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Nothing Was the Same
From the internationally acclaimed author of An Unquiet Mind, an exquisite, haunting meditation on mortality, grief, and loss.
Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison—who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion—could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In direct, straightforward, and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic honesty, candor, wit, and simplicity, she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression.
But she also recalls the great joy that Richard brought her during the nearly twenty years they had together. Wryly humorous anecdotes mingle with bittersweet memories of a relationship that was passionate and loving—if troubled on occasion by her manic-depressive (bipolar) illness—as Jamison reveals the ways in which her husband encouraged her to write openly about her mental illness and, through his courage and grace taught her to live fully.
A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself, Nothing Was the Same is also a deeply moving memoir by a superb writer.
Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison—who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion—could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In direct, straightforward, and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic honesty, candor, wit, and simplicity, she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression.
But she also recalls the great joy that Richard brought her during the nearly twenty years they had together. Wryly humorous anecdotes mingle with bittersweet memories of a relationship that was passionate and loving—if troubled on occasion by her manic-depressive (bipolar) illness—as Jamison reveals the ways in which her husband encouraged her to write openly about her mental illness and, through his courage and grace taught her to live fully.
A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself, Nothing Was the Same is also a deeply moving memoir by a superb writer.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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3,284 people want to read
About the author
Kay Redfield Jamison
30Ìýbooks1,962ÌýfollowersKay Redfield Jamison (born June 22, 1946) is an American clinical psychologist and writer who is one of the foremost experts on bipolar disorder. She is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
March 26, 2011
Jamison is on my radar as a prominent person with a disability, though she has never explicitly articulated a disabled identity. Her An Unquiet Mind is a hugely important book, politically speaking, and I salute her for outing herself as someone with severe bipolar, and effectively painting a target on her back for religious nutjobs and many of her ablest asshole colleagues in the medical profession. I mean, what the hell do I know about being targeted in wank, compared to that?
This book, though . . . *shakes head*. It’s a memoir of her husband’s loss to cancer. I picked it up for blah personal reasons blah, and also because it was supposed to be about her struggle to distinguish the grief processes from the organic, chemical misfunction of her illness. As a mental health professional and a person with a mental illness, she could really get at this fascinating thing � distinguishing useful emotion from pathological, talking about the biological processes of intense emotion from the inside.
Yeah no. The book is about that for roughly two pages. The rest of the time it’s an extended obituary, and not a very interesting one. By which I mean that I’m glad she wrote it, because I absolutely get how important a process that can be. I just don’t know why it needed to be published.
The book is mostly about her husband, how wonderful he was, how much she loved him. And then he dies, and it sucks. You’d think, hey, grief is universal, but no. this book isn’t about grief, it’s about Jamison delivering a long eulogy to someone she loved that almost none of her readers will know. And it’s all told in this ponderous, stylized, cinematic mode, all ‘and then he dipped the ring in the North Se and put it on my finger.� Lots of tell, everything was so romantic and intensely meaningful, you know. I’m sure these things actually happened, but the book has this roseate glow of recollection to it that precludes the more complex, the emotionally analytical, the clarity of insight I expect from Jamison.
Like I said: glad she wrote it. She clearly needed to. I just don’t see what anyone else reading it will get from it.
This book, though . . . *shakes head*. It’s a memoir of her husband’s loss to cancer. I picked it up for blah personal reasons blah, and also because it was supposed to be about her struggle to distinguish the grief processes from the organic, chemical misfunction of her illness. As a mental health professional and a person with a mental illness, she could really get at this fascinating thing � distinguishing useful emotion from pathological, talking about the biological processes of intense emotion from the inside.
Yeah no. The book is about that for roughly two pages. The rest of the time it’s an extended obituary, and not a very interesting one. By which I mean that I’m glad she wrote it, because I absolutely get how important a process that can be. I just don’t know why it needed to be published.
The book is mostly about her husband, how wonderful he was, how much she loved him. And then he dies, and it sucks. You’d think, hey, grief is universal, but no. this book isn’t about grief, it’s about Jamison delivering a long eulogy to someone she loved that almost none of her readers will know. And it’s all told in this ponderous, stylized, cinematic mode, all ‘and then he dipped the ring in the North Se and put it on my finger.� Lots of tell, everything was so romantic and intensely meaningful, you know. I’m sure these things actually happened, but the book has this roseate glow of recollection to it that precludes the more complex, the emotionally analytical, the clarity of insight I expect from Jamison.
Like I said: glad she wrote it. She clearly needed to. I just don’t see what anyone else reading it will get from it.
November 15, 2014
Jamison is the author of An Unquiet Mind, her superb memoir about her bipolar illness (a public secret even as she became one of the world’s leading experts on manic depression, literally co-authoring the textbook the medical profession trains on). Nothing Was the Same is the story of her husband’s, also an influential doctor and scientist, illness and death and Jamison’s experience with the overwhelming grief that comes with such a loss. It’s a profoundly personal book but also one that provides insight to grief and how it differs from depression or related illnesses. Jamison, it should be noted, is not just an excellent writer but a creative one, with a deep interest and experience in poetry, fiction, music, art, and spiritual literature—sermons, hymns, prayers. (She is also the author of Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, an excellent study of the illness’s connection to creativity.)
Jamison comes to this very personal experience with a dual purpose, to honor the love she shared with her husband and to describe clearly the experience of intense grief that she endured, and brings to the task a deep reservoir of knowledge that spans the universe of how we try to understand what happens to us—science, medicine, nature, logic and reason, art, music, literature and religion. What’s amazing is how dazzlingly direct and to her points she is. It’s her story blessed with the insights that her career and her passions bring to the experience. She did not research the difference between grief and depression; she lived it, and describes the difference: “I knew depression to be unrelenting, invariable, impervious to event. I knew its pain to be undeviating. Grief was different. It hit in waves, caught me unawares. It struck when I felt most alive, when I thought I had moved beyond its hold.� Later she writes, “Time alone in grief proved restorative. Time alone in depression was dangerous.� The first sentence anyone might write, but not so simply elegant. The second is the revelatory partner of the first. Combined they are unique to Jamison and her experience and gifts.
She calls on works of art and religion familiar to her or that she reached out to in her attempt to understand her feelings. Works that helped or didn’t. It is not a self-help book but a compelling, very human testimony of a critical, unavoidable experience. It deserves a place next to Donald Hall’s Life Work, another essential, yet brief, memoir of deep and insightful experience with sorrow and loss. Both books are unabashed, without being sensational or self-indulgent, willing to recount love’s presence so we can understand the impact of a lover’s sudden absence. Intimate? Yes, so a little claustrophobic, but necessarily and rewardingly so. Jamison has written a wonderful and courageous book.
Jamison comes to this very personal experience with a dual purpose, to honor the love she shared with her husband and to describe clearly the experience of intense grief that she endured, and brings to the task a deep reservoir of knowledge that spans the universe of how we try to understand what happens to us—science, medicine, nature, logic and reason, art, music, literature and religion. What’s amazing is how dazzlingly direct and to her points she is. It’s her story blessed with the insights that her career and her passions bring to the experience. She did not research the difference between grief and depression; she lived it, and describes the difference: “I knew depression to be unrelenting, invariable, impervious to event. I knew its pain to be undeviating. Grief was different. It hit in waves, caught me unawares. It struck when I felt most alive, when I thought I had moved beyond its hold.� Later she writes, “Time alone in grief proved restorative. Time alone in depression was dangerous.� The first sentence anyone might write, but not so simply elegant. The second is the revelatory partner of the first. Combined they are unique to Jamison and her experience and gifts.
