I was a senior in high school when I had my first attack of manic-depressive illness; once the siege began, I lost my mind rather rapidly. At first, everything seemed so easy. I raced about like a crazed weasel, bubbling with plans and enthusiasms, immersed in sports, and staying up all night, night after night, out with friends, reading everything that wasn’t nailed down, filling manuscript books with poems and fragments of plays, and making expansive, completely unrealistic, plans for my future. The world was filled with pleasure and promise; I felt great. Not just great, I felt really great. I felt I could do anything, that no task was too difficult. My mind seemed clear, fabulously focused, and able to make intuitive mathematical leaps that had up to that point entirely eluded me. Indeed, they elude me still. At the time, however, not only did everything make perfect sense, but it all began to fit into a marvelous kind of cosmic relatedness. My sense of enchantment with the laws of the natural world caused me to fizz over, and I found myself buttonholing my friends to tell them how beautiful it all was. They were less than transfixed by my insights into the webbings and beauties of the universe, although considerably impressed by how exhausting it was to be around my enthusiastic ramblings: You’re talking too fast, Kay. Slow down, Kay. You’re wearing me out, Kay. Slow down, Kay. And those times when they didn’t actually come out and say it, I still could see it in their eyes: For God’s sake, Kay, slow down.
- An unquiet mind
- An unquiet mind
It had become clear to me over time that my mercurial temperament and physical restlessness were going to make medical school—especially the first two years, which required sitting still in lecture halls for hours at a time—an unlikely proposition. I found it difficult to stay put for long and found that I learned best on my own. I loved research and writing, and the thought of being chained to the kind of schedule that medical school required was increasingly repugnant.
- An unquiet mind
- An unquiet mind