An Unquiet Mind

Kay Redfield Jamison, born in 1956, starts the book vividly describing her standing outside in the playground, just outside of Washington, looking up at the skies, just as many of the other children would do because, like them, she was a daughter of a man who was in the Air Force. As an elementary school student, Kay recalls a plane flying low to the ground crashing nearby, and the pilot being remembered as a hero for not abandoning the jet and causing the lives of the children in the playground. Kay lived with her father, an enthusiastic meteorologist and Colonel of the Air Force, her mother, a kind, gentle, and caring woman, her brother whom she got along with very well despite their three year age difference, and her younger sister who was rebellious and the “black sheep” of their family. Kay grew up in many different locations because her father was stationed in those locations as an Air Force officer. Since she could remember, Kay had a great appreciation for music, poetry, animals, medicine, science, and the skies – most of which was introduced by her father. Kay spent her adolescent years pursuing her passion for medicine and science, and along with her enthusiastic friends, family, and acquaintances she had acquired, she kept herself busy and interested by visiting St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital in D.C., volunteering for surgical procedures at the hospital in Andrews Air Force Base, and also volunteering at the Los Angeles Zoo to study animal behavior. In 1961, when Kay was fifteen-years-old, her father resigned from the military and took a job as a scientist in California. Kay and her family moved to southern California. This sudden shift in friends and lifestyle, leaving behind a boyfriend, leaving behind a childhood of sports and activities, and diving into a society where everything she had learned from a military-like lifestyle did not provide her useful information in living in the west coast now. Her life fell apart.
Having to start

References: Jamison, Kay R. An Unquiet Mind. New York: Vintage, 1996. Print. Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2007). Abnormal Psychology (4th Edition). New York, NY. McGraw-Hill.