She calls on works of art and religion familiar to her or that she reached out to in her attempt to understand her feelings. Works that helped or didn’t. It is not a self-help book but a compelling, very human testimony of a critical, unavoidable experience. It deserves a place next to Donald Hall’s Life Work, another essential, yet brief, memoir of deep and insightful experience with sorrow and loss. Both books are unabashed, without being sensational or self-indulgent, willing to recount love’s presence so we can understand the impact of a lover’s sudden absence. Intimate? Yes, so a little claustrophobic, but necessarily and rewardingly so. Jamison has written a wonderful and courageous book.
April 22, 2010
I feel terrible saying I didn't like the book much. It's a sad story of her husband's (a very well known schizophrenia researcher) death from cancer and her experience of bereavement, and I have a lot of respect for the author, whose research on bipolar disorder and advocacy for patients suffering from it (of whom she is one, as described in one of her earlier books) have made tremendous contributions.
If I could pinpoint the two features I think contributed to my blah reaction to it, though, they would be:
(a) the core points (I really loved him a lot; he was a great guy; cancer sucks) are important but straightforward and not unique, so holding the reader's attention requires more showing than telling. There were a couple of highlights in this regard (e.g., anecdote about planning the funeral with husband), but far too many incidents were recounted approximately as "so then we went out to dinner at pricey restaurant ZZ and had a delightful conversation with XX about YY" (oh, what was your take on it? what did XX say? what did you eat? Or if recounting it is too boring, just leave the whole thing out).
(b) maybe just jealousy on my part, but it felt like a litany of "we knew the best people, had the best parties, had the right issue positions, went to the best places......". If you're a Washington Post reader, I'd say it was like the medicine/health/science equivalent of the politics/culture columns contributed by Sally Quinn about her life with Ben Bradlee.
To be fair, she's just telling her own story and does not pretend that just any cancer patient could hit upon the strategy of having a close friend/Nobel Prize winner/high-muckety-much-at-NIH pull strings to get him/her into the latest trials or seen by the leading experts and so on, nor that a common end-of-life ritual would be raising morale by attending one of the several tribute dinners put together by your colleagues from around the world.
If I could pinpoint the two features I think contributed to my blah reaction to it, though, they would be:
(a) the core points (I really loved him a lot; he was a great guy; cancer sucks) are important but straightforward and not unique, so holding the reader's attention requires more showing than telling. There were a couple of highlights in this regard (e.g., anecdote about planning the funeral with husband), but far too many incidents were recounted approximately as "so then we went out to dinner at pricey restaurant ZZ and had a delightful conversation with XX about YY" (oh, what was your take on it? what did XX say? what did you eat? Or if recounting it is too boring, just leave the whole thing out).
(b) maybe just jealousy on my part, but it felt like a litany of "we knew the best people, had the best parties, had the right issue positions, went to the best places......". If you're a Washington Post reader, I'd say it was like the medicine/health/science equivalent of the politics/culture columns contributed by Sally Quinn about her life with Ben Bradlee.
To be fair, she's just telling her own story and does not pretend that just any cancer patient could hit upon the strategy of having a close friend/Nobel Prize winner/high-muckety-much-at-NIH pull strings to get him/her into the latest trials or seen by the leading experts and so on, nor that a common end-of-life ritual would be raising morale by attending one of the several tribute dinners put together by your colleagues from around the world.
May 21, 2010
if you live w/or are thinking of living w/someone who has "an unquiet mind" read this book, i'm only a couple chapters in and it os amazing. this is a beautiful warning and strong affirmation for people loving the mentally ill. and it is also strong in saying that it can be safe/good for the mentally ill to love.
Jamison, like william styron, is a gift, she knows how to put words where others only know pain.
man, is this tough to read. it is about Jamison's husband, you know he is going to die but she writes such a beautiful picture of him and their "two-part invention" that the reader pulls for her to change the outcome. and Jamison doesn't give any hints to the what-happens-next? does she fall apart? can she live w/out him?
she does make it past his death and learns (and shares) a great deal about sanity and suffering. my fear in reading this was that she would decide she was wrong, she shouldn't have risked her mind on this relationship. i needed, for my hope, that she would make it through. thankfully, she does. this book is a boquet(sp) of hope to the mentally ill and those who love them.
there are also a couple pages that i hope a children's book editor will read about her basset hound Bubbles. Jamison writes a wonderful dog story and should be writing children's books.
Jamison, like william styron, is a gift, she knows how to put words where others only know pain.
man, is this tough to read. it is about Jamison's husband, you know he is going to die but she writes such a beautiful picture of him and their "two-part invention" that the reader pulls for her to change the outcome. and Jamison doesn't give any hints to the what-happens-next? does she fall apart? can she live w/out him?
she does make it past his death and learns (and shares) a great deal about sanity and suffering. my fear in reading this was that she would decide she was wrong, she shouldn't have risked her mind on this relationship. i needed, for my hope, that she would make it through. thankfully, she does. this book is a boquet(sp) of hope to the mentally ill and those who love them.
there are also a couple pages that i hope a children's book editor will read about her basset hound Bubbles. Jamison writes a wonderful dog story and should be writing children's books.
May 24, 2009
The benchmark for books on grieving is set with The Year of Magical Thinking and while Nothing Was the Same can't match Didion, it is on its own a terrific book. I don't know that I could relate to the intensity of her marriage the way I could to Didion; however, parsing through the distinctions between depression and grief. To me, that was the most valuable aspect of this book. The recognition that grief does lift and that it serves a purpose. It also is not something we should necessary wish away. It is a process of accepting the loss of those we love while struggling to live without them.
March 13, 2011
I've long been fascinated by the personal/interior lives of scientists, and this book gives us a glance at two very prominent psychiatrists: Kay Jamison and her husband, Richard Wyatt. I was familiar with Kay's story before picking this book up but I have not read An Unquiet Mind. Maybe I was also attracted to this book because it was compared with Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking, which I think is one of the great books of the last decade.
This isn't as good but well worth reading. Author is a beautiful writer and a thoughtful person. It is an honest, open look at their relationship, I think, and her reaction to grief but I did feel that there must be a lot of the husband's story missing, from the days before he met Kay (his children, etc.)but certainly understandable why the story is centered on the couple.
I've jotted down quotes from this book and noticed other reviewers mentioned doing the same thing. I appreciated how she notices nature & quotes poetry for comfort in times of sorrow and pleasure in times of joy.
I was also intrigued by Jamison and her husband's relationship with church. She says her husband believes in Science, not God, yet he loves Christmas carols, attends church at least occasionally, and plans a traditional funeral service.
This was a short book and I read it quickly -- may go back and look at it again after I read An Unquiet Mind.
