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Mental: Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind

by Jaime Lowe

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665397,011 (3.59)1
Biography & Autobiography. History. Psychology. Nonfiction. HTML:A riveting memoir and a fascinating investigation of the history, uses, and controversies behind lithium, an essential medication for millions of people struggling with bipolar disorder.
 
It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just sixteen. She stopped sleeping and eating, and began to hallucinateâ??demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary, and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventu­ally, hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pillsâ??lithium.
In Mental, Lowe shares and investigates her story of episodic madness, as well as the stabil­ity she found while on lithium. She interviews scientists, psychiatrists, and patients to examine how effective lithium really is and how its side effects can be dangerous for long-term usersâ??including Lowe, who after twenty years on the medication suffers from severe kidney damage. Mental is eye-opening and powerful, tackling an illness and drug that has touched millions of lives and yet remains shrouded in social stigma.
Now, while she adjusts to a new drug, her pur­suit of a stable life continues as does her curiosity about the history and science of the mysterious element that shaped the way she sees the world and allowed her decades of sanity. Lowe travels to the Bolivian salt flats that hold more than half of the worldâ??s lithium reserves, rural America where lithium is mined for batteries, and tolithium spas that are still touted as a tonic to cure all ills. With unflinching honesty and humor, Lowe allows a clear-eyed view into her life, and an arresting inquiry into one of mankindâ??s olde
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The author's writing style did not appeal to me. At times I wished she would hurry up and get on with it (like, I get it, you don't know how to cut carrots correctly). And yet the actual interesting parts seemed rushed. The historical aspects of lithium were uninteresting, and I was not particularly compelled by the discussion on the functionality or efficacy of psych meds (which is far more complex than the author makes it seem, and is explained in lots of other literature). ( )
  lemontwist | Apr 14, 2023 |
Mental was an extremely hard read for me as I have 2 brothers suffering from BiPolar disease. Some things I did learn in this book is why it took so long for one of my brother's to finally be diagnosed, because he never showed signs of manic tendencies or even a low depression, he just seemed a bit "off" never those big swings.
My other brother was so involved in drugs and alcohol (as Jamie was) that we missed the diagnosis all the way around until he 40 years old. His mania didn't seem manic, if just felt like one of Jamie's fun days that lasted 90 percent of his weeks. He was only low when he was jobless, broke, lonely, or in Jail. How we missed his signs, I'll never know.

I appreciate the honesty of Jaimie's telling of her story. She trusts her audience. She takes wild risks and shares them with the world even when she knows that a lot of her mania is so out there a lot of people would never understand that its from a disease.

Mental is a dark, eye-opening, riotous traveling as if on a rollercoaster tale of how one drug, a natural product can help regulate a disease so terrifying and hard for those who live with their BiPolar family member. The knowledge Jamie gives her readers about Lithium is abundant and much needed so we can see others with a sense of compassion and love and not misunderstanding. She even helped me, a family member, who has been involved in her brother's life for over 30 years of the disease to find new ways to support my brother even more.

Thank you Penguin First Read for letting me have the opportunity to read this book in lieu of my honest review. ( )
  SandraBrower | Oct 27, 2019 |
Part memoir, part history, Mental is as quirky as its author. Diagnosed as being on the bipolar spectrum during a severely manic episode, Lowe recounts her two episodes and what life is like in-between. She asks herself if she is the same person when she is manic; how many of her symptoms might be personality; and how other people's opinions of her change after witnessing an episode. The questions are rhetorical, as the author herself is unsure of the answers or if the questions can even be answered.

After 20+ years on lithium, the author begins to experience kidney problems. It is a not uncommon side-effect of long-term lithium use, especially if the user does not monitor kidney function. Lithium saved her life, and the decision of whether to stop taking it is a difficult one. In order to make an informed decision, she learns as much as she can about the element, including why there is a "lithium problem" in astrophysics, how it is mined and processed, the history of its use, and how naturally occurring lithium in the water supply can effect towns. This was the part of the book that I found most interesting. ( )
  labfs39 | Sep 21, 2018 |
It seems that memoirs about dealing with mental illness are becoming proportionately as ubiquitous as the conditions themselves. Searching "mental health" in Amazon's biographies and memoirs category produces more than 5,000 results. At least anecdotally, such works coming into the mainstream seems to correspond with increasing public discussion of destigmatizing mental illness. In recounting her 20 years struggling with bipolar disorder in Mental: Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind, Jaime Lowe not only discusses the condition but examines the treatment of choice.

Bipolar disorder, once known as manic depressive illness, usually first appears between the ages of 15 and 30, with 25 being the average age of onset. Lowe was an overachiever, with her first hospitalization for the condition occurring at age 16. Mental opens with a recounting of her first episode of extreme mania. As with other accounts, one wonders how someone who, to put it colloquially, is "out of their mind can accurately describe what happened. Lowe, though, says that because the experience was "real for me," she does remember and the incidents leave a feeling that "never fully dissipates."

