Agents in My Brain
How I Continue to Survive Type-One Manic Depression
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Agents in My Brain gives vivid descriptions of the grandiose delusions and paranoid delusions that type-one manic depressives get. It also shows that when you get the right medication and some talk therapy, you can recover.
Bill Hannon has led support groups for the Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance since 1987. He is a guest lecturer in college psychology classes. Bill now lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Bipolar disorders directly affect over 2.5% of the US population, and indirectly affect many more friends and family members. Bill Hannon has written a moving and gritty first-hand account of Bipolar I disorder. He describes its effects, how treatment works, and insights into why treatment sometimes doesnt work. He explores in great detail his experiences with delusional thinking as part of a years-long story of recovery and perseverance. Recommended to those patients, family and friends looking to understand themselves and others with affective disorders. This book is also prescribed for professionals seeking to better appreciate what their patients experience outside (or inside) the office walls.
Warren Pendergast M.D. Medical Director Emeritus. NC Physicians Health Program
Agents in My Brain offers an extremely interesting and painful glimpse into the mind of an individual suffering from manic depressive illnessAs a professor of psychology who teaches a course on the psychobiology of mental disorders, I am always on the lookout for books that provide first-hand accounts of mental dysfunction. This one fills a void in my reading list.
Lawrence Wichlinski Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Carleton College
In Agents in My Brain, Bill tells the story of his struggle to find the right combination of medical professionals, medications, and support systems to understand and to manage his bipolar behavior. The journey was difficult, confusing, and often overwhelming. Yet Bill survived AND thrived! An inspirational story, Agents in My Brain is a testament to the spirit to overcome within each of us. I thank Bill for having the courage to share his life experiences with those of us who continue to search for the total cure. (Bills regular closing comment in our bi-monthly support groups).
Cindy. Co-facilitator with Bill Hannon, for the Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance support group
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hannon is brave indeed to have written this memoir of his struggle with the manic depression which has afflicted him since high school. But bravery alone doesn't redeem the repetitive and unsophisticated prose that impedes his story. Until 1976 and his senior year in his Washington State high school, Hannon describes himself as "still super-jock, super-brain, and super-smooth compared to now." His mother suffered from manic depression from 1955 to her death in 1981, and Hannon believes his father's possessiveness (Hannon wasn't allowed to date) came from loneliness. Hannon goes on in detail about his life before the illness first manifested itself as an inability to concentrate and trouble swimming, followed a few months later by a manic episode while on a six-week trip to Israel. He was hospitalized there before being moved to another hospital in Seattle. Hannon's struggle lasted for years, and he often faults his early doctors for not prescribing antidepressants and for not discussing his illness with him. He succeeds in making them seem incompetent, but more background on the different pharmaceuticals that became available during the course of his treatment would have been both more convincing and more helpful. An afterword by a psychiatrist and a list of symptoms offer some background.