An Unquiet Mind - Textual Analysis

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An Unquiet Mind – Textual Analysis Manic-Depression is, by no means, something that should be taken lightly. It is a horrible disorder, and it is one that threatens to take the lives of those who have it. However, there are many brave and resilient people who can, and have, lived through it. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind, is among those strong people. In her book, she tells how the events in her life were affected - and sometimes created by Manic- Depression. This book deals with a large range of sociological concepts including stigmatizations of mental illnesses and social class. Her expertise on the subject makes the memoir not only understandable, but also credible. Most importantly, this book gives the readers a chance to connect with a survivor of this dark mental illness in a way that promotes understanding and its own form of acceptance. Dr. Jamison, a Professor of Psychiatry, begins her memoir by telling of her childhood. She grew up in a military family, and primarily on Air force and Army bases. She was forced to abide by codes and structures, and she was taught the hierarchy of people and how it relates to importance. Her influences were good ones, though. She had good relationships with her mother, father, and brother, but the relationship with her sister was more estranged. When she was a teenager, her father left the Air force and took a job in California. She was not only placed in a setting with types of people she had hardly encountered beforehand, but she left a world where she knew comfort and acceptance and moved to a more fast-paced and less personal one. She found friends and stayed in California at UCLA for college. During her high school years, she experienced mania and depression for the first time, but only mildly compared to what she would later go through. These fits also grew during her college years,
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