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Read an excerpt from Marya Hornbacher’s new memoir

3rd May 2008

Read an excerpt from Marya Hornbacher’s new memoir

posted in Book Reviews, Eating Disorders, Mental Health |
Marya Hornbacher - Madness: A Bipolar Life

Remember Marya Hornbacher’s new memoir of her experiences with bipolar disorder? Now you can read a free excerpt from Madness: A Bipolar Life offered by the British Telegraph. This particular passage seems to pick up where Hornbacher’s eating disorder memoir Wasted leaves off, with Hornbacher in her early 20s and struggling to cope with life outside the warm security blanket of an eating disorder.

In this passage, Hornbacher sets the stage for describing the reality of mania in the same elegiac and beautifully crafted prose which has earned her a coveted place on the bookshelves of most people with eating disorders I know:

It seems to happen overnight: one day I am calm, and the next I am raging. It happens like you’re flipping a switch. I am having a perfectly lovely evening, and then it’s dark and I am screaming, standing in the middle of the room, turning over the glass-topped coffee table, ripping the bathroom sink out of the wall, picking up anything nearby and throwing it as hard as I can. The rages always come at night. They control my voice, my hands, I scream and throw myself against the walls.

Rage swings into a stuporous sleep, and sleep swings into the awful morning sun. My head slides off the edge of the bed, and my mood plummets from shrieking high to muffled low, my heart beating dully inside my ribs. This old, familiar ache does not feel so much like sadness as it does like death, if death is blunt and heavy and topples into you, knocking you flat.

After years of being misdiagnosed and and misunderstood, Hornbacher is finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 23, one year after starting Wasted. She describes the strange mixture of relief and anguish in finally naming the disorder:

My chest floods with a mixture of horror and relief. The relief comes first: something in me sits up and says, ‘It’s true.’ He’s right, he has to be right. This is it. All the years I’ve felt tossed and spat up by the forces of chaos, all that time I’ve felt as if I am spinning away from the real world, off in my own aimless orbit - all of it, over. Now it has a name, and if it has a name, it’s a real thing, not merely my imagination gone wild.

If it has a name, if it isn’t merely an utter failure on my part, if it’s a disease, bipolar disorder, then it has an answer. And then the horror sets in. It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless. ‘Bipolar disorder’. ‘Manic depression’. I’m sick. It’s true. It isn’t going to go away.

Hornbacher grapples with both madness and an alcohol addiction through her 30s. With her newfound mental clarity of today, she writes of the toll mental illness and addiction has taken on her life - and why she would do it all over again.

In fact, much is lost to these two years of hospitalisation. I remember very little, because madness erases memory, and so does electroshock… Memory is not all that’s lost to madness. There are other kinds of damage, to the people in your life, to your sense of who you are and what you can do, to your future and the choices you’ll have. But there are some things gained. The years that have followed my decision to manage my mental illness have been challenging, sometimes painful, sometimes lovely.

The life I live, even the person I am, is nearly unrecognisable compared with life when madness was in control. But the constant effort to learn to live with it, and live well, has changed the way I see it, and it’s probably changed me. After the years in the hospital, I began to learn how to live the kind of life I want. These days, that life is becoming ever more real. But it took a while.

This Friday I turn 29. It is, as I jokingly tell my family and friends, the last birthday I intend to celebrate. But teetering precariously close to 30 or even turning 30 doesn’t terrify me as much as turning 50 this year seems to send my mother into a series of anxious spasms. I’ve felt old for a long time now, since even my mid-20s. Mental illness does that to a person, the brain is set on fast forward while the horrific trauma of addiction and madness steeps the mind and soul in a fountain of unimaginable experience. But like Hornbacher, I wouldn’t reset the clock and lead a sanitized life even if I could. As I turn 29 and later, enter my 30s, I realize the kind of life I want - and the kind of life I don’t want.

How about you? If you could travel back in time and change your past, would you? Why or why not?

