Writing a Roller Coaster – An Author's Bipolar Disorder
Juliann Garey's novel "Too Bright To Hear Too Loud To See" is a visceral portrait, written as she was cycling between acute mania and severe depression.
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Sanjay Gupta, MD, Everyday Health: The list of great writers, painters, and musicians who suffered from what we now call bipolar disorder is long. It includes Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, and many more. Of all the severe mental illnesses, it is bipolar or manic-depressive illness that seems to be the most associated with creativity.
Juliann Garey is a writer who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She says the disease has been both a help and a hindrance to her creativity.
A lot has been made of these connections between bipolar illness and creativity.
Julian Garey, author of "Too Bright To Hear Too Loud To See": I do believe that there is a connection. I think there is something to the intensity of feeling and also the speed with which your mind works.
Dr. Gupta: Juliann Garey was diagnosed with bipolar illness after the birth of her second child. It took seven years to find the medications that would stabilize her. The novel she produced during those years captures the turmoil she was experiencing. What was it like to write when you're in the midst of this illness?
Julian Garey: You know, looking back there's no way I could have written this book now. I had access to emotions, sensations that I couldn't possibly have access to now.
Dr. Gupta: Was there a psychosis? Were you hearing voices?
Julian Garey: I heard people talking to me. I saw shadows that weren't really there. There was a certain point at which I was sure buildings in the neighborhood had moved. So yes, there were times when I was psychotic.
Dr. Gupta: Some of these personal experiences you had you put into the book. Would you be able to read some of that?
Julian Garey: Sure. (reading) "As I walk past the bums huddled under their filthy blankets, shopping carts tethered to their ankles, the dirty bastards tell me to stop kidding myself. 'Lie down. Make yourself comfortable.' I spit on the ground in front of one of them and get in his face. 'Someday the skies will open and a flood will come and wash all the scum like you off the streets.' 'Huh?' He looks at me, confused, scared. Like I'm the crazy one."
Dr. Gupta: How did you feel at the time?
Julian Garey: I was incredibly agitated, I was aware of the fact that I was losing my mind.
Dr. Gupta: There's a section of the book that you wrote during a depressive episode. Would you mind reading it?
Julian Garey: Sure. (reading) "You're in the shower, on the rare occasions when you have the energy to take one. You hear heaving, open-mouthed howls of breath-stealing grief and realize when you gasp and choke on the saliva and snot running down the back of your throat that you are the source of the screaming. And then you stop."
Dr. Gupta: How are you doing?
Julian Garey: I'm actually doing fairly well. I mean I'm not – this is a lifelong illness, it's a chronic illness. I have good days, and I have days that are more difficult.
Dr. Gupta: Given the genetic component, do you do anything, think about anything for your own children?
Julian Garey: I think about it all the time, and I probably have watched them too vigilantly. I have impressed upon them that they can't even experiment with drugs. I mean, they shouldn't anyway; but in their case, with the history of mental illness in our family, they can't do it – not even once.
Dr. Gupta: You're writing another book now.
Julian Garey: I am.
Dr. Gupta: How is that going?
Julian Garey: It's really difficult. I just don't have the access. I mean the medication is protective in that it doesn't allow you to feel, and there's a reason for that. But there's also a downside to that, and I both hope and fear that I will never feel the way I felt when I wrote this book; and sometimes I don't know which is worse. There are days when I wish that I had access to that depth of emotion, and there are times when I'm terrified that I will again have access to that depth of emotion.
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