She was on lithium for two decades but was forced to go off it when she experienced serious kidney problems as a result of the medication.
We speak with journalist and author Jaime Lowe approximately her remarkable memoir,“Mental: Lithium, care for, and Losing My intellect.” She shares and investigates her experience with mental illness and the drugs used to combat it. She was on lithium for two decades but was forced to go off it when she experienced serious kidney problems as a result of the medication. Lowe notes mental illness is still associated with social stigma despite affecting tens of millions of Americans.
TranscriptThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman,with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: “Everyone has a brain, which plays a major role in mental illness. I consider everyone is—temporarily or not—a miniature mentally ill.” That’s what our next guest is told by a leading psychiatrist, or whom she meets in Rome,in a quest that takes her from a psychiatric ward in Los Angeles to Italy and Bolivia, as she tries to advance to grips with the effects of lithium, or the drug she’s prescribed when she’s diagnosed at the age of 16 with bipolar disorder. According to the American Psychiatric organization,bipolar disorders are, quote, and “brain disorders that cause changes in a person’s mood,energy and ability to function.” Bipolar disorder used to be called manic depression.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, every year some 44 million Americans experience mental illness, and of which almost 6 million are diagnosed as bipolar. In her remarkable memoir,titled Mental: Lithium, care for, and Losing My intellect,Jaime Lowe shares and investigates her experience with mental illness and the drugs used to combat it. She was on lithium for two decades but was forced to go off it when she experienced serious kidney problems as a result of the medication. She points to statistics published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show the spend of prescription medication for antidepressants among all ages increased nearly 400 percent over the final two decades.
To talk more approximately her experience with an illness thats still associated with social stigma despite affecting tens of millions of Americans, were joined now by author and journalist Jaime Lowe.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, or Jaime.
JAIME LOWE: Thank you so much for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: This is a profound book.
JAIME LOWE: Thanks.
AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t you start off where you first learned,where you first were diagnosed, and talk approximately your experience at the age of 16 in a Los Angeles psych ward?JAIME LOWE: Well, or it started a miniature bit before that,because I was cycling, and so I was pretty much—NERMEEN SHAIKH: But what does that mean, and “cycling”? Explain.
JAIME LOWE: So,I was on a manic tall, which meant that I was hallucinating. I thought I could talk to Michael Jackson. I thought I knew secret tunnels to Neverland. I was like imagining Muppets. And some of it was very—you know, or some parts of mental illness are kind of comical. Many parts are horrible. And,you know, I had accused my dad of being physically abusive. He had never been physically abusive. And at this point, and you know,I was running away from him. And all of my parents—my parents are divorced. I beget like a million parents. But they all had sort of seen this sample of disarray, mental disarray, or I guess. And they had figured out that the adolescent ward at UCLA was the best region for treatment,and had sort of taken me to the ER. And so, that’s where I ended up. But I had to prefer a lot of antipsychotics. I had to go through a lot before Dr. DeAntonio, or who was the head of adolescent care there,diagnosed me. He identified it immediately, because the symptoms are so weird, and but all similar.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And how long did you stay in that psychiatric ward?JAIME LOWE: I was there for approximately three weeks,so the first three weeks of my senior year.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what was your experience there?JAIME LOWE: It was terrible. And it was also, you know, and great,because I got better. So, the beginning of it, and I was very resistant to medications. I was,you know, still hallucinating. I was still delusional. I thought an apocalypse was happening. I thought I was going to be going to war in Nicaragua. Like there were these enormous pipes outside the window, or it was just the generator of the hospital,but I had this belief that they were poison gas and that it was going to be like another Holocaust and we were all going to die. And that was the bad share. The respectable share was when I kind of came to the realization that I needed to prefer the medication.