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There are currently 20 responses to “Read an excerpt from Marya Hornbacher’s new memoir”

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  1. 1 On May 3rd, 2008, MeowserNo Gravatar said:

    At this point, I still think I would. I would at least like to give the people around me more of a clue about who I was (physically and neurologically) and what I needed to be fully functional. I think it took a terrible toll on me, not having that.

    And happy birthday. (I bet you’ll change your mind about future birthdays — I always look forward to a fantastic meal on mine.)

    posted on May 3rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  2. 2 On May 3rd, 2008, ravenNo Gravatar said:

    i wouldn’t change my life. i think it’s all led me to where i am now. and i love where i am now. but then again, my life has not had too many “bad” things in it. i have even come to appreciate the things that most people would consider bad. it all adds up to bring me to where i am now. and that’s a pretty spectacular place imho.

    posted on May 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 pm

  3. 3 On May 3rd, 2008, thordoraNo Gravatar said:

    As someone who stumbled around, refusing to truly acknowledge I had some real mental disorder since I was 14 or so, I would go back and be a LOT more serious about treatment. All the years I wasted, the bridges I burned…

    But oh, that feeling of bliss when they put the name on it-I somehow knew it was bipolar, but to have someone say that I, the me inside wasn’t the fuck up everyone thought I was….that was a great day.

    posted on May 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 pm

  4. 4 On May 4th, 2008, lilacsigilNo Gravatar said:

    I would stand up for myself, and not let doctors, family, professors and friends tell me that I wasn’t sick, I was fat and lazy. I was sick, and no-one respected my ability to know myself, and I let their opinion convince me.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 12:23 am

  5. 5 On May 4th, 2008, Miss MinxNo Gravatar said:

    Happy (early?) birthday, Rachel!

    I’m of two minds, whether I’d travel back in time. Part of me wants to go back and tell all the doctors who put me on a beta-blocker drug (for senior citizens) for my childhood heart condition how much weight I would gain and never really lose, the chronic depression it would cause.

    Another part of me would like to go even further back, to my mother’s continual misdiagnoses of assorted physical and mental conditions, and scream at them to help her sooner, so that I wouldn’t spend my growing-up years as a parent to her…

    But as Raven rightly points out, all of these crap things in our lives have made us into the beautiful, intelligent, compassionate people we are now, which is why, ultimately, I think I’d just let it all be.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 10:34 am

  6. 6 On May 4th, 2008, PiffleNo Gravatar said:

    There are things I’d change, even today. I think I would still be a good person, maybe even a better one. I’d have gotten my depression treated sooner, I would have quit grad school sooner rather than have it still haunt my nightmares, I’d have fought harder and earlier to get my miscarriages treated properly rather than fiddle around with ineffective treatments. I’ve never wanted anyone else’s life, but yes, there are things I’d change about mine in hindsight. I’m not going to waste time on fussing about them though.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 11:40 am

  7. 7 On May 4th, 2008, EmeraldNo Gravatar said:

    I’d have liked to understand what was going on in my head earlier. The fog that wouldn’t lift, the lack of energy, the isolation, were bad enough in themselves, but there were also the unwise life choices
    (the wrong college, the wrong husband - the advice about not making big decisions when you’re in the grip of depression is spot-on!) which, OK, if treated earlier I might have avoided. There were other things - notably, an ongoing problem with over-controlling parents - which would have been there anyway. But maybe I’d have managed to deal with them better, and sooner. As it was, I didn’t get diagnosed till the third bout, in my mid-30s, and yes, it was a huge relief.

    Also, I’ve recently begun to piece together the fact that I had certain behavioral issues going back to when I was a small child, and, like Meowser, I wish that the adults around me had better understood what was going on. (I’d give a lot to have access to my school records from back then to help me get my head round it now, actually, but it was over thirty years ago and I wouldn’t even know where to start.)

    The age thing is interesting. I will be forty this year, as will my husband. Now, we don’t like big parties anyway, but I’m especially reluctant to avoid a family celebration. Round that table, I know, will be people younger than me who have degrees, babies, prestigious careers. I don’t have any of those, but I (and hubby, who’s also had mental health issues)have been through a heck of a lot and come out the other side relatively unscathed - thought certainly not unchanged - and I do think that’s worth celebrating. But some people wouldn’t quite see it that way.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 11:56 am

  8. 8 On May 4th, 2008, RachelNo Gravatar said:
    Round that table, I know, will be people younger than me who have degrees, babies, prestigious careers.

