Kay Redfield Jamison risked everything to talk about her mental illness

I discovered Kay Redfield Jamison during a voracious consumption of memoirs in 2009.  I undertook most of the memoir readings as both examples and support once I made the decision to write my own medical narrative.

Although I myself do not suffer from any discrete mental illness, due to circumstance I've always taken a strong interest in issues of the mind.

And so, the title of her first memoir grabbed me and I plunked down my credit card eagerly, only to return a week later and purchase her follow-up that chronicles the grief of losing a spouse.  It's certainly on par with Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking," with an acknowledged dash of crazy mixed in.

As it turns out, "An Unquiet Mind" was Kay's own poetic speak for bi-polar disorder. But the soul-baring confessions of her manic depression nearly overshadowed the most shocking part --- her professional credentials:

Kay Redfield Jamison
Professor of Psychiatry
Co-Director Mood Disorders Center
The Johns Hopkins Hospital
John Hopkins School of Medicine

There are some truly awe-inspiring interviews with Dr. Jamison available throughout the online universe (video and audio). I would like to recommend this one as an introduction because I think it covers some pretty major territories in 25 minutes or less.
Listen for free.

I'd also like to take a moment to commend her for her courage in speaking so frankly about her extremely private life as a way of helping other people. Personally, I plan to focus many of my own confessions on medicine's other dirty little secret --- pain. 

But believe me, there are infractions aplenty on my own medical rap sheet (thereby germinating a book).  And it's thanks to people like Montel, Michael J. and Kay that it's a lot less scary to tell it.