Product Description

An astonishing dispatch from inside the belly of bipolar disorder, reflecting major new insights

When Marya Hornbacher published her first book, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, she did not yet have the piece of shattering knowledge that would finally make sense of the chaos of her life. At age twenty-four, Hornbacher was diagnosed with Type I rapid-cycle bipolar, the most severe form of bipolar disorder.

In Madness, in her trademark wry and utterly self-revealing voice, Hornbacher tells her new story. Through scenes of astonishing visceral and emotional power, she takes us inside her own desperate attempts to counteract violently careening mood swings by self-starvation, substance abuse, numbing sex, and self-mutilation. How Hornbacher fights her way up from a madness that all but destroys her, and what it is like to live in a difficult and sometimes beautiful life and marriage -- where bipolar always beckons -- is at the center of this brave and heart-stopping memoir.

Madness delivers the revelation that Hornbacher is not alone: millions of people in America today are struggling with a variety of disorders that may disguise their bipolar disease. And Hornbacher's fiercely self-aware portrait of her own bipolar as early as age four will powerfully change, too, the current debate on whether bipolar in children actually exists.

Ten years after Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, this storm of a memoir will revolutionize our understanding of bipolar disorder.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8111 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 299 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Hornbacher, who detailed her struggle with bulimia and anorexia in Wasted, now shares the story of her lifelong battle with mental illness, finally diagnosed as rapid cycling type 1 bipolar disorder. Even as a toddler, Hornbacher couldn't sleep at night and jabbered endlessly, trying to talk her parents into going outside to play in the dark. Other schoolchildren called her crazy. When she was just 10, she discovered alcohol was a good mood stabilizer; by age 14, she was trading sex for pills. In her late teens, her eating disorder landed her in the hospital, followed by another body obsession, cutting. An alcoholic by this point, she was alternating between mania and depression, with frequent hospitalizations. Her doctor explained that not only did the alcohol block her medications, it was up to her to control her mental illness, which would always be with her. This truth didn't sink in for a long, long time, but when it did, she had a chance for a life outside her local hospital's psychiatric unit. Hornbacher ends on a cautiously optimistic note—she knows she'll never lead a normal life, but maybe she could live with the life she does have. Although painfully self-absorbed, Hornbacher will touch a nerve with readers struggling to cope with mental illness. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Marya Hornbacher was twenty-four when she was diagnosed with Type 1 rapid-cycle bipolar. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–nominated
national bestseller Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, a book that
remains an intensely read classic, and of the acclaimed novel The Center of Winter. An award-winning journalist, she lectures nationally on eating disorders and writing and lives with her husband in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Goatman
1978

I will not go to sleep. I won't. My parents, who are always going to bed, tell
me that I can stay up if I want, but for God's sake, don't come out of my
room. I am four years old and I like to stay up all night. I sing my songs, very
quietly. I keep watch. Nothing can get me if I am awake.
I sleep during the day like a bat with the blinds closed, and then
they come home. I hear them open the door, and I fling on the lights and
gallop through the house shrieking to wake the dead all evening, all night.
Let's have a play! I shout. Let's have a ballet! A reading! A race! Don't tell me
what to do, get away from me, I hate you, you're never any fun, you never let
me do anything, I want to go to the opera! I want opera glasses! I'm going to
be an explorer! I don't care if I track mud all over the house, let's get another
dog! I want an Irish setter, I want a camel! I want an Easter dress! I'm going
ice-skating! Right now, yes! Where are the car keys? Of course I can drive!
Fine, go to bed! See if I care!
And I slam into my room, dive onto the bed, kick and scream, get
bored, read a book, shouting at the top of my lungs, "I don't care," says
Pierre! And the lion says, "Then I will eat you, if I may." "I don't care, says
Pierre!" It is my favorite Maurice Sendak book. I jabber to my imaginary
friends Susie and Sackie and Savvy and Cindy, who tell me secrets and stay
with me all night while I am keeping watch, while I am guarding the castle,
and there are horrible creatures waiting to kill me so I talk to myself all night,
writing a play and acting it out with a thousand little porcelain figures that I
dust every day, twice a day, I must keep things neat, in their magic
positions, or something terrible will happen. The shah of Iran, who is under
my bed, will leap out and carry me away under his arm.
I have to get dressed. So what if it's black as pitch outside. I go to
the closet, I take out a jumper and a white shirt, and from the dresser I get
white socks and white underwear and a white undershirt, and I get my favorite
saddle shoes, and I suit up completely. I must be very quiet or my parents
will hear. I tie my shoes in double knots so I won't fall out of them. I get on
my hands and knees and crawl all over the room, smoothing out the carpet.
Finally I make myself stop. I lie down in the center of the floor, facing the
door in case of emergency. I cross my ankles and fold my hands across my
middle. I close my eyes. I fall asleep, or die.