    I read a news story last night by a reporter stationed in Vienna and Berlin who is just 24. Marya Hornbacher wrote her first book by age 23. These are the only things that make me feel bad about aging, exacerbated by the fact that I took several years off college and returned a late bloomer. I feel like I should have accomplished so much more than I have already professionally, but then I stop and think of all that I have achieved personally.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

  9. 9 On May 4th, 2008, MicheleNo Gravatar said:

    Never. There’s something so oddly satisfying in the knowledge that I have been through Hell and back, and I have come out on the other side a more distilled version of my true self.
    I think that if I had not been through my eating disorder and all its various forms, I would not like the person I might have become.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

  10. 10 On May 4th, 2008, JeanneNo Gravatar said:

    I wouldn’t change a thing.

    Everything that has happened to me, every reaction I had, each accomplishment, each failure, each victory, each defeat, has led to who am I today. And more importantly, who I will be. I’m a work in progress and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

    8-)

    thanks for sharing this.
    jeanne

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 7:29 pm

  11. 11 On May 4th, 2008, libbylooNo Gravatar said:

    As much as I hated my twenties… as awful as they were and as crazy and frightening as some of my experiences were… I wouldn’t change it because it’s formed who I’ve become in my (early) thirties. I’m not sure I would have come out as strong as I have without having had to climb up from the bottom. And now I can look forward to a decade in which I will continue to learn to love myself as opposed to the previous one where I continually looked to harm myself.

    It was interesting watching my friends turn 30. Some of us were glad to see the 20’s go. Some of us were just plain freaked out. And you really couldn’t predict who would react which way. I celebrated my 30th with afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton with several close friends followed by an evening of contra dancing with my boyfriend. I hope you’ve got something special planned for your birthday!

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

  12. 12 On May 4th, 2008, RachelNo Gravatar said:
    Ha, I have nothing planned. We always get together to celebrate both my birthday and Mother’s Day, but none of my siblings have decided on a time or day yet. I took off work for my birthday, but that is because I’m participating in a panel discussion discussing topics in journalism.

    I plan on coming home, changing into my jammies and curling up with my husband and my kitties with the Netflix films we’ve had for three weeks now and never had a chance to watch.

    posted on May 4th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

  13. 13 On May 6th, 2008, JulietNo Gravatar said:

    Oddly, 29 wound up bothering me far more than 30. 29 seemed like the end of something, whereas I saw 30 as the beginning.

    I wouldn’t go back and change anything in my life. I firmly believe that each decision led me to where I am today. The things I lived through, good and bad, molded me into the person I have become and I like that person.

    So, though my path hasn’t always been a paved, straight forward one, that’s fine. The rough road has led me to a wonderful man, a fabulous marriage, life in a state I dreamed of living in and never thought I would and a happiness I never dared dream I’d attain.

    I wouldn’t trade in any of those past experiences, because changing even the smallest thing might have led me elsewhere… and you can argue that “elsewhere” might be better than here, but I don’t believe it could be. I believe my life is exactly how it should be right now, and that means accepting the challenges and troubles that come along with the joys and love.

    posted on May 6th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

  14. 14 On May 6th, 2008, JulietNo Gravatar said:

    PS. Happy birthday (almost)!

    posted on May 6th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

  15. 15 On May 7th, 2008, PhyllisNo Gravatar said:

    I would have enjoyed college more, and I would have gotten a state job right out of college (because now I’d be seven years from retirement instead of a whole lot more than seven years). I especially would reverse my ‘cluelessness’ about guys, realizing as it was happening instead of twenty years later that there were indeed guys interested in my and asking me out.

