Read Mental Storyline:
A riveting memoir and a fascinating investigation of the history, uses, and controversies behind lithium, an essential medication for millions of people struggling with bipolar disorder, stemming from Jaime Lowe's sensational 2015 article in The New York Times Magazine: "'I Don't Believe in God, but I believe in Lithium': My 20-year struggle with bipolar disorder." It began with an insomniac summer in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just 16. She stopped sleeping and eating, and began to hallucinate—Michael Jackson wearing masks, demonically cackling Muppets, and faces in windows. She wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary, and infographics on her wall. Eventually hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, her prescribed medication was three pink pills — lithium. In Grand Delusions, Lowe shares her story of life-long episodic madness and the stability she found with lithium, as well as a journalistic exploration of the history...Pages of Mental :