"Mom," I whisper loudly, pushing on her shoulder. It's dark, I'm in my parents'
bedroom, a ghost in my white nightie. "Mom," I say again, shaking her. I
bounce up and down on my toes and lean over her, my mouth near her
ear. "Mom, I have to tell you something."
"What is it?" she mumbles, opening one eye.
"The goatman," I whisper, agitated. "He's in my room. He came
while I was sleeping. You have to make him leave. I can't sleep. Will you
read to me?" I hop about, crashing into the nightstand. "Can we make a
cake? I want to make a cake, I can't go to school tomorrow, I'm scared of
Teacher Jackie, she yells at us, she doesn't like me, Mom, the goatman, do
you have to go to work tomorrow? Will you read to me?"
"Marya, it's the middle of the night," she says, hoisting herself up
with her elbow. Next to her, the mountain of my father snores. "Can we read
tomorrow?"
"I can't go back in there!" I shriek, running around in a tiny
circle. "The goatman will get me! We could make cookies instead! I want to
buy a horse, a gray one! And I want to go to the beach and collect seashells,
can't we go to the beach, I promise I'll sleep —"
My mother swings her legs off the edge of the bed and holds me
by the shoulders. "Honey, can you slow down? Just slow down."
Out of breath, I stand there, my head spinning. "What did you
want to tell me?" she asks. "One thing. Tell me the most important thing you
want to tell me."
"The goatman," I say, and burst into tears. "But Mom, I can't—"
"Shhh," she says, picking me up. She carries me down the hall.
This is how she fixes it. She holds me very tight and things slow down a
little. But I'm too upset. I set my chin on her shoulder and sob and babble.
Everyone's going to leave, you'll forget to come get me, I'll get lost, I'll get
stuck in the grocery store and they'll lock me in. What if there are snakes in
my bedroom? Why won't the goatman go away? What if it isn't perfect?
What if it's scary? What if you and Daddy die? Who will take care of me?
What if you give me away? I don't want you to give me away, I want to be a
policeman, why do policemen wear hats —
"Marya, hush. It's all right. Everything's going to be all right."
I want to see Grandma, let's go see Grandma, I want to go
outside and play in the yard, why can't I play in the yard when it's dark, I
want to look at the moon —
We pace up and down the hall. I get more and more agitated,
swinging moment by moment from terror to elation to utter despair, until
finally I wiggle my way free and start to run. I race around the house, my
mother trailing me, until I stumble on my nightgown and sprawl out on the
floor, sobbing, beating my fists on the ground. "I'm here," she says. "Honey,
I'm here."
I snuffle and drag a hiccupping breath and heave a sigh. She is
here. She is right here. She picks me up. She carries me into the bathroom
and turns on the bathtub. While it runs, I squirm on her lap, kicking my legs,
shrieking, laughing, crying, I can't ever go back in my room, the goatman, I
want to have a party, when is it Christmas, I want to live in a tree house, what
if I fall in the ocean and drown, where do I go when I die —
She pulls my nightgown over my head and sets me in the tub. I
am suddenly quiet. Water makes it better. In the water, I am safe. She
kneels next to me where I sit, only my head sticking out of the water. She
tells me a story. Things are slowing down. I am contained. I bob in the water,
warm, enclosed. My limbs float. The noise and racing of my thoughts wind
down until they yawn in my head as if they are in slow motion. My head is
filled with white cotton, and I hear a low humming, and my skull is heavy. I
am aware only of the water and my mother's voice.
Back in bed, she wraps me tight in my quilt, my arms and legs
and feet and hands all covered, kept in so they won't fly off. The goatman has
gone away for the night. She sits on the edge of my bed, smoothing my hair.
I am wrapped up like a package. I am a caterpillar in my cocoon. I am an egg.
She stays with me until, near dawn, I fall asleep.

