against snake bites. She sleeps for three hours a day, feels an incredible rise (“slides along the rings of Saturn”, according to her expression), she is full of strength and preoccupied with her, an important social problem: the valley next to her city is full of snakes, which means who, like it should not help people to prevent the terrible consequences of bites. Jamison distributes sets to everyone who meets her in the way.

It will become more and more active, the speed of her speech will be higher, the number of social problems that she is ready to solve will increase until finally she does not lose the ability to stop the stream of restless thoughts in her head. Then everything will also happen as according to the textbook of psychiatry: psychosis, an attempt to suicide, long exhausting depression ...

If the concept of “depression” is already more or less familiar to everyone, and the word itself is often mistakenly used in everyday life to designate the spleen, then mania is still an exotic phenomenon in the Russian context. People suffering from a bar often do not recognize the manic phase as something bad and even value it, in particular, for this reason refusing to recognize the problem and seek help. Here is how Jamison describes this state: “The rise in energy and moods, exacerbation of perception, inspiration, flexibility and originality of thinking, ambitiousness, positive attitude, sociability, increased sexuality <...> - for many, this drunk experience is like a drug that is not easy to abandon.”

Probably, not one reader, accustomed to perceive “depression” as a bad mood and shameful weakness, will be surprised to recognize himself in the description of the most productive, as it might seem, and even the euphoric moments of life. Which sometimes for some reason turn around at all sugar.

Help hand

This moment of recognition of the symptoms is one of the main engines of this particular book and other books of the same genre that it seems that does not exist at all in the Russian non-fiction. The genre, which in a nutshell can be described as follows: Books about “Kaming Auts” (or, in Russian, “Exit from the cabinet”) of people with mental disorders. In addition to the “restless mind”, the main bestsellers from this row are the Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness Elin Sax and the book of an American writer, a journalist, a famous psychologist and activist in the fight for the rights of gays Andrew Solomon The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. In Russian, both books have not yet been published, the names are usually translated as “does not hold the core: notes about my schizophrenia” and “midday demon: anatomy of depression”, respectively. The first talks about how a professor of law of Yale University Elin Sax lives with schizophrenia, the second - about the life of Andrew Solomon, who has a protracted clinical depression.

The motive for the emergence of such literature is precisely closely related to the concept of “Auta Caming”, in general, this is part of the struggle for human rights; an important element of the struggle for the public recognition of its identity, dissimilarity, uniqueness of their own personality; This is a help hand for everyone who is faced with similar problems; An attempt to draw the attention of society to the problems of those who are in trouble.

The word "trouble" should not sound an exaggeration here. The terrible statistics of the MDP (or, according to the new classification, the bar) is known: almost half of the people with this disorder cause harm to themselves, about 10% - end the life of suicide.

Support group

The book “The Restless Mind. My victory over the bipolar disorder ”was published in the United States in 1995. It was recently translated and published in Russian.

It would be logical to assume that over 20 years the book could be monstrously obsolete. Or at least greatly lose relevance. Indeed, psychopharmacology has advanced significantly since then, a new version of the international classifier of mental disorders has been published, and the case of books on psychiatry has significantly replenished. But in an amazing way, the book translated into Russian seems not obsolete, but rather, ahead of time.

Kay Jamison is a famous American psychiatrist, one of the founders of the clinic of affective disorders of the University of California, co -author of the classic bipolar disorder, public figure. She lives either in California or in Washington, leaves for a year in London, and before that - to Scotland. She never is left alone: ​​she is supported by her beloved men, friends, family, colleagues. No one ever thought to deprive her of a medical license, although she always directly tells about the disease to her authorities. The dean of her faculty, whose verdict Jamison was waiting with fear after her recognition, said to her with a smile: “Kay, dear. I know that you suffer from a manic-depressive disease. If we at the faculty got rid of everyone who has affective disorders, it would not just become tiny - it would have turned into a terribly dull institution. ” Jamison never, for a minute is in a psychiatric hospital. It is always conducted simultaneously by a psychiatrist and psychotherapist.

The line between the fact in order to truly be eccentric and only make such an impression is very fragile

It is completely incomprehensible how Jamison's book will sound for a modern Russian reader. Can she support those who live with bipolar disorder in Russia?

At any Internet forum for people with schizophrenia, MDP, any other psychiatric disorders in five minutes, you can get an idea of ​​the circle of problems that people with such diagnoses and their relatives in modern Russia are faced. People are afraid to go to the district dispensary so as not to have an entry about their illness: how to receive rights with such an entry, get a job, adopt children? And more than anything, they are afraid to get to a psychiatric hospital - they will take the phone, they will not let them see relatives, and will not be released under a receipt. In Russia, people do not know anything about psychotherapy - in the district dispensary they do not prescribe it to anyone. They have never heard of support groups for relatives.

The power of context

The book “The Restless Mind” was written, and Kay Jamison itself was formed as a psychiatrist in a powerful stream of a public antipsychiatric movement, the struggle against Stigma and for the rights of people with mental disorders. Without this context, the book sounds completely different. One of the reviewers writes on the back cover: "This is a book about how to live without surrendering." Although Jamison, it seems, is trying to say exactly the opposite (an episode with a suicide attempt to be written specifically for this): anyone will surrender without the support of friends and loved ones, without the awareness of society, without the qualified help of psychiatrists, without good supporting laws, without a million conditions - in a word, those that have survived the antipsychiatric movement.

Even in the favorable, accepting environment where Jamison has formed and lives, she was afraid to talk about her condition for most of her life, thinking that this would change the attitude of those around her and her scientific activity: “The line, meanwhile to be really eccentric and only make such an impression, is very fragile. The word "inadequate" is not just disgusting, it is also derogatory. The border between a person who is considered sensitive or impressionable, and those on whom they put the stigma of the "mentally ill" is barely perceptible. " What can we say about us. In Russia, the Destigmatization of people with mental features is just beginning, the book Kay Jamison has published in Russian with a twenty -year late. I would like to hope that soon the books of Elin Sax and Andrew Solomon will join it.

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