This isn't as good but well worth reading. Author is a beautiful writer and a thoughtful person. It is an honest, open look at their relationship, I think, and her reaction to grief but I did feel that there must be a lot of the husband's story missing, from the days before he met Kay (his children, etc.)but certainly understandable why the story is centered on the couple.
I've jotted down quotes from this book and noticed other reviewers mentioned doing the same thing. I appreciated how she notices nature & quotes poetry for comfort in times of sorrow and pleasure in times of joy.
I was also intrigued by Jamison and her husband's relationship with church. She says her husband believes in Science, not God, yet he loves Christmas carols, attends church at least occasionally, and plans a traditional funeral service.
This was a short book and I read it quickly -- may go back and look at it again after I read An Unquiet Mind.
August 16, 2016
I started off listening to the audiobook of this with my girlfriend. We had listened to together and learned a lot from it. We had hoped this book might offer more insight in to life with bipolar... but that's not what this book about. And we can't hold that against the author, of course. We just didn't read the description before buying it. This book is a loving and tearful memoir written about the author's relationship with, and grief subsequent to the death of, her husband: a rather remarkable scientist named Richard Wyatt.
This is not a happy book. The author still loved her deceased husband dearly at the time she wrote this book. My girlfriend gave up on listening to it about 2/3 of the way through. She told me to let her know if it got happier. But it never did. That's ok. Books can be sad.
I would gladly read more by this author about mental illness but I don't think I'm interested in reading any more personal memoirs about her. Honestly, it dragged a bit at times (although it was usually interesting). And, somehow, I feel that I never fully connected emotionally with the author in the way that I would need to in order to enjoy a sad personal narrative like this. The author should feel like a close friend now that she's shared something so personal with me... but she doesn't. I'm very sorry for her grief and for her loss, but in a detached and impersonal way like I might feel if I heard about a death on the news; I don't feel emotionally invested in her or in her life story.
This is not a happy book. The author still loved her deceased husband dearly at the time she wrote this book. My girlfriend gave up on listening to it about 2/3 of the way through. She told me to let her know if it got happier. But it never did. That's ok. Books can be sad.
I would gladly read more by this author about mental illness but I don't think I'm interested in reading any more personal memoirs about her. Honestly, it dragged a bit at times (although it was usually interesting). And, somehow, I feel that I never fully connected emotionally with the author in the way that I would need to in order to enjoy a sad personal narrative like this. The author should feel like a close friend now that she's shared something so personal with me... but she doesn't. I'm very sorry for her grief and for her loss, but in a detached and impersonal way like I might feel if I heard about a death on the news; I don't feel emotionally invested in her or in her life story.
May 11, 2017
4.5 stars. Kay Redfield Jamison is one of my heroes because of her clinical work on Bipolar Disorder and on suicide, as well as her courageous openness and writing as a person who herself has Bipolar Disorder. I always talk about her with my advanced students and hold her up as an example of someone who dares to try to smash the stigma of mental illness, and someone who was drawn to clinical work by her own life experiences (many of my students think that they could never become therapists if they have their own mental health issues, and they find this quite heartening). This very well-written book is a wise, lyrical meditation on marriage and partnership, the healing power of love, and the deep and layered journey through grief after the death of a beloved. Jamison's husband was a gifted scientist in the field of Schizophrenia research, and this tribute really captures much of what made him a special guy professionally and personally. It is an intimate visit with her, and by extension, with him. I found the chapter differentiating depression from grief, "Mourning and Melancholia," to be particularly clear and lovely. By the end of the book I was left with gentle sadness, but also a sense of the strength of healing and hope. [I must note that some reviewers have rejected or sharply criticized the book because of Jamison's privilege(s) and renown. I believe she is sharing universal human experiences and emotions that transcend superficial particulars. Regardless of who they seem to be, all humans have a right to be fully human, and express that as best they can, beyond any limiting labels or categories placed on them by others. We all suffer.]
February 9, 2018
3.5🌟
July 8, 2018
More in the grieving spouse genre --
January 23, 2024
Wonderful book about love loss and grief.
April 6, 2025
Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychiatrist, medical school teacher, investigator, and authority on mood disorders, particularly mania and depression. She is also a professor of English (Saint Andrew’s, Scotland) and an accomplished writer (An Unquiet Mind, Night Falls Fast, Touched With Fire). Nothing Was the Same is her sensitive, yet disarmingly clinical, memoir of grief after the death of her husband, Richard Wyatt, MD, to cancer.
Dr. Jamison summarizes her objectives for Nothing Was the Same in the prologue:
� “When I was young, I thought fearlessness and an easy way with love would see me to the other side of something. Madness taught me otherwise. In the wake of my first insanity I assumed less and doubted more� Needwise, I avoided love� Before mania whipped through my brain I had been curious always to go to the far field, beyond what lay nearest by. After, I drew back from life and watered down my dreams.�
� “We had nearly twenty years together. He was my husband, colleague, and friend; when he became ill and we knew he would die, he became my mentor in how to die with the grace by which he lived. What he could not teach me � no one could � was how to contend with the grief of losing him.�
Jamison shows the reader that being the lover, friend, and husband of a patient suffering from severe mental illness can be a challenging task. Kay Jamison’s late husband suffered from dyslexia himself. Richard was every bit the academic physician (translate nerd, grind, passionate, disciplined), yet he also had the patience, love, and admiration for his wife, to more than suffer many of the consequences of her mental illness. An accomplished clinician and empathic partner, Richard was Kay’s strong ally in her battles with her disease. Dr. Jamison makes it clear that having come to depend on such an extraordinary partner, losing him would be devastating for anyone � even the strongest and most disciplined. For someone with severe mental illness, it would likely be devastating:
“Moods are contagious; they spread from the afflicted to those who are not� Moods are insinuating� pervasive; despair begets despair; suspicion and anger give rise to paranoia and rage� I could live with my mercurial moods, but it was not clear that someone else could or should� he (Richard) was not inclined to attribute to character what he knew to be disease…� and “� he was the kind of interested listener one waits for but seldom finds…�.
Jamison provides a memorable picture of a compassionate partner using humility and humor to model the best of doctoring and partnering while coping with one of her manic episodes. In a fit of rage, she threw a ceramic rabbit at him and it shattered on the wall. He responded, ‘Too much lithium. Your aim is off.� He then began laughing hysterically, until she joined him in laughter. He later bought her another ceramic rabbit and told her ‘the first went to pieces, as had she�.
