Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Mania

In “Notes to My Biographer,” we see a tragic portrait of the manic side of untreated bipolar disorder. It is painted so vividly and accurately that it makes me wonder whether it is about the author’s own father and whether the Graham character is the author.

As a person who has bipolar disorder and has been arrested when manic, this story was both difficult to read and difficult to put down. Did any of you have trouble reading it? Did it add anything to your understanding of mania, or did you already understand it?
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9 comments:

kc said...

This guy isn't just manic. He's completely insane. Delusional. Paranoid. Hostile. Offensive. Belligerent. Disconnected from reality. Unable to relate to anyone. Unable to value anyone except for what they might mean to HIM.

I didn't have trouble reading it. I just thought it was very sad.

There's a similar situation in "Running with Scissors." The narrator's mom is always in her own world, unable to be a parent. The narrator wanted a mother just like the son in this story wanted a father.

8:47 PM, August 15, 2007
Ben said...

But all of those things are symptoms of a severe manic episode.

I don’t have much first-hand experience with mania, but from what I’ve read (and the little experience I do have), this is the perfect portrait of severe mania.

A couple of symptoms he has that are not always present in mania are the paranoia and the inability to focus. Those can be present in mania, but they aren’t always.

9:01 PM, August 15, 2007
kc said...

This guy is like a paranoid schizophrenic or something, though. He is disconnected from reality in a severely disabling way. The paranoia is paramount.

I identified with him early on as an offbeat, eccentric crank, but by the end of the story I just thought of him as robotic and detached.

9:12 PM, August 15, 2007
Ben said...

Yes, that is one interesting issue with this story. It is almost impossible to identify with the main character because his condition makes him so inhuman. It’s much easier to identify with his poor son.

9:17 PM, August 15, 2007
kc said...

You can see fragments of humanity in him — fragments of appreciation, compassion, open-mindedness, creativity, joy, love, etc. — but the connective tissue that would bind all those fragments together and make him into a sympathetic human being is completely missing.

And that's clearly the effect the author was going for.

9:22 PM, August 15, 2007
Erin said...

I found it very difficult to read. And maybe that's because I've read so much stuff about bipolar disorder and feel it so personally. Ben doesn't get severe manic episodes, but there's still something there that I feel a connection to. I immediately identified this as mania, based on everything I've read about it and the truly tragic things that people do when they're manic. And it was so vividly painted and so accurate to what I've read, I also wondered whether the author knows something like this.

9:49 PM, August 15, 2007
kc said...

OK. Nevermind.

9:57 PM, August 15, 2007
Erin said...

I know we can't say for sure what this guy's diagnosis is, I'm just saying that was my perception.

10:27 PM, August 15, 2007
Erin said...

I did read, by the way, that the author's father was bipolar, although he hesitated to call the story autobiographical at all.

11:23 PM, August 15, 2007

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