I've been looking for a book like this for 6 years

[Droopy]

When I was diagnosed as having a mental illness called schizoaffective disorder, I went out looking for a book on the subject. All I could find was a book on clinical studies that was 20 years old, out of print, and not even available in the United States. I was able to find references to the illness in books about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but no books dedicated only to schizoaffective disorder.

I didn't think that was right. The authors of the books about other mental illnesses claimed that schizoaffective disorder was just schizophrenia and bipolar disorder all mixed up in blender-like fashion and was really just a form of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. But as one who is afflicted with the illness and who has read books on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and who has also had the pleasure of speaking to people who have been afflicted with each one of those diseases, I've come to the conclusion that schizoaffective disorder is a unique illness. Seeing a lack of literature on the subject I thought that maybe I should write a book about it.

Well, I've tinkered with the book and have also asked for help of other people who have my illness, and it just hasn't worked out. It can be exhausting enough to try to write every day while holding down a full time job, but when you consider the weightiness of the material for a book on mental illness and the fact that you have to delve into the most painful part of your life to get it, well, it proved to be too much for me.

But I was feebly attempting to give my collected essays on the subject another look and that led me to look again for a book about schizoaffective disorder, and I found one. It is called The Music of Madness by Tracy L. Harris and it is about her first-hand experience with the illness. It's 189 pages and I read the entire book in one sitting. I haven't done that in many moons. She has proven to be a stronger person than me because she went back to those horribly painful and dark experiences and put them down on paper for the whole world to see. I want to marry her. I at least would like to meet her at some point and she does speak at lectures on the subject of her illness. She is an active advocate for the mentally ill, too.

If you'd like to read the book, you probably aren't going to find it at a book store. I ordered it online and I forget where, but I bet that if you do a search for her name or the name of her book you will be able to find it.

[LuckyLib]

1. Another book that describe this type of mental illness very well is

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks

An amazing book by a woman who is now a Law School Professor at the University of Southern California -- she is able to describe her experience and the American mental health system with accuracy and sensitivity to patients and families.