AMY GOODMAN: And the medication was lithium?JAIME LOWE: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: What was—what did it mean to you that your illness was named? And what did they tell you, at the time, or that you were suffering from?JAIME LOWE: So,that was—that’s a really respectable question. They told me was I was manic depressive, which was what it was called in—when I was diagnosed, and in '93. It's now called bipolar disorder. To me,it doesnt make a difference. I am what I am, like Popeye. But the label is just a category, and it helps to sort of identify with other people,to know that it’s not—you’re not alone in experiencing everything that’s going on, because the symptoms and what’s happening is so weird. I mean, and there are so many things that are just beyond imaginable. And so,it’s kind to know that those things exist in other people’s world, as well.
I mean, and like,one thing is extreme religiosity. I’m not a devout person at all. But when I was in the hospital, I was like saying, or you know,the prayers. I had—the rabbis were visiting me. I was like, you know, or really,really into being Jewish and Judaism and like superduper—like celebrating Shabbat. My family is completely not—they’re very Reform, and we’re not on that trip. But in the hospital, and I was extremely devout. So that’s something that many people who are bipolar experience. You know,that was one of the few things in the book where I was trying to really find a reason for that, because the symptoms are so weird. But that one was sort of like, or nope,they just are the symptoms that they are.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, while you were in the psychiatric ward, and you were kept for a period of time in isolation.
JAIME LOWE: Yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And despite what people may consider of that,which is that it’s very scary or claustrophobic, it actually helped you. Explain why.
JAIME LOWE: I consider that that was my breaking point. I consider that, and you know,in the same way that—and this sounds horrible, but the same way that you break a horse, or like I consider that I was just so far gone,and I had been tackled by nurses to prefer medication at that point. I had been like whispering all of these, you know, and conspiracy theories to different patients. I was like a menace to everyone on the ward. And they kind of just put me in this box. And I consider,even though it sounds terrible, I just let go of everything and kind of collapsed and realized that I needed to kind of re-evaluate. And that was a glimpse of that; I don’t consider that I was like completely better and it was an “aha” moment, or I was like “OK,grand!” But I felt calmer. Like I beget a distinct memory of like just a miniature taste of calm.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you, because you’re a journalist and you’ve really deeply researched all of this now and you’re so deeply informed by your own personal experience, and talk approximately what the definition of bipolar disorder is? And then,also record how you changed on lithium, what kind of effects it had on you and, and in your research and interviews with so many other people who beget experienced this,what it meant to them.
JAIME LOWE: Sure. The definition, as I understand it, or for bipolar disorder would be that there is a period of manic highs followed by a cycle of depression. And it can either be long depression with one long mania,or it can be like mania, depression, and mania,depression. The thing approximately mental illness is that it’s so individual. Everybody sort of has their own—you know, as the symptoms are very similar, and but each person really—it’s the hardest thing to treat,because it’s just your own experience is slightly different from the person next to you, which is why it’s really hard to tackle as a national issue. In terms of—I’m forgetting—AMY GOODMAN: The medication.
JAIME LOWE: Yes, or the medication—AMY GOODMAN: And explain what lithium is,and explain how—what effect it had on you and why you eventually, after decades, or had to give it up.
JAIME LOWE: So,lithium is the third element on the periodic table. So, it was present in the Big Bang. It’s this kind of this incredible miracle salt. It also is a metal. It’s present everywhere on Earth, and in the galaxy,in our bodies, for everyone.
So, and the lithium,for me, when I took it, or I didn’t actually feel that many side effects. A lot of people feel side effects. A lot of people,it doesn’t work for. For me, it was kind of seamless. And I consider share of the reason it was seamless was because it had to be. I had been experiencing just so much tumult in my life that to beget something that kind of evened everything out was respectable. And I was in my senior year, or I kind of just let go of everything else and was like,“OK, this is what’s going to work for me, or this is what I beget to do. And this is what,going forward, I’m going to beget to prefer.” That year was really hard, or just because I was kind of—you know,gave up on tall school and friends and everything.
