Madness

Hornbacher details her experience of living with bipolar disorder—the psychological escapades, the unimaginable highs, and devastating lows. These transcendent highs and crippling lows are mirrored in the strange delights and perils of the physical world. She is the life of parties, dressed provocatively in silky red dresses and matching ruby lipstick. But she is also capable of breaking ties with reality, hopping in a car with a boyfriend and travelling across the state for no reason in particular, an adventure in which the pleasure of the high becomes too much, too dangerous to be reckoned with. 

I too recall waking… show more.

This is quite simply the best memoir about bipolar disorder that I've ever read. It's a beautifully written epic that details the ways in which bipolar disorder can lead to eating disorders, substance abuse, and self-mutilation. Hornbacher writes non-fiction like a poet. Like Hornbacher, I've spent weeks in residential mental health care treatment. And she writes so compellingly about the fear and rage inherent during hospital stays and also about the joy of emerging from treatment as a healthier and more hopeful person.