Spiders, Vampires and Jail Keys by Brooke O’Neill is a compelling story of one woman’s life with bipolar disorder.
Like me, Brooke is a nurse. When she returned to work after her period of acute illness, she was able to have positive conversations self-disclosing to some of her patients who had bipolar disorder in addition to the condition they were on her surgical unit for. This is something I’m a huge believer in myself.
For years Brooke’s illness was unstable. The reader follows the author up and down through mania with psychosis, depression, and mixed episodes. The descriptions do an excellent job of capturing her state of mind when unwell.
Medications play a prominent role in Brooke’s story. Concerns about potential side effects impacted her medication adherence, and she was quite susceptible to adverse effects. She described really struggling with an antidepressant, as it was contributing to mania but she was worried about withdrawal effects. Her stance isn’t anti-medication in general; rather, she shares the kind of real challenges that people face when trying to get stabilized on the right medication.
One encounter that I thought was a cute example of happy-hypomania was a visit to her GP’s office; when she entered the office, she started straightening things up and rearranging the books on the shelves, and then turned to face her doctor and said “Hi doc, I’ve come to see you today because I’m too happy. Can you help me?”
The book shows how enticing mania can be despite the havoc it creates. Brooke writes:
I am annoyed when people try to ‘interfere’ with my mania. Why would they try to take it away when I am ‘perfectly’ happy? This is what you call ‘pure’ happiness.
Sadly, nurses are not immune from ignorance and stigma, and this was something Brooke had to face. At one point, she overheard colleagues making negative remarks about a medication she happened to be taking at the time. One nurse who was involved in her care couldn’t understand why Brooke was depressed, saying “You have everything: beautiful home, gorgeous daughter, great husband and you are attractive.” Yeah right, because only ugly single people living in shacks get mental illness…
Brooke writes about the attitude she got from her manager at work about all of the sick time that she needed to take, and at one point she wasn’t invited to the work Christmas do because of her sick leave. She shares how difficult it was when she ended up giving her notice at work. I was rather tempted to leap through the book and whack her manager over the head with a rubber chicken,
One thing that Brooke found unhelpful was that some of the nurses “seem to like mentioning that I myself am a nurse and should have a fair idea about the medication I take.” Her concern was that she was in no condition to think clearly. I’ve actually had the opposite experience. Granted, I have depression rather than bipolar and I’ve always worked in psych whereas she didn’t, but in my own experience, not many people involved in my treatment were willing to take my knowledge seriously. I guess you just can’t win either way,
The book comes to a close with Brooke being in a more positive place, which is quite a contrast to how sick she was at times. I thought this book was excellent. It really shines in capturing what the highs and lows of bipolar, including psychosis, are like to live through. I would highly recommend it.
Spiders, Vampires and Jail Keys is available on Amazon (affiliate link).
I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
You can find my other reviews on the MH@H book review index or on Goodreads.
Managing the Depression Puzzle takes a holistic look at the different potential pieces that might fit into your unique depression puzzle.
Oh people being people! I find it sad she had to leave her job. I know – when I worked in the hospital – my colleagues weren’t keen on ‘patients’ from the field itself. Nurses and psychologists and also teachers (?) were sometimes labelled as more difficult.
Read= not so easy to fool I guess. It is a weird position when you ‘know’ both sides.
As for the remarks of ‘having it all’, I guess that is maybe people still confuse depression with being sad for a reason but it hurts because you may have everything, you don’t have a control button to manage the mental illness, what it is that ‘they’ are implying I guess.
I think often “difficult” is people who ask questions and don’t just do what they’re told.
It seems to be a common misconception that people have to be depressed “about” something. I’ve gotten that before. I guess I just forgot to go to the store and pick up my control button.
I know right? Mine is out of stock, they need to reorder!
Yes!
This sounds like an amazing read! I would love to see bipolar and similar disorders destigmatized … and this perspective of the highs and lows sounds like a great start to that. Great review Ash. 😀
Thanks lovely 💕. Yeah the author did a great job with this.
My bipolar disorder is treated with Depakote. I tried Lithium but did not like the queasy stomach, dry mouth, and incontinence. Had one manic episode treated by a visit to the psych ward for 3 days. Otherwise, no problems. Diagnosed 20 years ago. No mood swings. No side effects. Lucky.
I’m glad it’s worked so well.
wow! this sounds like a great read! How do you get free books to review? Do you just email the authors? curious? xoxo
I get them from http://www.netgalley.com. You sign up to be a reviewer, and then you can request books from the list of what’s available, and then if the publisher approves your request you can download the book.