Beyond Crazy – Book Review
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Introduction
This paper will deal with cases from the book Beyond Crazy by Julia Nunes and Scott Simmie (McClelland and Stewart, 2002). Ill be using specific cases to address the issues raised by each of Beyond Crazys subheadings: two cases each for Whos Affected, What It Feels Like, Where the Heart Is, Why It Happens, and one detailed case for When (and How) People Move On. After the individual cases are presented, a discussion will follow to tie everything together.
Whos Affected
In February 1988, at the first ever Olympic Games held in Canada, a skating underdog “gobbled up the arena and leaped to glory” (the Chicago Tribune). Canadas Elizabeth Manley outshone womens figure skating favourites, Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas, during the long program. Manley won a silver medal, becoming Canadas only womens Olympic medalist in the past thirty years in the sport. That success made Manley a household name. She went on to appear in television specials and commercials, even having a skating center named after her. Interwoven with this success story is her long struggle with mental illness.
At seventeen, the Ottawa native was sent to Lake Placid, New York to work with a new coach. Cut off from her family, friends, and a coach who had been like a father to her, Elizabeth Manleys life began to spiral out of control. She arrived at the following Canadian championships half-bald and over twenty pounds overweight. No one was surprised when she lost her place on the World team. Eventually, Manley was diagnosed with clinical depression and alopecia. She returned home to Ottawa and began the tedious process of
recovery.
By 1985, Manley not only recovered from the depression and alopecia, she had actually moved forward in her skating – winning her first Canadian championship. The 1988 Olympic silver medal led to a spot on the celebrated Ice Capades tour. The tour moved throughout North America for three long years. With it, came new demands. The petite, muscular skater was pushed to maintain a “thin and elongated” look. With the help of a lot of coffee, Manleys weight dropped to “exactly what shed weighed at ten years old.” The disordered eating had an impact on both her skating and her personal life. She was no longer able to do the jumps she was famous for. She also became more agitated. By this point her contract with Ice Capades had expired and she had been dismissed from a new tour. After a period of
self-reflection, once again, Manley pulled through.
Elizabeth Manley has since gone on to write two books, which touch on her mental health issues. She has also been a volunteer spokesperson for the Canadian Mental Health Association. A figure skating coach in the United States, Manley has also returned successfully to the world of professional figure skating.
Patricia Van Tighem, a twenty-four year old nurse on a hiking trip with her husband, was the victim of a bear attack. Her face was badly disfigured. Over twenty years she has had to undergo many operations to help reconstruct the left side of her face. Even so, she suffers from pain and infection and must wear a patch to cover her missing left eye. Van Tighem has also had many stays in psychiatric wards. Her treatments have included antidepressants, tranquilizers, and mood stabilizers, which caused her to gain over sixty pounds. Even though she has written a successful book about her experience, titled The Bears Embrace, Patricia Van Tighem still battles the psychological scars of her ordeal. When Oprah Winfrey requested an interview, Van Tighem was forced to decline – she was in a psychiatric ward.
At the time of the bear attack, posttraumatic stress disorder was still a fairly new concept, which was mostly associated with war veterans. Van Tighem suffered from many incorrect diagnoses. During the interview for Beyond Crazy, she was in a six-week in-patient program for posttraumatic stress disorder. Through good and bad moments, but Patricia Van Tighem still struggles to cope with her mental illness.
What It Feels Like
Andrea Woodside has been dealing with bipolar disorder since childhood. For her its almost as natural as someone having brown or blonde hair. Not only does she have bipolar disorder, she is a rapid cycler. Woodside describes her rapid cycling as “gunfire in the trenches,” with her brain flickering between euphoria and complete devastation.
She describes that devastation as a “darkness [she] never thought could exist.” Its as if shes on the verge of drowning or been thrown into a vat of acid. The pain can be so intense that she likens it to a mother having a exceptionally difficult labour. Even when she finally reaches a moment of stability, and sees “terra firma” as she puts it, Woodside knows that darkness will come again.
The flip side of the darkness is, of course, the euphoria. “All inhibitions, all sense of self-preservation, go out the window when I am manic,” Woodside says.
With the mania come wild spending sprees and erratic behaviour. Andrea Woodside comments that even though her behaviour while manic may have been irresponsible, even stupid at times, there has also been beauty in those moments. She says, “It is the most extraordinary feeling, which I can only liken to having sight restored after a lifetime of blindness. I am renewed with the knowledge of human beings staggering potential, of every joyous feeling that has existed since the beginning of time.”
Andrea Woodsides experience with bipolar disorder goes beyond her intense mood swings. Her illness has destroyed many of her relationships and friendships. Her behaviour, when fueled by her disorder, has often alienated her loved ones. And even with a successful career, she still deals with the stigma that comes with a mental illness. As a result, she has chosen to remain in the closet about her illness, fearing that she may lose clients or even her job altogether. For now, she pays for her medication herself (to ensure that her employer will not know about her illness) and hangs on to hope for a better solution.
Kim Honey describes a panic attack: “The crushing pain in my chest jolted