The author’s husband, Richard Wyatt, MD, coped with a litany of health problems of his own: IVB Hodgkin’s disease; radiation induced coronary artery disease; Burkitt’s Lymphoma; marrow stem cell transplant; inoperable lung cancer�
“Richard was thirty-three years old when he was diagnosed with IVB Hodgkin’s� in 1973 was a death sentence� he viewed the nearly 30 years of life after his diagnosis of Hodgkin’s as a gift neither deserved nor undeserved, but an astonishing feat of medicine� Radiation, which cured Richard of his first cancer, would come back three times; twice nearly to kill him and the third that was to succeed� Richard and I were optimists by nature, but not insensate…�
Dr. Jamison provides readers with graphic descriptions of her husband’s illnesses:
� “Richard was sick for a long time. He lost his hair, retched and vomited in places too many to mention, and became transiently psychotic from steroids. One day, as he put it, he shed his guts as a snake sheds its skin. Anticancer drugs were injected directly into his cerebrospinal fluid. He endured so many uncomfortable and harrowing procedures that what he went through was only partly imaginable to me. Yet he remained imperturbable and wryly engaged with life; he gave patience a good name.�
� “Our difficulty would be to navigate between false and reasonable hope, and to avail ourselves of new knowledge that might save Richard’s life while at the same time, keeping close to our hearts the inescapable truth that Richard was likely to die.�
� “Knowing that he was going to die, and knowing how little we knew about what was ahead of us, gave us an intimacy unlike anything we had known before.�
� “After a while he said in an even voice, ‘We should talk about the funeral.� I tried to keep my voice steady, which was impossible. ‘Yes, of course.� � No amount of God’s sun could take the chill from what we were doing.�
� “Science and medicine cannot be pushed beyond a certain point� He died because there are limits to knowledge. We knew those limits well� I wanted the unattainable (Osler’s maxim that in seeking absolute truth, we aim for the unattainable). I wanted Richard to live. I understood the concept of broken portions (the denouement of the Osler quote regarding limits of truth) but I wasn’t resigned to it.�
Richard lived and died with a dignity borne of strong values. He believed in karmic debts: “I decided that if I paid my debts I would not worry about death. As I was growing up, it occurred to me that I had been very fortunate � I had been given a great deal and I owed a large debt� By the time I was thirty-three years old and developed Hodgkin’s disease, I believed I had performed a sufficient number of good deeds that I had paid back my debts � I might even be even. Being successfully treated for Hodgkin’s left me in the hole again. So I spent the next few years getting myself on the right side of the ledger� For me, not being in debt means I do not have to fear death.�
Richard died less than one year after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11-2001. Kay describes the couple’s mental balancing acts, trying to cope with national hysteria, their individual mental illnesses, and their pre-mortem adaptations and grieving, together and separately.
� “I listened to Richard’s comments at the meeting (about post 9 - 11 issues)� struck as always by his reasonableness� He made the case, as others did, that the government should not get swept up in programs that sounded good but were not backed by data (such as debriefing catastrophe victims)� he was dying, but still determined to do what he could to help.�
Richard spent much of his final days consoling his wife. He described Kay’s depression as “twenty degrees darker than total darkness�. He told her that he had coped with her moods by learning that “when you fall in love with a star, you accept solar flares, blackholes, and all�. He tried heroically to help her prepare for life without him, by urging her to go alone to Big Sur when he was too sick to accompany her. He attempted to answer her final question, ‘What will I do without you?� by saying, ‘I don’t know. But you will be all right�.
I found the descriptions of the couple spending much of Richard’s final hours and days, jointly reading and writing, and sharing each other’s writing, inspiring. I found the involvement of Richard in planning his funeral including hymns and prayers, and picking his funeral plot, even when he was too ill to go to the cemetery, a little too detached. My vulnerability has limits, and I still practice denial even after fifty years as a physician.
One of the most unique contributions of Dr. Jamison’s memoir comes from her comparisons of grief and depression, or Mourning and Melancholia:
� “I did not get depressed after Richard died. Nor did I go mad. I was distraught, but it was not the desperation of clinical depression. I was restless, but it was not the agitation of mania. My mind was not right but it was not deranged. I was able to reason and to imagine that the future held better things than the present� I was forced to examine those things that depression and grief hold in common and those they do not. The differences were essential, the similarities confounding.�
� “I know depression to be unrelenting, invariable, impervious to events� Grief was different. It hit in waves, and caught me unawares. It struck me when I was most alive, when I thought I had moved beyond its hold� I learned to live in expectation of assault� Grief taught through indirection. It was an unyielding teacher, shrewd and brutal.�
� “Grief conspires to ensure that in time it will wear itself out. Unlike depression, it acts to preserve the self. Depression is malignant, indiscriminately destructive. Grief may bear resemblance to depression, but it is a distant kinship.�
� “Grief, like depression, is a journey one must take largely unattended. I pulled in my dreams and kept company with the past� Solitude allowed tending, and grief compelled solitude. Time alone in grief proved restorative. Time alone when depressed was dangerous.�
� “My mind did not retain full clarity after Richard died. Far from it. But my confusion during grief was different from that which I experienced when depressed. During both, I ruminated: my thoughts, repetitive and dark, churned over and over and made me doubt that I would ever create or love again. When I was depressed, however, each thought was not only dark but death-laden and punitive. No simple good came from the ruminations of melancholy.�
� “The capacity to be consoled is a consequential distinction between grief and depression� Depression, less comprehensible than grief, does not elicit the same ritual kindness from others. Human nature keeps us at a greater distance from those who are depressed than from those who grieve.�
� “Grief and depression have always been part of the human condition, yet we treat them differently. The rituals of grief defend against alienation. Depression by its nature alienates. Grief alienates only when it is perceived by others to be too prolonged or too severe…�
� “I knew to worry if I slept too little, got agitated, felt hopeless, thought of suicide� madness had prepared me for grief in other ways.�
Kay Redfield Jamison came to realize that her path through grief would require writing another book � this book about Richard:
� “It is in our nature to want to hold on to love; it is grief’s blessing that we come to know there are limits to our ability to do so. To hold on to love, I had to find a way to capture it and transform it. The only way I know how to do this was to write a book, this book (Nothing Was the Same), about Richard…�
� “Richard had said (when the author was writing An Unquiet Mind), write from your heart� I would write again from my heart, but this time, I would write alone.�
After reading Nothing Was the Same, I hope to carry with me a vision of humility and compassion, in action. Dr. Jamison describes two loving people, who also happen to be physicians, struggling with their separate and joint, mental and physical issues:
“� he said, ‘I don’t know what to do. Medicine is imperfect. I am imperfect. You are imperfect. Love is imperfect.� � Richard was the best he could be; we both were. Love was imperfect, but it was all we had.�
And yet: “We had more fun than we knew what to do with� We complemented each other well� We enjoyed being together� Life was fun together - ‘Your stillness is a sanctuary for me�...�
Nothing Was the Same was powerful, and insightful. Reading and trying to digest its messages, my moods swung from inspired to terrified, with many emotions in-between. I think I’m a better person (and doctor?) for having read it, but it was challenging. I recommend it highly for seekers with a Nietzschean point-of-view: “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.�
Dr. Jamison summarizes her objectives for Nothing Was the Same in the prologue:
� “When I was young, I thought fearlessness and an easy way with love would see me to the other side of something. Madness taught me otherwise. In the wake of my first insanity I assumed less and doubted more� Needwise, I avoided love� Before mania whipped through my brain I had been curious always to go to the far field, beyond what lay nearest by. After, I drew back from life and watered down my dreams.�
� “We had nearly twenty years together. He was my husband, colleague, and friend; when he became ill and we knew he would die, he became my mentor in how to die with the grace by which he lived. What he could not teach me � no one could � was how to contend with the grief of losing him.�
Jamison shows the reader that being the lover, friend, and husband of a patient suffering from severe mental illness can be a challenging task. Kay Jamison’s late husband suffered from dyslexia himself. Richard was every bit the academic physician (translate nerd, grind, passionate, disciplined), yet he also had the patience, love, and admiration for his wife, to more than suffer many of the consequences of her mental illness. An accomplished clinician and empathic partner, Richard was Kay’s strong ally in her battles with her disease. Dr. Jamison makes it clear that having come to depend on such an extraordinary partner, losing him would be devastating for anyone � even the strongest and most disciplined. For someone with severe mental illness, it would likely be devastating:
“Moods are contagious; they spread from the afflicted to those who are not� Moods are insinuating� pervasive; despair begets despair; suspicion and anger give rise to paranoia and rage� I could live with my mercurial moods, but it was not clear that someone else could or should� he (Richard) was not inclined to attribute to character what he knew to be disease…� and “� he was the kind of interested listener one waits for but seldom finds…�.