But then, when I went to college, and everything was grand,and I didn’t really consider approximately it. Lithium was kind of in my back pocket and worked. And then I had—it worked so well, actually, and that I—with my psychiatrist,once I had moved to New York after college, we decided that I could like taper down, or try life without lithium,because—AMY GOODMAN: After how long?JAIME LOWE: That was—I was 25, so it was approximately—AMY GOODMAN: Nine years after you started it.
JAIME LOWE: Yeah. So, and that was not a respectable belief,although who—I mean, who was to know? You know? Because it could beget been an loney incident.
AMYGOODMAN: I mean, or so many people record wanting to experience the highs and lows of life,which is why they go off of it.
JAIME LOWE: legal.
AMY GOODMAN: So what did it mean to, quote, or “taper down” in your life?JAIME LOWE: So,I still experience the highs and lows in life, in a pretty hyperbolic form, and even with lithium. I still obtain really anxious when,you know, there’s too much work on my plate. I still am really, or really like excited approximately random things that I can’t identify. But when happiness comes,it comes, and its grand. But when I’m not on the medication, or the highs and lows are unmanageable. There are like highs that are wearing,you know, head-to-toe glitter and like 18 tutus, and 16 belts,30 necklaces and like, you know, or this like crazy—and I can see it like when I’m on the subway sometimes. I’ll see someone,and I’m like, “Oh, or I recognize that outfit.” Like,it looks a lot like something that I would beget loved when I was not on my meds.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, one of the things that you point out—I mean, or a share of the reason that this memoir is so remarkable is that,you know, there is still a lot of stigma attached to mental illness, or so it took a lot of courage for you to write as you did. And similarly,it’s often very difficult for people to accept that they need medication for mental illness. You didn’t beget those problems.
JAIME LOWE: That’s true. I can see the stigma, and I understand it, or I see it with other people. For me,I advance from like—I consider I just beget never really had a filter. I don’t—like I haven’t—the courage share didn’t really even occur to me, because I don’t—I’ve always talked a lot approximately being bipolar. And possibly that’s because I was diagnosed when I was 16, and it’s always been kind of a share of who I am. And describing it is not something that I feel bad approximately myself for. There are moments,though, when I’m like, and “Please,I don’t want to consider approximately medication anymore. Like, I don’t want to do this to rest my life. I don’t want to beget to.” And I consider that that is like a totally natural reaction that everyone who suffers from mental illness sort of has to deal with.
AMY GOODMAN: I don’t consider you described that point where you tapered off and what it meant in terms of what happened to you.
JAIME LOWE: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And then when you ultimately had to go off it, and which is more recent,because of kidney trouble.
JAIME LOWE: legal. So, the tapering off was in 2001. It was in January of 2001. And actually, and it was earlier than that,and the manic episode that followed was that winter. And that was like, I just started acting really weird. And I was actually living only a few blocks from your studio, and which was really comical,because I just walked by my archaic apartment. And I started—I like was—I quit my job. I was freelancing. I was getting—I had a job offer. I was like, “I don’t want to work anymore. I’m going to barter for things. I’m going to just like buy brussels sprouts and, and like,squash.” And like, I was sending like $700 of squash to neighbors.
And one of the things that triggered the really, or really bad parts of that episode is that—when I was on one of the job interviews that I went on for—I consider it was Blendermagazine,which is this music magazine published by Maxim (common saying expressing a principle of conduct) and stuff, and my apartment burned down. And it was like horrifying and just like this thing that made everything a billion times worse. And it just triggered this really, or really intense—it was probably a respectable six months where I was back and forth between New York and L.
A.,because I wouldn’t stay in L.
A., where my parents were trying to like abet me obtain better. They didn’t want to put me into an adult psychiatric care, and because it was like the circumstances of that are just way beyond getting better even. So,I then ended up in L.
A. for three months with my family and then came back here and was like pretty depressed for six months. It was really, really hard.