What They Know
1979

They know I am different. They say that I live in my head. They are just being
kind. I'm crazy. The other kids say it, twirl their fingers next to their heads,
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! they say, and I laugh with them, and roll my eyes to imitate
a crazy person, and fling my arms and legs around to show them that I get
the joke, I'm in on it, I'm not really crazy at all. They do it after one of my
outbursts at school or in daycare, when I've been running around like a
maniac, laughing like crazy, or while I get lost in my words, my mouth
running off ahead of me, spilling the wild, lit-up stories that race through my
head, or when I burst out in raging fits that end with me sobbing hysterically
and beating my fists on my head or my desk or my knees. Then I look up
suddenly, and everyone's staring. And I brighten up, laugh my happiest
laugh, to show them I was just kidding, I'm really not like that, and everyone
laughs along.

I am lying on the bed. I am listening to my parents scream at each other in
the other room. That's what they do. They scream or throw things or both.
You son of a bitch! [crash]. You're trying to ruin my life! [crash, shatter,
crash]. When they are not screaming, we are all cozy and happy and
laughing, the little bear family, we love each other, we have the all-a-buddy
hug. It's hard to tell which is going to come next. Between the screaming and
the crazies, it is very loud in my head.
And so I am feeling numb. It's a curious feeling, and I get it all the
time. My attention to the world around me disappears, and something starts
to hum inside my head. Far off, voices try to bump up against me, but I repel
them. My ears fill up with water and I focus on the humming in my head.
I am inside my skull. It is a little cave, and I curl up inside it.
Below it, my body hovers, unattached. I have that feeling of falling, and I
imagine my soul is being pulled upward, and I close my eyes and let go.
My feet are flying. I hate it when my feet are flying. I sit up and
grab them with both hands. It's dark, and I stare at the little line of light that
sneaks in under the door.
The light begins to move. It begins to pulse and blur. I try to make
it stop. I scowl and stare at it. My heart beats faster. I am frozen in my bed,
gripping my feet. The light has crawled across the floor. It's headed for the
bed. I want it to hold still, so I press my brain against it, expecting it to stop,
but it doesn't. The line crosses the purple carpet. I want to scream. I open
my mouth and hear myself say something, but I don't know what it is or who
said it. The little man in...

Customer Reviews

uncalled for
I did not like the way this book was written at all. I also thought she was just rambling on and on. She allowed herself to live in so much madness for so long because she would not listen to her Dr.s advise and when she knew one of the Doctors were not giving her the right treatment by knowing she was indeed drinking to much or even drinking while taking meds at all then dismissing it altogether she did not seek someone else to treat her even though she knew her drinking was way out of control and it helped her mania become worse. She went through a lot as well as putting her family through a lot. Mostly it was because she would not do what she needed to do to get well and live a close to normal life that she could for so many years.

couldn't put it down
I found this book to be extremely captivting. I could not put it down. I have a family member who is bipolar, and I really think this was a wonderful account of the disease. I would recommend this to anyone who wants an inside look at this disease.

false claims, immaturity, and bad character
I have to say,

I have had bipolar/other mood disturbances and severe PTSD for many years and I doubt the author is telling the truth here.

that she has a mood disorder? OK. but that she was very severe severe severe bipolar from age 4 or 5? not diagnosed for 20 years? and that she lived a life of chaos while having accomplishments that sound 'impressive'?