Jamison provides a memorable picture of a compassionate partner using humility and humor to model the best of doctoring and partnering while coping with one of her manic episodes. In a fit of rage, she threw a ceramic rabbit at him and it shattered on the wall. He responded, ‘Too much lithium. Your aim is off.� He then began laughing hysterically, until she joined him in laughter. He later bought her another ceramic rabbit and told her ‘the first went to pieces, as had she�.
The author’s husband, Richard Wyatt, MD, coped with a litany of health problems of his own: IVB Hodgkin’s disease; radiation induced coronary artery disease; Burkitt’s Lymphoma; marrow stem cell transplant; inoperable lung cancer�
“Richard was thirty-three years old when he was diagnosed with IVB Hodgkin’s� in 1973 was a death sentence� he viewed the nearly 30 years of life after his diagnosis of Hodgkin’s as a gift neither deserved nor undeserved, but an astonishing feat of medicine� Radiation, which cured Richard of his first cancer, would come back three times; twice nearly to kill him and the third that was to succeed� Richard and I were optimists by nature, but not insensate…�
Dr. Jamison provides readers with graphic descriptions of her husband’s illnesses:
� “Richard was sick for a long time. He lost his hair, retched and vomited in places too many to mention, and became transiently psychotic from steroids. One day, as he put it, he shed his guts as a snake sheds its skin. Anticancer drugs were injected directly into his cerebrospinal fluid. He endured so many uncomfortable and harrowing procedures that what he went through was only partly imaginable to me. Yet he remained imperturbable and wryly engaged with life; he gave patience a good name.�
� “Our difficulty would be to navigate between false and reasonable hope, and to avail ourselves of new knowledge that might save Richard’s life while at the same time, keeping close to our hearts the inescapable truth that Richard was likely to die.�
� “Knowing that he was going to die, and knowing how little we knew about what was ahead of us, gave us an intimacy unlike anything we had known before.�
� “After a while he said in an even voice, ‘We should talk about the funeral.� I tried to keep my voice steady, which was impossible. ‘Yes, of course.� � No amount of God’s sun could take the chill from what we were doing.�
� “Science and medicine cannot be pushed beyond a certain point� He died because there are limits to knowledge. We knew those limits well� I wanted the unattainable (Osler’s maxim that in seeking absolute truth, we aim for the unattainable). I wanted Richard to live. I understood the concept of broken portions (the denouement of the Osler quote regarding limits of truth) but I wasn’t resigned to it.�
Richard lived and died with a dignity borne of strong values. He believed in karmic debts: “I decided that if I paid my debts I would not worry about death. As I was growing up, it occurred to me that I had been very fortunate � I had been given a great deal and I owed a large debt� By the time I was thirty-three years old and developed Hodgkin’s disease, I believed I had performed a sufficient number of good deeds that I had paid back my debts � I might even be even. Being successfully treated for Hodgkin’s left me in the hole again. So I spent the next few years getting myself on the right side of the ledger� For me, not being in debt means I do not have to fear death.�
Richard died less than one year after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9-11-2001. Kay describes the couple’s mental balancing acts, trying to cope with national hysteria, their individual mental illnesses, and their pre-mortem adaptations and grieving, together and separately.
� “I listened to Richard’s comments at the meeting (about post 9 - 11 issues)� struck as always by his reasonableness� He made the case, as others did, that the government should not get swept up in programs that sounded good but were not backed by data (such as debriefing catastrophe victims)� he was dying, but still determined to do what he could to help.�
Richard spent much of his final days consoling his wife. He described Kay’s depression as “twenty degrees darker than total darkness�. He told her that he had coped with her moods by learning that “when you fall in love with a star, you accept solar flares, blackholes, and all�. He tried heroically to help her prepare for life without him, by urging her to go alone to Big Sur when he was too sick to accompany her. He attempted to answer her final question, ‘What will I do without you?� by saying, ‘I don’t know. But you will be all right�.
I found the descriptions of the couple spending much of Richard’s final hours and days, jointly reading and writing, and sharing each other’s writing, inspiring. I found the involvement of Richard in planning his funeral including hymns and prayers, and picking his funeral plot, even when he was too ill to go to the cemetery, a little too detached. My vulnerability has limits, and I still practice denial even after fifty years as a physician.
One of the most unique contributions of Dr. Jamison’s memoir comes from her comparisons of grief and depression, or Mourning and Melancholia:
� “I did not get depressed after Richard died. Nor did I go mad. I was distraught, but it was not the desperation of clinical depression. I was restless, but it was not the agitation of mania. My mind was not right but it was not deranged. I was able to reason and to imagine that the future held better things than the present� I was forced to examine those things that depression and grief hold in common and those they do not. The differences were essential, the similarities confounding.�
� “I know depression to be unrelenting, invariable, impervious to events� Grief was different. It hit in waves, and caught me unawares. It struck me when I was most alive, when I thought I had moved beyond its hold� I learned to live in expectation of assault� Grief taught through indirection. It was an unyielding teacher, shrewd and brutal.�
� “Grief conspires to ensure that in time it will wear itself out. Unlike depression, it acts to preserve the self. Depression is malignant, indiscriminately destructive. Grief may bear resemblance to depression, but it is a distant kinship.�
� “Grief, like depression, is a journey one must take largely unattended. I pulled in my dreams and kept company with the past� Solitude allowed tending, and grief compelled solitude. Time alone in grief proved restorative. Time alone when depressed was dangerous.�
� “My mind did not retain full clarity after Richard died. Far from it. But my confusion during grief was different from that which I experienced when depressed. During both, I ruminated: my thoughts, repetitive and dark, churned over and over and made me doubt that I would ever create or love again. When I was depressed, however, each thought was not only dark but death-laden and punitive. No simple good came from the ruminations of melancholy.�
� “The capacity to be consoled is a consequential distinction between grief and depression� Depression, less comprehensible than grief, does not elicit the same ritual kindness from others. Human nature keeps us at a greater distance from those who are depressed than from those who grieve.�
� “Grief and depression have always been part of the human condition, yet we treat them differently. The rituals of grief defend against alienation. Depression by its nature alienates. Grief alienates only when it is perceived by others to be too prolonged or too severe…�
� “I knew to worry if I slept too little, got agitated, felt hopeless, thought of suicide� madness had prepared me for grief in other ways.�
Kay Redfield Jamison came to realize that her path through grief would require writing another book � this book about Richard:
� “It is in our nature to want to hold on to love; it is grief’s blessing that we come to know there are limits to our ability to do so. To hold on to love, I had to find a way to capture it and transform it. The only way I know how to do this was to write a book, this book (Nothing Was the Same), about Richard…�
� “Richard had said (when the author was writing An Unquiet Mind), write from your heart� I would write again from my heart, but this time, I would write alone.�
After reading Nothing Was the Same, I hope to carry with me a vision of humility and compassion, in action. Dr. Jamison describes two loving people, who also happen to be physicians, struggling with their separate and joint, mental and physical issues:
“� he said, ‘I don’t know what to do. Medicine is imperfect. I am imperfect. You are imperfect. Love is imperfect.� � Richard was the best he could be; we both were. Love was imperfect, but it was all we had.�
And yet: “We had more fun than we knew what to do with� We complemented each other well� We enjoyed being together� Life was fun together - ‘Your stillness is a sanctuary for me�...�
Nothing Was the Same was powerful, and insightful. Reading and trying to digest its messages, my moods swung from inspired to terrified, with many emotions in-between. I think I’m a better person (and doctor?) for having read it, but it was challenging. I recommend it highly for seekers with a Nietzschean point-of-view: “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.�
February 18, 2020
Top 3 books. Now completely re-arranges my five star rating requirements.