While hospitalized, she was started on lithium, the first line treatment for bipolar disorder. What is more striking about this first hospitalization is not necessarily what led to it but the existential state in which she was left once well enough to be released.

Who was I if my actions and thoughts didn’t represent me? What if they did represent me? What if they were extensions of me, rooted in a subconscious realm? What if the me from before I was on lithium is the real me?


Lowe recognizes these questions were too deep for her teenage mind to ponder for long. At the same time, she says, "I no longer had a baseline for reality or even a way to fully trust myself." And those existential questions, or at least their undercurrent, would not disappear.

Lowe was fortunate because lithium worked for her, allowing her to live and work without being overwhelmed by her condition. In late 1999, Lowe tapered off lithium after having taken it for six years. She began slipping into a manic state even before stopping the drug entirely and once full blown, it would take several months to convince her to go back on the drug. Again, she returned to comparatively normal life.

Still, her "normality" reflects one of the problems with the psychiatric memoir. As a college student, she lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, for a year studying art history. She's traveled to Turkey, Germany and Japan and enjoyed the nightlife and other things New York City had to offer while living and working there. To date, the memoir authors largely have been white and relatively privileged. We aren't hearing the experiences of those, minority or otherwise, who struggle to obtain treatment, let alone those who lack the resources, or the deinstitutionalized. Granted, this is not a problem cause by Lowe. In fact, near the end of Mental, she discusses the fact that while she spent more than $100,000 on outpatient psychiatric care in 18 years in New York City, some 43 million Americans don't have that option.

In 2014, Lowe encountered something many others who rely on lithium face -- kidney damage. Routine blood tests by her primary care physician ultimately revealed that two decades of lithium left her kidneys with only 48 percent function. "I had to choose between my kidneys or losing my sanity," she writes. Her need to search for a replacement treatment leads her to explore lithium itself. In doing so, Mental is uncommon.

As if infatuated by it, Lowe travels to lithium production sites in Nevada and Bolivia and spas with lithium in the water. She ultimately weaves together concise summaries of the history of treating mental illness, what lithium is, where it comes from and the history of its medical use. And, Lowe says, the nature of lithium creates a problem for patients. Lithium is one of the first three chemical elements created by the Big Bang. That means it can't be patented so, according to Lowe, there's no financial incentive to continue studying its effect on the brain. Lowe fortunately found another treatment that has worked, although the book recounts that it was far from a simple process.

As noted, Mental comes from the view of a privileged, white American, which is heightened here by a sense of New York City bohemian cool. Perhaps related to the latter, at times the tone is one of hip casualness and there are occasional clunkers ("temperament itself is so tempestuous"). Lowe also tends to wander or be a bit wordy in the last third of the book, delving into family history and other topics. The flaws, though, do not leave the book or its scope hollow. By going beyond the personal aspects of bipolar disorder, Lowe provides a rare perspective.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)
  PrairieProgressive | Oct 3, 2017 |
Author Jaime Lowe has had a love-hate relationship with lithium carbonate since she was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teen. On the one hand, the little pink pills, when taken as prescribed, have moderated her mood swings, but on the other, her long-term use of the compound has left her with kidney damage.

The first two sections of Lowe's unfortunately titled memoir Mental tell the story of Lowe's life on lithium and her life without it. In the book's final section she switches genres into travel writing and visits places associated with the periodic table's lightest metal, such as the salt flats of Bolivia and the therapeutic baths of Germany. It's a great idea for a book, but the execution at times leaves something to be desired. Her tendency to list things, specifically her friends' names and foods, bogs down the narrative flow.

Still, this book provides an intimate look at one woman's life with chronic mental illness.

Please note that I received an electronic copy of this book to review from NetGalley, but I was not financially compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations while reading this book. ( )
  akblanchard | Jun 28, 2017 |
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Biography & Autobiography. History. Psychology. Nonfiction. HTML:A riveting memoir and a fascinating investigation of the history, uses, and controversies behind lithium, an essential medication for millions of people struggling with bipolar disorder.
 
It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just sixteen. She stopped sleeping and eating, and began to hallucinateâ??demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary, and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventu­ally, hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pillsâ??lithium.
In Mental, Lowe shares and investigates her story of episodic madness, as well as the stabil­ity she found while on lithium. She interviews scientists, psychiatrists, and patients to examine how effective lithium really is and how its side effects can be dangerous for long-term usersâ??including Lowe, who after twenty years on the medication suffers from severe kidney damage. Mental is eye-opening and powerful, tackling an illness and drug that has touched millions of lives and yet remains shrouded in social stigma.
Now, while she adjusts to a new drug, her pur­suit of a stable life continues as does her curiosity about the history and science of the mysterious element that shaped the way she sees the world and allowed her decades of sanity. Lowe travels to the Bolivian salt flats that hold more than half of the worldâ??s lithium reserves, rural America where lithium is mined for batteries, and tolithium spas that are still touted as a tonic to cure all ills. With unflinching honesty and humor, Lowe allows a clear-eyed view into her life, and an arresting inquiry into one of mankindâ??s olde

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