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Bipolar Disease
Kay Redfield Jamison
on the link between
Manic Depressive Illness
and the Artistic Temperament





Bipolar disease. Does it have an upside, even at its most active? It very well may have, depending on your point of view. And that's what "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" by Kay Redfield Jamison attempts to prove.

The story here has nothing much to do with understanding the details of bipolar disease, sometimes referred to as manic depressive order. You will not learn how to control your bipolar symptoms or why it is happening to you.

Instead, you will see how many great artistic geniuses such as the following...



Lord Byron
Robert Lowell
George Gordon
Robert Schumann
Henry James
Lady Byron
Don Juan
Virginia Woolf
William James
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Burns
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Thomas Chatterton
John Berryman
John Ruskin
William Blake
Anne Sexton
Edward Thomas
John Clare
Mary Shelley


...may very well have been, or clearly were suffering from bipolar disease. You will also see that these great people produced an incredible body of work that has shaped much of the literary world, and the world-at-large.

If you are a writer, an artist, a singer, an engineer, or anyone who creates something from nothing and are plagued by mental illness, you may find this book very helpful.

I personally am sure that my illness gave me skills and abilities that have stayed behind, even after I defeated all the symptoms! And that is something I want made clear to you all.

The list of folks above were frequently tormented by the demons in their minds and they frequently went about handling their pain in all the wrong ways. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, they produced fantastic works of art.

The link between their manic depression and creativity was undeniable for many of them and it appears to have set them apart from the rest of the world. The illness imbued them with capabilities beyond the norm.

If you feel you may be one of these people, then get this book.

If you want to stay creative and cut out the pain, then see the rest of my site.

I removed all my symptoms but those close to me will tell you, I am not what they'd consider "normal" and they mean it as a compliment. I don't see things the way the crowd seems to see them and I don't respond to situations the way the crowd probably would. I have my own path.

Do you? And do you consider it a personal strength? Something special that no one has but you? Then read the work of Kay Jamison and form an idea of where to take yourself next.






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