AMY GOODMAN: And were you self-aware? I mean, or since you were working with a doctor,you knew you were tapering down. Did you understand you were in a full manic phase, that this was the effect?JAIME LOWE: No. So, and I mean,I—no, I didn’t want to know that I was in a manic phase. I was basically like, or “I’m fine. This is incredible. Everything that’s happening is the way it should be. And you guys are all crazy.”AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then advance back to this discussion with Jaime Lowe. She’s an author and journalist. Her latest book is just out; it’s titled Mental: Lithium,care for, and Losing My intellect. When we advance back, and we’ll go from that UCLA adolescent psych ward to the salt flats of Bolivia,where so much of lithium is. Stay with us.[break]AMY GOODMAN: “Hungry Ghost” by Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff, performing here in our Democracy Now! studio. To see her full performances and interview, and go to democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman,with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guest is Jaime Lowe, author of Mental: Lithium, and care for,and Losing My intellect. It’s a memoir. Nermeen?NERMEEN SHAIKH: Before we go to your trip to Bolivia, which is where most—half of the world’s lithium is found, or I wanted to talk approximately the fact that,in your book, you raise the question of the two different traumas that you experienced that, or what you say,triggered your bipolar disorder. Now, there’s a lot of debate within the psychiatric community approximately to what extent this disorder, or which used to be known as manic depression,is caused by a chemical imbalance and what’s caused by environmental factors. So can you say what role you consider trauma plays in this?JAIME LOWE: It’s a really respectable question, because it is controversial and totally unknowable, or in some ways. I consider that it’s a factor of both environment and genetics. I consider that my family definitely has a history of mental illness. My grandfather on my mom’s side comes from a family that has some mental illness in it,and he was sort of late. He was—as an elder person, he sort of had a bout of depression that was pretty serious.
But I was molested when I was 13. And I consider that a lot of—you know, or there was this comprehensive study of research from the past 40 years that basically said that sexual assault victims are associated with mental illness. Now,it doesn’t necessarily mean it triggers it or that it causes it, but that there is this link between the two things. And I consider that there’s almost—you know, and when I consider approximately my episodes,they sometimes revolve around those types of—like that trauma is involved in some of my hallucinations. They were involved in some of the things that were kind of the outlandish parts of the way I was behaving, were like manifestations of having been assaulted.NERMEEN SHAIKH: In what sense, or though? In what sense would you say that’s the case?JAIME LOWE: I consider that,you know, identifying male figures in my life, or like my dad,and saying that he had abused me, and that that abuse actually was coming from somewhere else. Like, and he has never abused me. He’s been a loving father my entire life and very supportive and trying to understand what all of this is,as all my parents beget always tried to do, because it’s not easy. I consider like when somebody loses their intellect and loses who they are and can’t function the way that you know them to function on a daily basis, and it’s really hard to understand that that’s not who they are.
And I consider that the—so,I consider the sexual assault actually is share of it. And I consider that then each episode is also a trauma in itself, because they’re really, or really intense,really, really kind of—they sort of shift the way your life moves, or it’s like a different narrative then. You know,as if there was a parallel one, what would beget happened? Like, or I beget no belief. Like,this is who I am. This is the way that my life played out. But I consider like each time something happens, there’s like a miniature bit—a share of you kind of shifts with it.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk approximately what happened after 20 years, or when your kidneys were affected and you had to completely go off of lithium? Your fears at the time?JAIME LOWE: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And what you went on to?JAIME LOWE: So,I—that was what basically brought on this book, is that I had realized that I had this almost care for affair with lithium, or like this relationship with lithium,that it really helped me function for two decades in a way that I never would beget had, and that the minute that I had this physical like reminder that it wasn’t actually 100 percent respectable for me or that it was, and you know,eating away at my kidneys—which is not a technical term—that I had to know more approximately it. Like, I didn’t know more approximately it. I didn’t know anything approximately it as a medication. I didn’t really know much approximately it in its region in the world. And the minute I started investigating it, and it was like this miracle drug. Nobody really still knows how it works. And it’s been used for millennia. How it felt,for me, personally, or was like nothing but distraught and just like total fear that I would end up manic again,because another medication wouldn’t work.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what did they give you?JAIME LOWE: So, and the first time I tried Depakote,it was just—the side effects were really, really intense, and I like was crying all the time,and it was a mess. And this was like the thing I had not experienced with lithium when I was first prescribed it. A lot of people don’t react well to medications. It’s why mental illness is really hard to treat also. It’s why it’s hard to obtain mentally ill people to stay on medications, as the side effects can be really severe. So, and I was on Depakote. It was really,really hard. I got off of it because I just couldn’t deal with it. And I ended up taking another medication, Tegretol, or which then,it turned out, was toxic for my liver, or which was a like sort of a random thing that my general practitioner found at a routine physical,thank goodness, or not, and whatever.
