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Mental
- Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind
- Narrated by: Jaime Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
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Publisher's summary
A riveting memoir and a fascinating investigation of the history, uses, and controversies behind lithium, an essential medication for millions of people struggling with bipolar disorder.
It began in Los Angeles in 1993, when Jaime Lowe was just 16. She stopped sleeping and eating and began to hallucinate - demonically cackling Muppets, faces lurking in windows, Michael Jackson delivering messages from the Neverland Underground. Lowe wrote manifestos and math equations in her diary and drew infographics on her bedroom wall. Eventually hospitalized and diagnosed as bipolar, she was prescribed a medication that came in the form of three pink pills - lithium.
In Mental, Lowe shares and investigates her story of episodic madness as well as the stability she found while on lithium. She interviews scientists, psychiatrists, and patients to examine how effective lithium really is and how its side effects can be dangerous for long-term users - including Lowe, who, after 20 years on the medication, suffers from severe kidney damage. Mental is eye-opening and powerful, tackling an illness and drug that has touched millions of lives and yet remains shrouded in social stigma.
Now, while she adjusts to a new drug, her pursuit of a stable life continues, as does her curiosity about the history and science of the mysterious element that shaped the way she sees the world and allowed her decades of sanity. Lowe travels to the Bolivian salt flats that hold more than half of the world's lithium reserves; rural America, where lithium is mined for batteries; and lithium spas that are still touted as a tonic to cure all ills. With unflinching honesty and humor, Lowe allows a clear-eyed view into her life and an arresting inquiry into one of mankind's oldest medical mysteries.
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Critic reviews
"Lowe writes with verve and rhythm and willed forthrightness about her endless search for stability and sanity, and about wondering which self - stable or unstable - is the real one, worthy of love." (Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker)
"Part lacerating confessional, part ruminative and occasionally clinical memoir, and part contemplative historical document of manic depression throughout the ages." (Brandon Soderberg, Baltimore Beat)
"I love intense, messy, self-aware stories about humans and all their brokenness and fallibility; I love books that intermittently make me laugh and cry; and most of all, I love when those stories in those books are emotionally written, and make me think about and remember them for days. Jaime Lowe's new memoir of mental illness delivers all of this.... Through it all, there's honesty and steady-handedness, humor and beauty, reflections on, and a coming to terms with, what it means to be vulnerable and different walking around this world." (Jennifer Romolini, Shondaland.com)
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This Is How I Save My Life
- From California to India, a True Story of Finding Everything When You Are Willing to Try Anything
- By: Amy B. Scher
- Narrated by: Amy B. Scher
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When Amy B. Scher was struck with undiagnosed late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, the best physicians in America labeled her condition incurable and potentially terminal. Deteriorating rapidly, she went on a search to save her own life - from the top experts in Los Angeles and the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis to a state-of-the-art hospital in Chicago. After exhausting all of her options in the US, she discovered a possible cure - but it was highly experimental, available only in India, and had as much of a probability of killing her as it did of curing her.
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A great comfort
- By Sue on 07-07-18
By: Amy B. Scher
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Your Voice in My Head
- A Memoir
- By: Emma Forrest
- Narrated by: Emma Forrest
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just 22 and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist--a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life.
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Great, quick read
- By Amazon Customer on 02-12-21
By: Emma Forrest
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Agorafabulous!
- Dispatches From My Bedroom
- By: Sara Benincasa
- Narrated by: Sara Benincasa
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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One of the funniest and most poignant books ever written about a mental illness, Agorafabulous! is a hilarious, raw, and unforgettable account of how a terrified young woman, literally trapped by her own imagination, evolved into a (relatively) high-functioning professional smartass. Down to earth and seriously funny, Benincasa's no-holds-barred revelations offer listeners the politically incorrect hilarity they heartily crave, yet is so often missing from your typical, weepy, and redemptive personal memoir.
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More Fun than a Good Cry in a Bathroom Stall
- By Susie on 03-05-15
By: Sara Benincasa
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Until I Say Good-Bye
- My Year of Living with Joy
- By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, Bret Witter
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Susan Spencer-Wendel's Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy is a moving and inspirational memoir by a woman who makes the most of her final days after discovering she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). After Spencer-Wendel, a celebrated journalist at the Palm Beach Post, learns of her diagnosis of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, she embarks on several adventures, traveling to several countries and sharing special experiences with loved ones.
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Until I Say Good-Bye is a paradox for me.
- By Bonny on 03-19-13
By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, and others
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Everything You Ever Wanted
- A Memoir
- By: Jillian Lauren
- Narrated by: Jillian Lauren
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In her younger years, Jillian Lauren was a college dropout, a drug addict, and an international concubine in the Prince of Brunei's harem, an experience she immortalized in her best-selling memoir, Some Girls. In her 30s, Jillian's most radical act is learning the steadying power of love when she and her rock star husband adopt an Ethiopian child with special needs.
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Great for adoptive families
- By berry bomb on 07-06-22
By: Jillian Lauren
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The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
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Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
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Weekends at Bellevue
- By: Julie Holland MD
- Narrated by: Julie Holland MD
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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His name was Joshua Silver. He was 23 years old, educated, and had an impressive vocabulary. The NYPD had found Joshua Silver naked in Times Square, barking like a dog. It was just another night for Julie Holland, the attending doctor in the world famous Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric emergency room.
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An Uneven Memoir
- By A. M. Dalessandro on 09-24-10
By: Julie Holland MD
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The Center Cannot Hold
- By: Elyn R. Saks
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.
