Product Description
Sugar & Salt: My Life with Bipolar Disorder is the story of an ordinary person who lived with and ultimately overcame bipolar disorder (manic-depression.). She was not diagnosed until she was 37. She describes what it is like to be raised in a family overshadowed by the illness, and to try to fit in in school and to function at work with the undiagnosed disorder. The failure of a marriage and relationships are detailed, and she struggles to understand why her life is so different and so difficult, until she has a sudden revelation that something is wrong with her and that she needs help. Then comes the long fight to get treatment as she tries medication after medication after being misdiagnosed as psychotic. For five years she seeks knowledge and understanding of the disorder that makes her suffer. In a dramatic turn, Jane realizes she must enter a mental hospital to get the treatment she needs. She describes life in a locked ward, and how her doctor finally finds the medication her disorder responds to. She feels she has been given the key that lets her out of the hell the mood disorder has kept her in all her life, and for the first time, she feels "normal." After the hospital, Jane has to face the world again and start a new life. She is able to work for years without her employers discovering her secret. However, after ten years, she develops an allergy to the medication that has served her so well and must start the process over again. During this process, she loses her dream job and falls back into depression. A story of ultimate triumph over bipolar disorder; find out how she did it and how you, too, can manage the disorder through medication and therapy.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 11 reviews)

Bit of a disappointment by Howland Andrea

3 Stars
October 12, 2009
This was an okay read, but if you want insights into bipolar life read MANIC or AN UNQUIET MIND. This book gives some insight into aspects of the author's life but glosses over events that would help the reader understand bipolar issues more completely.

Wonderful insight into bipolar by T. Spencer (Austin, Texas)

5 Stars
October 30, 2007
Ms Thompson describes her life experiences as they relate to bipolar... in retrospect she is able to explain how her disease manifested itself and how greatly it affected her life. This is an excellent insight into bipolar disease and its insidious presence in the author's life and the lives of her friends and family.

Book should be renamed as "My Life...Oh And Oops, I'm Bi-Polar by Mambo

1 Stars
October 28, 2007
This book sucks...no other way to state it. This book is hardly about bi-polar disorder but more about a women's feminist life and sexual discoveries during her college and beyond years. The author gives no clues during this story about how she suffers from the disease, she just sort of "pops" it in every so often in between boring accounts of her college days, and dating years and how she was very "modern" as a woman. This is a very boring biography of a person who may or may not have bi-polar as it is such a minor part of the entire story.

Can't wait - Type I or II? by critesl (Pennsylvania)

3 Stars
August 09, 2007
I have not yet read this book, but hope that it is even half as good as "Invisible Driving" by Alistair McHarg. That book is about his personal experience with emphasis on the sad/hilarious manic episodes of Bipolar Disorder Type I, and is extremely well written (I would gladly read it even as a novel). I can't wait to find out whether Ms. Thompson is Type I or Type II, as I am Type II and have seen very little written about it in a first person or in a technical fashion. [Since Type II usually has none or very few episodes of full-blown mania, it is much more difficult to get a proper diagnosis].

Mistitled but kinda interesting nonetheless. by Ann Imaldefense (The Carolinas)

2 Stars
May 12, 2007
Not really much here about bipolar disorder. I read it to glean insight into the mental illness but this is really a memoir about Thompson's life. The bipolarity seems incidental to her narrative. So, although it is mistitled and there is not a lot to learn about bipolar disorder, her story is somewhat interesting.

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