Product Description

In her revealing bestseller Call Me Anna, Patty Duke shared her long-kept secret: the talented, Oscar-winning actress who won our hearts on The Patty Duke Show was suffering from a serious-but-treatable-mental illness called manic depression. For nearly twenty years, until she was correctly diagnosed at age thirty-five, she careened between periods of extreme euphoria and debilitating depression, prone to delusions and panic attacks, temper tantrums, spending sprees, and suicide attempts. Now in A Brilliant Madness Patty Duke joins with medical reporter Gloria Hochman to shed light on this powerful, paradoxical, and destructive illness. From what it's like to live with manic-depressive disorder to the latest findings on its most effective treatments, this compassionate and eloquent book provides profound insight into the challenge of mental illness. And though Patty's story, which ends in a newfound happiness with her cherished family, it offers hope for all those who suffer from mood disorders and for the family, friends, and physicians who love and care for them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35663 in Books
• Published on: 1993-06-01
• Released on: 1997-02-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this groundbreaking guide for those who are manic depressive or who live with or love someone who is, actress Duke ( Call Me Anna ), a spokeswoman for the National Institute of Mental Health, tells the harrowing story of her illness and her long road to recovery. After a lifetime of emotional turbulence, including three divorces and years of unsuccessful therapies, Duke found her own "wonder drug": lithium. Interspersed throughout her personal account are chapters that give the latest information about manic-depressive illness, its many forms and the various treatments for it, as documented by Hochman ( Adult Children of Divorce ). Also included is advice on what families can do to cope and a list of resources for the mentally ill, including organizations that care for them. A chapter examines the connection between creativity and manic depression, drawing examples from music, politics and business. An informative, readable volume.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Duke tells the story of her manic-depressive illness and its successful treatment, while in alternating chapters medical-writer Hochman (Heart Bypass, 1982) explains the facts of the disease and the methods of treatment currently available. Duke's strange and unhappy childhood was chronicled in Call Me Anna, and is touched on here only to show how fundamentally unloved and rejected she felt. Her manic-depressive disorder began to manifest itself when she was a young woman living in Hollywood, at the peak of her career, starring in The Patty Duke Show. As the illness escalated, her life degenerated into frequent suicide attempts, drug dependency, wrecked relationships, tantrums on the set. She began hallucinating and engaging in bizarre behavior like holding parties in her motel room for hordes of strangers (one of whom she married after a few hours' acquaintance) and hiring two guys she met in a parking lot to manage her finances (with results that can be imagined). Finally, her illness was diagnosed and successfully treated with lithium, which she takes to this day and to which, she says, she owes her present stable, happy marriage and her very life. Hochman provides information on the various forms of depression and the various guises that bipolar (manic-depressive) illness can take, identifies people at risk for these diseases, discusses the link between manic-depressive disorder and creativity, and surveys medical treatments and family-support techniques that can help the sufferer. The tone seesaws between the lurid and the dry, depending on whether Duke or Hochman is writing. But despite its gracelessness, this memoir has merit: Duke shows bravery in telling her story in all its humiliating flagrance, and undoubtedly sufferers from this puzzling and devastating disease will find help in the explanations and resources Hochman diligently provides. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"A groundbreaking guide for those who are manic depressive of who live with or love someone who is."--Publishers Weekly -- Review

Customer Reviews

insightful
provided really good insight into the personal battle of a very prominent individual. well written.

What a courageous lady!
Anna ( Patty Duke), is a great lady! This book, An excellent and sad look at what a bipolar person goes through with and without help, I*m so happy that there is a name and treatment for this very sad illness. Anna tells it like it is and does it with class! May God Bless Anna Duke!

The Patty Duke Show
Can someone please give this book to Britney Spears? I'm not joking. I first read this book about 9 years ago when I was studying psychology in college and it was always one of my very favorite books on this subject. Because Ms. Duke is able to speak to the reader in such simple (yet interesting) words. Except for the old-fashioned term "manic depressive illness" (according to the APA, the correct term is bipolar, which sounds way more PC) this book is totally on the money. Another great book I recommend is Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface. In 2008 it seems rather common for celebrities to discuss their dementia, and anything else that the public wants to know. So it may seem hard to fathom that less than thirty years ago none of this was discussed publicly because it was considered "career suicide." But Patty Duke was the very first star who candidly discussed her own mental illness in her autobiography . In my eyes, she is a true shero.