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Schizophrenia Inside Out
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-23-09
By: Elyn R. Saks
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10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
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A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
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Another Kind of Madness
- A Journey Through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness
- By: Stephen P. Hinshaw
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Families are riddled with untold secrets. But Stephen Hinshaw never imagined that a profound secret was kept under lock and key for 18 years within his family - that his father's mysterious absences, for months at a time, resulted from serious mental illness and involuntary hospitalizations. From the moment his father revealed the truth, during Hinshaw's first spring break from college, he knew his life would change forever.
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Insightful, heartbreaking, and important
- By S. Yates on 10-09-17
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Something Spectacular
- The True Story of One Rockette’s Battle with Bulimia
- By: Greta Gleissner
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Greta Gleissner, a longtime professional dancer, dreamed her whole life of becoming a Rockette. Then she became one and she fell into the grips of a powerful eating disorder that began poison her life from the inside out. Something Spectacular is Gleissner's raw, personal chronicle of the devastating effects bulimia exacts upon her life during her time as a Rockette. As her disorder takes over, she begins to lead a dual life: happy-go-lucky on the outside; tortured by obsessive, self-destructive voices on the inside
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A Good Memoir, Badly Narrated
- By NNN on 10-09-17
By: Greta Gleissner
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The Priority List
- A Teacher's Final Quest to Discover Life's Greatest Lessons
- By: David Menasche
- Narrated by: David Menasche
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.
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Truly Inspiring!!
- By Trish on 07-13-14
By: David Menasche
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30 Before 30
- How I Made a Mess of 20s, and You Can Too
- By: Marina Shifrin
- Narrated by: Marina Shifrin
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Something was nagging Marina Shifrin. As a freshly minted adult with student loan payments and a “real” job she hated that paid her enough to get by if she also worked two other jobs, something needed to change. Marina and her friend each made lists of 30 things they’d do before the age of 30. The first thing on Marina’s list was, “Quit My Shitty Job”. So she did, and just like that the List powered her through her twenties. Told with humor and heart, 30 Before 30 will entertain, motivate, and challenge listeners to get out of their comfort zones and live their best lives.
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Inspiring read
- By Chris Gledhill on 12-18-18
By: Marina Shifrin
What listeners say about Mental
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Wendy G. Bamman
- 07-10-21
Incredible
Lowe's recounting of her journey through mental illness is both harrowing and inspiring. I was hooked immediately, from the first chapter. Lowe's writing style is distinctive and brilliant. I have never encountered such dazzling metaphors. Lowe allows the reader to truly visualize and envision what it means to be unwell. There was simultaneous critique and appreciation for psychiatric medication, giving a realistic portrayal of both the benefits and side effects of medication. I have recommended this book to a number of folks and will come back to listen to it many times, if only for inspiration for my own writing.
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- Reader Rowland
- 02-15-18
Thank you!
What made the experience of listening to Mental the most enjoyable?
Thank you for sharing your story. I was led to your book by a friend that works with your father. My husband is BP2. I find stories like yours are always helpful to others who suffer from, live with, or should just know what it's like to live with mental illness.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Mental?
Your in-depth information on your lithium, research, and then delving into the new drugs was so very helpful and informative, thank you.
What does Jaime Lowe bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Her personal narrative with inflections and dramatization where she knows it belongs.
Any additional comments?
Thank you.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amber Mize
- 04-04-22
Completely Made My Feelings & Thinking Feel Valid
Amazing story. She went through a a lot. Ups and downs. But just just kept on going and pushing herself. It made me feel like I have hope to become something more than just my mental illness. The researching and determination to find out her best treatment astonished me. Very inspiring book.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-04-17
Mental Realness
Best book on audible about mental health. Hope she records her ODB biography for audible!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sofia
- 12-22-21
Captivating
A client suffering from Bipolar Disorder recommended this book to me. I was captivated by The author’s storytelling from the first 5 minutes and couldn’t stop listening until the last word. I’m a better therapist because of this book and a better human as well. Thank you for sharing your life w me!
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1 person found this helpful
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- M.E.
- 04-03-18
Recommend for Healthcare Providers, and anyone else
This may be my favorite book of all time. I’ll miss JL’s voice. She has such a strength in storytelling and making her experiences clear and vivid to a listener. Bipolar I is a condition that’s not common for providers who haven’t lived it to empathize with. I’m about to start a residency in psychiatry and it feels like going in blind for most of us. Memoirs as open and honest as these are invaluable to us, helping us understand what the journey of an illness can feel like outside of the IP/OP soundbites. I’ve been close all of my life to others struggling greatly with their mental illnesses. Reading this, I felt less alone. Thank you so much, Jaime. I’m going to donate a copy to my hospital library.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Darryl
- 10-28-20
Exceptional!
Jamie's fabulous writing pulled me through the entire book. I am grateful she had the courage to write her story so that others could more deeply understand the condition to create empathy and compassion for those that suffer with bipolar.
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- Susan Murphy
- 08-28-19
I can't get a refund
Following the. refund process round and round ultimately dead ends at a page that says I have no books in my purchase history. I've listened to the first chapter and don't want to listen to any more because it is melodramatic, and the author narrates it self-consciously and with voice fry.
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- Patricia K. Egan
- 12-10-20
Totally uninteresting
Typical creative non-fiction structure, but without anything to keep the reader (listener) interested. Narration obnoxious. Not my cup of tea.
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