Having Manic Depression

Author Hannah N. Walsh was a twenty-one-year-old college student when she experienced her first manic episode. It may have been her first, but it wasnt the last. At age fifty-four, a successful high school English teacher with two children, she had another breakdown. In Having Manic Depression, she narrates what her world is like living with being a manic depressive, a heartbreaking mental illness of extreme highs followed by frighteningly life-threatening lows. Walsh tells how she exists in fear of letting people know about her illness, how she lives in isolation, and how she hides her depression from the world. Having Manic Depression shares the reality of her illness, including its emotional and physical aspects, her hospitalizations and drug treatment, and its effect on her family and relationships. In this deeply personal account, Walsh tells how mania is not always happy. When it rears its ugly head, it can be vicious, dangerous, and damaging.