    And like Emerald, I would like to have understood my mind a lot sooner, except for me it was a sensation of my brain constantly sizzling.

    posted on May 7th, 2008 at 7:47 pm

  16. 16 On May 9th, 2008, On turning 29… » The-F-Word.org said:

    [...] feel old, but then again, I’ve felt old for quite some time.   This is why turning 29 and even the looming prospect of 30 doesn’t bother me.   In [...]

    posted on May 9th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

  17. 17 On May 9th, 2008, MarsteNo Gravatar said:

    I wouldn’t go back. As others have said, everything I’ve gone through has made me who I am. There’s an old cliche about the strongest swords being forged in the hottest fires, and I think there’s some truth to that (metaphorically speaking, anyway; I have NO idea how an actual sword is made, lol). The more crap we go through (and assuming we don’t want to wallow in it), the better we have to get at the process of learning from the experience, finding the good in the event and people involved, forgiving them and ourselves, and moving forward with peace of mind. To go back and change the events of my life now would be to rob myself of those opportunites to grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually. (Although I might have elected to change it if someone had asked me at the time! Ha!)

    posted on May 9th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  18. 18 On May 9th, 2008, CatgalNo Gravatar said:

    I am going to agree with all the people above. I would not go back and change a thing. I will be 40 next month, and have to admit that it is freaking me out a bit. Overall, though, I am happy. I have a great family, a loving husband, and a small group of excellent friends. The events of the past have helped me learn how to be who I am now, and I like who I am, so, no, I would not go back.

    Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

    posted on May 9th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

  19. 19 On May 13th, 2008, Rachel2No Gravatar said:

    Would I change anything? Would I give up the mountains of misery that I’d put myself through? The repeated banging of my head against the metaphorical wall? The mood swings, the anxiety, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, the feelings of utter worthlessness that were so strong that a bottle of pills seemed my only way out?

    Nope. Absolutely not. All of that sh*t has turned me into a better person today. I am a survivor, and I function and flourish in my environment. I finally graduated college recently, and I’m glad I’ve been through the experience. I am a mere 25 years old, but I also feel centuries older than people even 5 years younger than myself. Mere babes in the mist.

    I am thankful for the alternate perspective on reality that most people won’t be privy to. I would not wish it upon anybody, but I am thankful that, for my experiences, I am a better individual. I exude empathy and understanding when most recoil in fear from the Almighty Pop Stigma of the Decade: Mental Illness. Although I do recognize the juxtaposition between this stigma and the fact that the [pharmaceutical] industry seems to be continuously pushing new drugs and new illnesses for people to ‘come down with’ so that they will buy the drugs. Not to say that there aren’t a large amount of people out there like myself and many who come here to post that benefit very significantly from said medications. It just seems like the advertising for it has gone in the direction of absolute insanity (no pun intended, but a damn good one anyway!!). One can’t get through a commercial break or some stupid web pop-up advertising the latest, greatest drug for Condition Z that You Might Have! THE HORROR!! Let’s GO to the doctor RIGHT AWAY for a diagnosis and said drug!!

    Back to the original point. I’m still thankful that I am currently on the correct dosage of medications and I am functioning rather highly in my environment. Things have been stressful over the past few months between graduating, planning my wedding (a month from now), my grandmother passing away, my job search going not-so-great, extreme debt hovering. Wow. It truly is a wonder that I am still standing sometimes. But, going back to the original thought: I would not have been able to function as well as I’ve functioned despite everything without prior experiences to build on. What does not kill us serves only to make us stronger. I’m a very firm believer in that vein of thought and it has proven true time and again for me, and all of us here.

    Power to us!

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL!!! (A wee bit weird. It seems like I’m saying it to myself.) :)

    posted on May 13th, 2008 at 11:46 pm

  20. 20 On May 20th, 2008, ElizabethNo Gravatar said:

    As someone with a bipolar sister, and another whose a recovering alcoholic, I am almost afraid to read more of her book. Too much pain there. I am also reminded of the memoirs of a woman named Eileen DeClemente, who wrote “Alive!” It covers her own recovery (entering rehab 20 years ago) and the battles her family has fought to get to this point. She regards forgiveness as the key. As she says, she’s been too intimate with death, but she chose life.

    posted on May 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

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