MEMOIRS OF A MANIC-DEPRESSANT

A millennial woman chronicles the pain of growing up in an unstable and abusive family in this memoir about mental illness and survival.

McConnell was 8 years old when she made the first entry in her new diary, and the journal quickly became a secret friend and safe place to express the confusion and fear of a young girl growing up in a perilous world. “I keep a lot of secrets,” she confesses as she describes the loneliness of waiting in a car while her mother and stepfather drank in a bar, the terror of being chased by strange men at a playground, and the disturbing blackouts during which she attacked school bullies with rage and violence. As the author came of age, her feeling of being “an invisible nothing” increased as she faced the even more serious dangers of her own alcohol and drug abuse and a gang-rape. In the context of her painful life, cherished milestones, such as a first kiss and first date, became invasive assaults. Her love of music and her struggle to get an education provided lifelines of hope in an otherwise desperate existence. In an author’s note at the end of this lengthy narrative, McConnell acknowledges that she has “taken artistic liberty” in reconstructing the events of her own life. In spite of this, the immediacy of the storytelling style and the sheer volume of convincing details attest to the truth behind this powerful memoir. The author creates this sense of reliability by employing the fearlessly self-revealing tone of a personal diary and by anchoring her personal drama in relatable moments of popular culture and historical events, from watching Little House on the Prairie and pretending Pa Ingles was her own father to celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall just before going to jail for drunken driving. The length and unremitting bleakness of the book are daunting, and its important message might be more accessible if it were more compact. Still, McConnell’s childhood trauma is depicted with poignant honesty, and those who stick with the work will cheer her survival.

A potent, if overlong, account of the damaging effects of abuse on mental health.