On bi-polar illness, madness, depression, necessity of love, death, grief, beauty, finding ones way back into life.
On bi-polar illness, madness, depression, necessity of love, death, grief, beauty, finding ones way back into life.
October 20, 2009
Kay Redfield James writes very elegantly and formally. Her level of writing is far above what I've been reading lately. When I get the book in front of me, I am going to put some quotes from it in here. This is a remembrance of her husband and their marriage, before he died of cancer several years ago. I found it remarkable because I don't often read of people like this, much less know anyone like this. Completely committed to the life of the mind, devoted to science and their work as doctors, they are truly passionate people. They believe as purely in science and work as most people I know believe in God. I loved how much poetry she put in the book and her sentences are the kind you want to read aloud, they are so beautiful. If I were ever to write a memoir this is the kind I would want to write--one that leaves you feeling uplifted, inspired, warmed, enriched, but not because of easy answers. Because of her husband's illness and her own struggle with mental illness, they have seen their share of darkness. This memoir is not self-pitying, nor complaining. Neither is it inordinately confessional. It feels restrained and thoughtful, an act of love. Just read it, already.
Some quotes:
It was early June 2002. The foxglove was high in our front garden and the honeysuckle was climbing every which way over the stone walls. I picked armfuls of pink and white peonies and put them in the bedroom. Never, in seventeen summers with Richard, had I seen so many butterflies as there were now, in this early June. I tried to catch a small white one to keep Richard company, but I couldn't keep up with it. An, as Richard said, I shouldn't have tried. The butterfly ought to be free to fly in the garden.
He said this without envy or regret.
This is something she quoted from Robert Louis Stevenson:
"We may compare the headlong course of our years to a swift torrent in which a man is carried away. We have no more than glimpses and touches; we are torn away from our theories; we are spun round and round and shown this or the other view of life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an impression."
One morning--during the early weeks, when I still spoke aloud to him--I said , "I missed you, sweetheart, when it rained so hard last night. I missed you this morning, when it was no longer raining. I missed you, wondering if the rain would begin again."
Some quotes:
It was early June 2002. The foxglove was high in our front garden and the honeysuckle was climbing every which way over the stone walls. I picked armfuls of pink and white peonies and put them in the bedroom. Never, in seventeen summers with Richard, had I seen so many butterflies as there were now, in this early June. I tried to catch a small white one to keep Richard company, but I couldn't keep up with it. An, as Richard said, I shouldn't have tried. The butterfly ought to be free to fly in the garden.
He said this without envy or regret.
This is something she quoted from Robert Louis Stevenson:
"We may compare the headlong course of our years to a swift torrent in which a man is carried away. We have no more than glimpses and touches; we are torn away from our theories; we are spun round and round and shown this or the other view of life, until only fools or knaves can hold to their opinions. We take a sight at a condition in life, and say we have studied it; our most elaborate view is no more than an impression."
One morning--during the early weeks, when I still spoke aloud to him--I said , "I missed you, sweetheart, when it rained so hard last night. I missed you this morning, when it was no longer raining. I missed you, wondering if the rain would begin again."
Read
September 21, 2012EDITORIAL REVIEW: From the internationally acclaimed author of *An Unquiet Mind,* an exquisite, haunting meditation on mortality, grief, and loss.Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison—who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion—could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In direct, straightforward, and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic honesty, candor, wit, and simplicity, she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression.But she also recalls the great joy that Richard brought her during the nearly twenty years they had together. Wryly humorous anecdotes mingle with bittersweet memories of a relationship that was passionate and loving—if troubled on occasion by her manic-depressive (bipolar) illness—as Jamison reveals the ways in which her husband encouraged her to write openly about her mental illness and, through his courage and grace taught her to live fully.A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself, *Nothing Was the Same* is also a deeply moving memoir by a superb writer.
January 2, 2011
I picked this up at the library, thinking that this was her earlier work on the experiences of an intelligent insightful person learning to deal with severe bipolar disorder, and actually finding a fulfilling life of considerable accomplishment.
I had skimmed parts of that book at a bookstore, and had gotten interested in her life.
This turned out to be a memoir of her life with her husband who fought, and lost, to fatal illness. He always helped her monitor her moods and keep to her program of maintaining stability. Such a work is of course always under the threat of becoming over sentimental. I found it touching.
I try to avoid spoilers, so I will avoid details about their life together. However, having a bipolar disorder and facing such loss, added additional poignancy to the situation. He reminded her to take care of herself after he was gone.
One of the urgent questions she had, and which keeps the reader reading, was how she could keep going after he was gone? This was no idle question, asked by a person with normal brain chemistry, who, however deep the pain, would indeed surely survive. What if she became depressed? Her depressions had been not just suicidal, but life sucking black holes. What if she was unable to sleep? Disrupted sleep could cause her illness to spiral out of control.
I had skimmed parts of that book at a bookstore, and had gotten interested in her life.
This turned out to be a memoir of her life with her husband who fought, and lost, to fatal illness. He always helped her monitor her moods and keep to her program of maintaining stability. Such a work is of course always under the threat of becoming over sentimental. I found it touching.
I try to avoid spoilers, so I will avoid details about their life together. However, having a bipolar disorder and facing such loss, added additional poignancy to the situation. He reminded her to take care of herself after he was gone.
One of the urgent questions she had, and which keeps the reader reading, was how she could keep going after he was gone? This was no idle question, asked by a person with normal brain chemistry, who, however deep the pain, would indeed surely survive. What if she became depressed? Her depressions had been not just suicidal, but life sucking black holes. What if she was unable to sleep? Disrupted sleep could cause her illness to spiral out of control.
