An Unquiet Mind

“The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with manic-depressive illness.” 

Though the text does deal heavily with the surface-level elements of mental illness, Jamison tries to “make it beautiful” in several ways. For one, much of the narrative is rather poetic, reflecting her love of literature through experience. For another, she works to destigmatize illness through that experience; after all, despite frequent and persistent concern about losing her ability to practice medicine, she not only retains this but is quite successful in the venture, refuting what would now be considered to be ableist arguments.

“The dead pilot became a hero, transformed into a scorchingly vivid, completely impossible ideal for what was meant by the concept of duty. It was an impossible ideal, but all the more compelling and haunting because of its very unobtainability.” 

The impossibility of this concept of duty might seem odd, as it seems to be well-defined here, but reflected through the lens of mental illness it makes more sense. Later, Jamison deals with this same conflict—what does it mean to be mentally ill, and to what extent is she meant to fall on her own sword in order to protect others? How can she balance protection of her friends and love interests with the very real need for their assistance? To fully insulate others would be to consign herself to a death sentence—which, she very nearly does.