An Unquiet Mind: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Kay Redfield Jamison sums up what thirty years of living with manic-depressive illness has taught her about the “restraints and possibilities” that accompany the disorder. She acknowledges that the “darkness” that has dogged her all her life has become a part of who she is, just as the recollections of past manias have tinged her present with a kind of melancholic longing for the intensity of her past. She misses the girl she once was—the girl who dreamed of dancing on Saturn’s rings—yet she never feels tempted to re-create such intensity in her present by going off her medication.

Jamison still feels the effects of waves of mania and depression, even having been on lithium for decades—she is well for now, but she often cannot stop herself from preparing for the worst. Still, she feels that the cycles of moods that have defined her life have made her more philosophical, more capable, and more understanding of others. She can see life’s seasons and cycles more clearly, and she understands how impermanent so much of life truly is. This understanding, she says, has allowed her to live more fully in the moment and appreciate the present.

Love and medicine, Jamison writes, are the two forces that allow her to “shut out the terror and awfulness” of life’s moments of sadness and overwhelm. Love is what has allowed her to “re-create hope” time and time again, even in her darkest moments.

Jamison’s illness has taught her that there is no such thing as “a life without storms.” Her own mercurial nature is proof of that, as are all the pains and losses she’s suffered that have been beyond her control. She has learned to appreciate rather than fear these moments of alternating “restlessness [and] bleakness” and allow the tides of life to give true, deep meaning to her experiences and relationships.