Detour: My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D [Paperback]

 

 

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I just finished reading this book and I want to say thank you to Lizzie Simon. I was diagnosed about 6 years ago - so about when the book was published - after a brutal postpartum depression episode. I have been up and down, hospitalized twice and all the while I have home schooled my daughter for 6 years. And though I only got denial from my parents, my most amazing husband has been by my side through it all.

This book has changed my outlook on life because my daughter who is
now 14 was diagnosed bi-polar 2 weeks ago. This book comforted me because I could see both of our "episodes" reflected. I value the last page the
most because it summarized the "norms" of a bi-polar person. It did describe a big part of the illness that can be translated in words.
I have been struggling with keeping my own self healthy and now I have to teach my daughter how to do the same for herself. Now I have a base to start with, I have examples, I have a tool to differentiate the illness from herself. And for that I am truly thankful. And yes I do remember that not all peoples illness are the same and it doesn't replace a professional, I just see it helps with everyday survival.

Lizzie Simon, a charming, witty, intelligent, bipolar young woman travels cross country interviewing fellow sufferers. I enjoyed this book, although I kept returning to the cover to look at her pictures, because she is so cute. Bipolar disorder is no joke, but that doesn't stop the author from having a good life.

Lizzie Simon experienced her first manic-depressive episode at age 17 in her senior year of high school while studying in Paris. It happened after she received early acceptance to Columbia University. Simon, now a 1998 graduate of Columbia University, quit her $900 a week job as creative producer of New York's Flea Theater at age 23, immediately after she helped them win the esteemed Obie Award. She had unresolved issues in her life, unexplored feelings left behind from the scary time in high school when her mind fell apart and was restored again with Lithium. She went away to college, sought and found success, and the subject of her daily battles with her life-saving pills never came up. She longed for closure. She searched for her sign, her way out.
"I kept receiving signs telling me I had other work to do. It was as if success had made a lot of noise in my head go away about being successful. I wasn't screeching at myself to make more and more. I wasn't basking in the public attention I was receiving or gloating through the streets of Tribecca. No, all of a sudden, it seemed things go really quiet in my head. I longed for a new direction, a new devotion. And then the signs emerged. The detour, my detour, lay ahead," she writes in Detour.
Then, she saw the sign. As she rode the subway back to her Brooklyn apartment, she saw a sign with a woman in a business suit. In big lettering over the woman it read, "For Mentally Illness, Treatment is Working". A few days later in the NYPress' "Best Of" section a commentary was written calling the ad "Best Scary Subway" ad of the year. The stigmatization and prejudice shown on behalf of the Press' editors moved her to write and send an editorial. From this editorial, spawned ideas for a new project aiming at de-stigmatizing mental illness and at the same time unite young sufferers.
"I am creating this project for the terrorized seventeen-year-old who has just been through hell and back. She's on the precipice of the rest of her life but she doesn't have the faith to know it, because all she can see, all anybody is showing her, is the dead end she feels surrounding her. I am making this journey for her, to help her through this, the hardest time in her life...I think she's worth my time, my energy, my art, and my honesty, because I think if she breaks through she'll change the world," she writes.
Detour began another part of her journey with this illness. She interviewed six other young successful people with bipolar disorder all between ages 16 and 30 chronicling their stories and asking them for advice on how they cope and deal with parents, coworkers, teachers, and friends. The story takes place in Simon's fathers's white SUV as she cruises from her parent's home in Rhode Island down the East Coast and out to California in search of her herd-her herd of other successful, high-functioning young people with mood disorders like herself. Along the way, she meets some odd characters, courageous souls, and battles terrifying existential woes, which almost cause her to abandon her quest and go home. She even adds some spice by including her love affair with a bipolar drug addict and fellow New Yorker throughout her book project.
Simon sketches with simplicity, portraying her six interviewees with honesty and sheer determination to survive and even thrive. Her empathetic interviews with other young bipolars as well as her witty insights into her own story make the book come alive. This book defines a beginning in a whole new genre of fiction and creative nonfiction about young people and mental illness. This is a must-have for every young person, their doctor, their friends, and their school counselors.
In 2002, Simon served as an assistant field producer for the MTV special "True Life: I'm Bipolar," which was inspired by Detour and HBO recently optioned for the rights to make the movie.
A recipient of a grant from the Federation for Families for Children's Mental Health, Simon is a frequent guest speaker and freelance writer. She also teaches creative writing classes and is working on a novel with a character who loses her brother to suicide. You can visit her web site at www.lizziesimon.com.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Unusual memoir
Lizzie Simon had everything except peace of mind. Having been diagnosed during her teenage years with bipolar disorder, she'd never quite come to grips with her condition and felt... Read more

Published on Oct 5 2003 by Peggy Vincent

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