September 11, 2016
Unfortunately, it took me 3 years to finish this book. I purchased it shortly after the death of my significant other, a death connected to mental illness. At that time I was searching for help in understanding my own grief or depression and also his mania and depression. Instead, page after page I read about their love and commitment to each other in life and the beauty in finding your complement. I put the book down.
I picked it back up almost three years after it's original purchase (receipt was used as a bookmark) and found that I understood why it was written and why she needed to tell the story. I do wish that more of this story dealt with her grieving process, her healing process, and her learning how to continue their love after his death, how she kept him with her; that portion of the book is in the last dozen or so pages and it is beautiful and reassuring.
"It is in our nature to want to hold on to love; it is grief's blessing that we come to know that there are limits to our ability to do. To hold on to love, I had to find a way to capture and transform it. The only way I knew to do this was write a book, this book, about Richard." This book was part of her healing process and I applaud her writing something that must have been horribly painful to write at times.
I picked it back up almost three years after it's original purchase (receipt was used as a bookmark) and found that I understood why it was written and why she needed to tell the story. I do wish that more of this story dealt with her grieving process, her healing process, and her learning how to continue their love after his death, how she kept him with her; that portion of the book is in the last dozen or so pages and it is beautiful and reassuring.
"It is in our nature to want to hold on to love; it is grief's blessing that we come to know that there are limits to our ability to do. To hold on to love, I had to find a way to capture and transform it. The only way I knew to do this was write a book, this book, about Richard." This book was part of her healing process and I applaud her writing something that must have been horribly painful to write at times.
January 23, 2010
I enjoy reading Kay Redfield Jamison's books. More than a book about her husband dying of cancer I felt like this one was a book about a great, true love. I think doctors are too eager to prescribe medicine for grief, and I really appreciated Kay's description of the differences between grief and depression. I felt this information meant even more coming from a psychiatrist who had felt deep dark depressions herself. The subject sounds like a downer, but I felt like this was a book about hope and the power of love. It was also nice to see a scientist speak about the comforts her religion brings her.
April 10, 2011
Not sure what I expected but the author has executed a self therapy that probably was helpful in dealing with her own loss, but did not add much to this reader's insight. THe part that I liked was her distinction between depression and grieving. Her story is hers and it is wonderful, but for those of us in less perfect marraiges, it felt like a memorial to a god. And the lack of advance planning for a physician was mind boggling....he is on a vent in the ICU with terminal cancer and the MD asks if the wife knows his wishes....he was very clear that he did not want all of the machinery...so what was anyone thinking?
August 17, 2011
Nothing Was the Same is Jamison’s account of her husband’s illness, death, and her subsequent struggle to differentiate grief from depression. She brings the same lyrical quality to this book that was evident in An Unquiet Mind.
Jamison’s writing is honest, introspective, and transcendent. She opens her soul to the reader, invites us in so that we may learn and grow from her experience of loss. She shares intimate details of her marriage, her own mental illness, and her husband’s death from cancer as a way to show that death and grief are indeed an equalizer. The book is a lush, moving memoir, as well as a profound account of grief.
Jamison’s writing is honest, introspective, and transcendent. She opens her soul to the reader, invites us in so that we may learn and grow from her experience of loss. She shares intimate details of her marriage, her own mental illness, and her husband’s death from cancer as a way to show that death and grief are indeed an equalizer. The book is a lush, moving memoir, as well as a profound account of grief.
March 23, 2015
I was heading out of town for travel and wanted to download something to read. I was in a hurry and download the first book to come up. This book by Kay Redfield Jamison was something I would not in my normal history reading. Glad I did this; was enjoyable reading and Kay did a good job getting me involved in what her and her husband were up against.
November 7, 2011
Very sad till now. How much pain can people really endure?
June 4, 2015
Excellent memoir on grief...
August 21, 2020
Years ago, I read Jamison's famed book, 'An Unquiet Mind' when it came out and was thrilled to have an honest account of manic depression from someone who experienced it firsthand.
I found 'Nothing Was the Same' for sale for 5 bucks, and picked it up. 'A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself'? '...she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression'? The flap on the cover made it seem like a supremely interesting treatise, as did the reviews on the back - which upon further investigation, were all reviews of 'An Unquiet Mind'.
Jamison's publishers are smart, knowing too well that stories from those who suffer from manic-depression are few and far between, so readers interested in that subject are starved for further introspection from brilliant minds like Jamison. However, once you unwrap the book jacket from this love letter of a treatise, it is nothing like what's promised at all.
Instead of actually investigating grief, and how it can be untangled from manic depression, the bulk of the book is simply describing how much she loves Richard. There is little description of grief, up until you're 80% into the book. You go from how they met, to their wonderful summers and Chrismtases together, and then all the diagnosis. You get a glimmering overview into their love, and then when the grief happens, Jamison just quotes a bunch of Yeats and Tennyson.
It's clear that Jamison hadn't delved into grief as a subject as much as written this book to deal with her grief. It's an obvious tribute to the love of her life, well written, but with only a few deeper discoveries about the subjects used to promote the book. As an author, it was a clever way to use writing as therapy through her grief while using her fame for her greater works to sell it. Jamison's style is addictive enough, but I kept on searching for some insight, some deeper meaning, and it never came.
There is probably two to four pages of distinguishing grief from manic depression - and I'll sum it up for you: they're different. A bit of a waste of time, but an interesting understanding of how an author can allow their more famed works to sell their personal journals, and how publishers will ride that bandwagon to sell books.
I found 'Nothing Was the Same' for sale for 5 bucks, and picked it up. 'A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself'? '...she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression'? The flap on the cover made it seem like a supremely interesting treatise, as did the reviews on the back - which upon further investigation, were all reviews of 'An Unquiet Mind'.
Jamison's publishers are smart, knowing too well that stories from those who suffer from manic-depression are few and far between, so readers interested in that subject are starved for further introspection from brilliant minds like Jamison. However, once you unwrap the book jacket from this love letter of a treatise, it is nothing like what's promised at all.
Instead of actually investigating grief, and how it can be untangled from manic depression, the bulk of the book is simply describing how much she loves Richard. There is little description of grief, up until you're 80% into the book. You go from how they met, to their wonderful summers and Chrismtases together, and then all the diagnosis. You get a glimmering overview into their love, and then when the grief happens, Jamison just quotes a bunch of Yeats and Tennyson.
It's clear that Jamison hadn't delved into grief as a subject as much as written this book to deal with her grief. It's an obvious tribute to the love of her life, well written, but with only a few deeper discoveries about the subjects used to promote the book. As an author, it was a clever way to use writing as therapy through her grief while using her fame for her greater works to sell it. Jamison's style is addictive enough, but I kept on searching for some insight, some deeper meaning, and it never came.
There is probably two to four pages of distinguishing grief from manic depression - and I'll sum it up for you: they're different. A bit of a waste of time, but an interesting understanding of how an author can allow their more famed works to sell their personal journals, and how publishers will ride that bandwagon to sell books.
June 11, 2018
This novel made clear that Jamison is an extraordinary writer and that her husband was an even more extraordinary person. Jamison's writing is beautiful and just the right amount of poetic - there was a certain cadence and flow to it that made for a wonderfully unique reading experience.
