Product Description

This is the memoir of a bipolar artist who decides while in a hypomanic state to bring her 93-year-old father and 92-year-old ex-mother-in-law to live near her in an assisted living facility and become their primary caregiver. Overwhelmed soon after they arrive, she slides into a depression and struggles to maintain their lives and her own while continuing to paint. Told in a frank and quietly humorous style, the book portrays her struggles with doctors, nursing homes, dementia wards, family squabbles, drugs and other therapy. The reader will find insight and empathy in this "healing and compulsively readable" book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1446595 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 244 pages

From the Back Cover
Lynne Taetzsch's issues of aging parents, sibling conflict, depression, bipolar disorder, sandwich generations, health care bureaucracies and facilities, the creative instinct, the meaning of life, and the possibility of happiness will touch a wide readership in our times. Told with quiet humor and insight, her memoir is both healing and compulsively readable. -Pamela Evans, Evans Editorial Services.

Lynne Taetzsch lovingly describes how her relationships with her elderly father and ex-mother-in-law gradually shift from adult child to caregiver as their health slowly declines. Her description of their personalities and behavior is never sentimental, and she portrays both their positive attributes and their quirks and foibles with a discerning eye. Along the way, she shows us how a typical family, sometimes dysfunctional, casts its members into particular roles. Interwoven with this theme, Ms. Taetzsch relates how her personal struggles affect her development as an artist, both for good and for bad. Lastly is Ms. Taetzsch's description of the effects of her bipolar disorder and its treatments on her life with her family and her ability to produce art. This book would be well worth reading simply as a journal of a woman's role as a caregiver in a somewhat eccentric extended family. However, what makes it remarkable is the interweaving of the other themes of artistic development and living with a serious mental disorder. -Gerard P. Lippert, MD, Psychiatrist, Tompkins County Mental Health Center

About the Author
Lynne Taetzsch is an artist and writer whose contemporary abstract paintings have been exhibited throughout the world. She currently has a studio in Ithaca, New York as well as an art blog and website at Artbylt.Com.

Lynne has published numerous short stories and essays in literary journals such as Many Mountains Moving, The Tennessee Review, and Chiron Review. She has also published books with Van Nostrand Reinhold, Regnery & Co, Watson-Guptill, and Faber & Faber publishers.

Customer Reviews

Bipolar Dementia Art Chronicles
This book is a great read for someone who has been there or going through her experience. I have been there, and it is nice to validate my feelings and experience. I am not sure of the wide spread appeal. It brought back memories, some good and some not so good. I thoroughly enjoyed it. By the way her art it incredible.

Fantastic Book
The book is well written and insightful on many levels. It is a must read for caregivers and families dealing with issues openly and honestly.

Ms. Taetzsch is a very gifted writer and artist.

Andrew S.

self-identity in caregiving!
I began reading this book because of the references to manic depression and art but quickly found this to be a book of much broader scope. The reader is brought along with Taetzsch of a journey of self-discovery as she struggles not only with her identity as a bipolar artist but also as she takes on the role of caregiver for her father, who suffers from Alzheimers, and her aging mother-in-law.

Taetzsch navigates the complexity of aging and illness and family dynamics to the backdrop of her work as a successful painter. Through all of this stuggle we see her emerge with a greater understanding of herself and others. As a reader brought along on her journey I found myself awakened to similar insights within my own life. This is a must-read for anyone interested in balancing creative energy with trauma.