I think she is a liar, playing up the mental illness stigma to deceive people and evade the consequences of her actions.

there are 2 truths about mental illness:

1) managed care has reduced illness to a matter of 'take your pills' when often, talk therapy is needed as well.

2) in this climate, there is a lot of shame and stigma. and the people who do speak out about their "illness" are often sociopaths, exhibitionists, and liars. most other people are too ashamed to say anything.

**by speak out, I mean, build a life or professional identity on "I am mentally ill." not writing reviews or even writing books per se, but telling people

How Very Important Troubled Different and Special You Are, for Hundreds of Pages, Because You Have A Diagnosis Of Bipolar Disorder,

and then building a professional and personal identity on that view of oneself.

Kay Redfield Jamison is an exception to this. I really like her work. but she stresses calmness and recovery. she also spends a lot of time pointing out that there is a lot more to her than a bipolar diagnosis. finally, she shows, not just gives lip service to, the importance of pursuing treatment.

but not everyone has integrity as Jamison does, clearly.

I do not support going back to complete silence about mental illness.

but I do think that people who seem fairly RABID to embrace the label of mentally ill and describe a ton of very dysfunctional behavior, including admitting that her book on mental illness was written while manic, they need to be looked at carefully.

I cannot prove she is a liar but I think she is b/c what she is saying does not add up. IF her bipolar was THAT serious, then she went off and drank like a fish and indulged mania for years. she'd be dead. period end of sentence.

especially given that she "documents" one of the purportedly most severe eating disorders on earth.


it is very very very common for people to have "comorbid" issues, that is, more than one problem. and for her I think she is a narcissist who is grabbing attention based on pathological behavior.

other people with the label "bipolar" are different people. individuals.

in this climate of stigma and FEAR of mental illness, there is a great deal of prejudice. one manifestation of it is to assume that people with a similar mental illness are alike. and we are not.

it is not any more valid to say that "bipolars" are alike than it is to say that Blacks or women or Jews or....fill in any group - are the same.

there may be things in common, but.

Hornbacher also very clearly documents coming from an artistic, screwed up family. where her parents were actors, she was hanging around backstage from a very young age, and she was not in school on a regular basis.

when she didn't feel like going to school, she didn't go.

she also says that her parents yelled at each other a lot.

and that's the thing. I think she had anything BUT a stable upbringing, but rather than face that *with a combination of talk therapy and medication* she exaggerates her mental illness.

which has the dubious benefit of keeping her probably messed-up family in her life, but it does NOT help the rest of us.


I think there is a lot of truth IN what she says about herself. but I also believe she is simultaneously engaging in dramatic license, sort of like Frey but not that far, and also failing to be honest about the effect of her parents' instability on her.

**her book Wasted is banned on eating disorder units b/c it hurts the vulnerable. young women and men with eating disorders get ideas on how to deceive treatment providers, lie, and harm themselves from it.

given that is the case,

I find it *exceptionally* difficult to believe that Hornbacher has been as close to death as she says she has. mentally and physically. b/c people that close to death USUALLY pull through b/c they have a strong love of life.

if they chose to indulge destructiveness as well, then they are just not going to make it. not while manic repeatedly, and drinking like a fish, and avoiding medication, and almost dead from starvation (or living with the effects of that), or.

people like that, I mean there are logistical things like, how was she safe driving? why didn't she crash the car during a manic episode, while she was drunk? how did she avoid committing suicide if she was *that* committed to self-harm? or being murdered? somehow, she claims a lot of sex with anonymous partners but no real sexual violence, despite her severe instability.

I am sorry but this TALE does not add up.

and to other people with bipolar, etc. my suggestion would be: find a compassionate therapist/psychiatrist and - my personal input is that I do far better when I avoid melodramatic, probably vastly exaggerated trauma drama like this book. which I read, every. last. page. of. it. and I found it exceptionally painful reading.

b/c to me this book documents corruption in the publishing industry. she makes extreme claims in here that should have been fact-checked, and I doubt they were.