I thought the first part of the book was notably stronger than the second - as her husband faded, so too did the book's hold over my interest. If I am to take anything away from this read, it is that Dr. Richard Wyatt was a real-life hero that I, and everyone else, should aspire to be. If I am ever to return to this book in the future, it will not be to read about how Jamison experienced and dealt with the grief of losing him - it will instead be to read about how Richard overcame his own obstacles and flourished in the field of science. Dr. Wyatt has inspired me to think more about stars and nature, and to respect and acknowledge the beauty of scientific discovery.
The latter part of the novel, I feel, was written less for the readers and more for the author. It is the nature of grief to bring about an almost repetitive sadness and despair. The author gave what I believe is a true account of how she experienced grief, and because it was faithful to this experience, it also became repetitive to read. I found no pleasure or inspiration in reading about how Jamison dealt with Dr. Wyatt's death - but this, I feel, may have been intentional.
I thought the first part of the book was notably stronger than the second - as her husband faded, so too did the book's hold over my interest. If I am to take anything away from this read, it is that Dr. Richard Wyatt was a real-life hero that I, and everyone else, should aspire to be. If I am ever to return to this book in the future, it will not be to read about how Jamison experienced and dealt with the grief of losing him - it will instead be to read about how Richard overcame his own obstacles and flourished in the field of science. Dr. Wyatt has inspired me to think more about stars and nature, and to respect and acknowledge the beauty of scientific discovery.
The latter part of the novel, I feel, was written less for the readers and more for the author. It is the nature of grief to bring about an almost repetitive sadness and despair. The author gave what I believe is a true account of how she experienced grief, and because it was faithful to this experience, it also became repetitive to read. I found no pleasure or inspiration in reading about how Jamison dealt with Dr. Wyatt's death - but this, I feel, may have been intentional.
June 29, 2017
Although this book revolves around two subjects that are quite somber in nature, death and mental illness, which in itself make it a difficult read, I was captivated by the author's beautiful, honest and poetic writing style. She is an expert in the field of mental illness, having been diagnosed as bi-polar in her early 20s (then called manic-depressive); as well as being Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University School of Medicine and codirector of the John Hopkins Mood Disorder Centre. Without being too technical, she tells her audience how it feels to suffer from this disease beautifully. Her relationship with husband of some 20 odd years, himself a doctor who specialized in schizophrenia, is a love story that is truly enviable. His support of her is amazing as living with someone with mental health issues is no easy task. He's a hopeless romantic with a funny side and they are well matched in every way. My heart broke as she struggled to deal with losing him to cancer after a valiant attempt to beat it. Her descriptions of grief and depression are brilliant. It is a book I would refer to again and I would also recommend to anyone wanting to know more about these two difficult subjects.
February 13, 2023
This memoir is both passionate and compassionate. It is full of love, joy, loss, life lessons, the powers of friendship, honest work, music, literature, science, kindness, and routine. It must've been a very challenging work for the author to undertake and share.
Redfield Jamison's memoir is divided into three sections that detail her romance and life with her husband, Richard Wyatt. The first section presents the first third of her story about their love, scientific work, partnerships, adventures. and the simple joys of being together. In the second section, she details the harrowing trajectory of the diseases that ultimately end Richard's life despite the best possible medical care available at the time. The final third offers her musings on how she was able to move forward with her own life after her beloved's long illness and death.
Such a memoir is always sad to read, but in the first 2/3 of this book, the author is often exuberant, grateful, deliriously in love, hopeful, and honor-bound to be as good a wife and helpmeet as possible. The last third, however, was a surprisingly repetitive, almost formulaic to this reader. It is the change of tone from the gripping first two sections that caused me to give the book only 3 stars.
Redfield Jamison's memoir is divided into three sections that detail her romance and life with her husband, Richard Wyatt. The first section presents the first third of her story about their love, scientific work, partnerships, adventures. and the simple joys of being together. In the second section, she details the harrowing trajectory of the diseases that ultimately end Richard's life despite the best possible medical care available at the time. The final third offers her musings on how she was able to move forward with her own life after her beloved's long illness and death.
Such a memoir is always sad to read, but in the first 2/3 of this book, the author is often exuberant, grateful, deliriously in love, hopeful, and honor-bound to be as good a wife and helpmeet as possible. The last third, however, was a surprisingly repetitive, almost formulaic to this reader. It is the change of tone from the gripping first two sections that caused me to give the book only 3 stars.
March 2, 2017
I enjoyed this book, but it is a completely different style than any of her other books. It was engaging for me, especially because of her detailed focus and description of her late husband Richard. This in many respects was a book more about him and the love he had for Dr. Jamison, and I found him to be a fascinating and inspiring academic who learned how to love Kay through her bouts of severe mania and depression. I actually think my favorite chapter, though, was at the very end of the book in which she beautifully contrasts the symptoms of profound grief with that of clinical depression. This is totally consistent with my own personal experiences and I think she so poignantly expresses how a symptom in grief and clinical depression can outwardly appear nearly identical and yet the inward experience of that symptom is completely opposite, depending on the source. In any case, this is a good book about an amazing person that entered Jamison's life for a season, followed by a very personal portrayal of how she experienced grief in the initial time period following his death.
August 7, 2022
This is a beautifully written and penetrating account of love, illness, and grief. No book has made me appreciate the love in my life as much as this has.
Throughout the book, Jamison describes how her late husband impacted her work in addition to her life and health. In particular, his support of her publishing "An Unquiet Mind." The passages in "Nothing Was the Same" that discuss her process of deciding to write her first memoir are humbling. She risked and sacrificed so much to share her story and challenge the stigma of bipolar disorder, and love provided her the courage to do so. Those of us who suffer from mood disorders owe so much to Jamison, and I now realize, to Richard Wyatt as well.
In the final third of the book, Jamison's comparison of her bipolar depressions to her grief is insightful and beautifully described. In describing her complicated struggle with BPD and grief, she reminds the reader why life and love are so precious even in the wake of enormous loss.
Throughout the book, Jamison describes how her late husband impacted her work in addition to her life and health. In particular, his support of her publishing "An Unquiet Mind." The passages in "Nothing Was the Same" that discuss her process of deciding to write her first memoir are humbling. She risked and sacrificed so much to share her story and challenge the stigma of bipolar disorder, and love provided her the courage to do so. Those of us who suffer from mood disorders owe so much to Jamison, and I now realize, to Richard Wyatt as well.
In the final third of the book, Jamison's comparison of her bipolar depressions to her grief is insightful and beautifully described. In describing her complicated struggle with BPD and grief, she reminds the reader why life and love are so precious even in the wake of enormous loss.
March 3, 2018
Nothing Was the Same is a memoir by Kay Jamison about loosing her husband to cancer. I gave this book all five stars because this book on grief is very well written and importantly it comes from a first hand experience. Even more, Mrs. Jamison helps one understand the differences and similarities between grief and depression. The Author, unfortunately has first hand knowledge on both and does an exceptional job that helps the reader see these differences; depression kills while grief heals. The book also gives hope, through the Authors own life experience, that there is joy after death of someone you grieve for. In her own words, “love continues, and grief teaches". Her words reminded me that with every bad comes good.
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