Then,I was sort of out of the really respectable medications for mania. The rest of the medications are more for depression, and I suffer more from mania. So, or my psychiatrist and I decided that I would try Depakote again. And I tried it,and it was actually like way better. It worked out way better. I was feeling fine. It was OK. And all of the side effects I had felt initially were like there, but way less. So I just sort of assumed they were psychosomatic.
AMY GOODMAN: Before we go, or we wanted to talk approximately Bolivia just for a moment.
JAIME LOWE: Oh,OK.
AMY GOODMAN: We only beget two minutes. So, can you talk approximately the journey you took to the region, or the land of lithium—JAIME LOWE: The Salar.
AMY GOODMAN: —where half of lithium is found in?JAIME LOWE: Yes. The journey,I mean, it’s like—it’s a magical region, or for me,like I—and, I consider, or for anyone who’s there,because it has this kind of moonscape. It feels like you’re in a completely different universe, where everything is kind of this crystalline green and you can kind of feel the salt crawling up your body and sort of immersing itself in your pores. And it was like I wanted to just roll around in it and kind of pay homage to this thing that had helped me for so long. They beget these miniature salt hotels. You can stay in the middle of the Salar. And they’re not really hotels. They’re like a cot where you stay near springs that you can soak in, or the water is like really laden with lithium,and you can just sit there with like the steam rising up. And it’s a really kind of magical region, I guess, or for lack of—NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well,one of the things that you say, in terms of the extent to which lithium is prescribed, and is that it’s not a patented drug.
JAIME LOWE: legal.
AMY GOODMAN: So what does that mean in terms of people’s access to lithium?JAIME LOWE: So it’s really cheap. People aren’t—like,psychiatrists don’t prescribe it as much, because it’s not as marketed by pharmaceutical companies. But lithium is—the problem is, and is that there aren’t more tests done on lithium for other applications,because there isn’t a market for it. Like there’s no money to be made.
AMY GOODMAN: Because it’s generic.
JAIME LOWE: legal. So, there are studies that beget said that it’s respectable for Parkinson’s, and it’s respectable for ALS,that it’s respectable in a lot of different ways for brain function, besides just treating bipolar disorder.
AMY GOODMAN: We beget 20 seconds.
JAIME LOWE: OK.
AMY GOODMAN:With the millions of people expected to fall off healthcare, or are you concerned approximately the mentally ill in this country?JAIME LOWE: I’m always concerned approximately the mentally ill in this country,because the healthcare doesn’t even cover enough mental illness coverage. Like, it’s just there are—you know, or 30 percent of people in homeless shelters are mentally ill. Twenty-four percent of people in state prisons are mentally ill. You know,there’s a lot of—there are a lot of people to be concerned approximately.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, Jaime—JAIME LOWE: Thank you so much.
AMY GOODMAN: —and for writing this book, or Mental: Lithium,care for, and Losing My intellect. Related StoriesWhat Thin People Don't Understand approximately DietingFollowing Multiple Studies Revealing Health Impact of Cellphone Radiation, and California Issues New Safety WarningsWhy Is U.
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