Lithium Lessons Learned

When Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., appeared before more than 500 residency training directors at the annual meeting of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training in March, she relayed some humorous but poignant lessons she’d learned from years of taking lithium to stabilize her moods.

Here are Jamison’s “Rules for the Gracious Acceptance of Lithium Into Your Life”:

1.  Clear out the medicine cabinet before guests come for dinner or new lovers stay the night.

2.  Remember to put the lithium back in the cabinet the next day.

3.  Don’t be too embarrassed by your lack of coordination or your inability to do well at the sports you once did with such ease.

4.  Learn to laugh about spilling coffee, having the palsied signature of an 80-year-old, and being unable to put on your cufflinks in fewer than 10 minutes.

5.  Smile when people joke about how they think they need lithium.

6.  Nod intelligently and with conviction when your doctor explains the many advantages of lithium in leveling out the chaos in your life.

7.  Be patient when waiting for this leveling off. Very patient. Reread the book of Job. Continue being patient. Try to find similarity in the phrases “being patient” and “being a patient.”

8.  Try not to let the fact that you can’t read without effort annoy you. Be philosophical. Even if you could read, you couldn’t remember most of it anyway.

9.  Accommodate to a certain lack of enthusiasm in the bounce that you once had. Try not to think about all the wild nights you once had. Probably best not to have had those nights anyway.

10. Always keep in perspective how much better you are. Everyone else certainly points it out often enough. And annoyingly enough, it is almost certainly true.

11. Be appreciative. Don’t even consider stopping your lithium.

12. When you do stop, get manic, get depressed, expect to hear two basic things from your family, friends, and healers: But you were doing so much better—I just don’t understand it. I told you this would happen.

13. Restock your medicine cabinet.