Alnôbawôgan. Under the Crib -- The Pivot Point -- Learning to Speak -- What It Is -- Age Three - The Witch in the Bag -- Angels -- Diagnosis -- Dirt -- She's Not Heavy, She's My Sister -- The Tarot -- Tiger Butter -- LOOK -- Age Seven - The Body Book -- Poppies -- At the Welfare Office -- Exuberance -- Shopping -- Crazy Lady in Grad School -- In Fourth Grade -- What's Happening? -- Jungle Road -- Blackouts -- Voices -- The Bad Mother -- Exceptional Children -- The Twirling Skirt -- Crazy Talk I -- The Death Turnpike -- Life in the Fast Lane: Am I Paranoid, or Are They Really Out to Get Me? -- Meds -- Arthur Lloyd -- Shades -- The Bra Thing -- I Am in Love with Rita Moreno -- Crazy Talk II -- Beautiful Doll -- The Ugly Year -- Krishna, My Love -- Poetry for Breakfast -- Cribbage -- Teaching Castaneda -- Losing Them -- Meditation - The Barren Road -- The Taster -- Horse Dream I -- Wretched -- Baby -- Sunday Afternoon with Betty Grable -- Islands of Sanity: Poetry -- My Bookstore -- The New House at Center Harbor -- When You Can't Keep a Job -- Denied -- Islands of Sanity: Grandsons -- Crazy Talk III -- Getting Fat on Antidepressants -- To Whom It May Concern: -- Memere Stories: Sing á Memere -- Sunday Dinners -- Pookie -- Peach Cobbler -- Falling in Love with Diane -- Talk Doc: Julie -- Grand Poobah -- Land of Enchantment I -- Stories and Storms -- New York in Albuquerque -- Leaving -- The Witch at the Wake -- Land of Enchantment II -- China Doll -- My Special One -- After Dropping Acid on a School Night -- Yeats -- You Bet Your Life -- Crazy Talk: Lonely -- Eating Worms I -- My Mother's Side -- Ceremony -- Falling into Grace -- A Paycheck Away -- Seven Mice -- Christmas with Tarot Cards -- Geraniums -- Citizens for Citizens -- Wet Ashes -- The Eighth Mouse -- Good morning: -- Memere Stories: Paint -- Not Connect: Abilify Mania -- Piano -- Memere Stories: Talking -- Talk Doc: Karen -- Listenings -- Giving Myself to Beauty -- The Green Quilt -- Memere Stories: Howling -- Eating Worms II -- Greeley Park, Nashua - The Tree -- Maura's Bag -- Talk Doc: The Real Work -- Relearning the Habits of Childhood -- Crying for Real -- Horse Dream II -- Math Games -- Meditation - Fern -- Ambien: The Butterfly, Lock, and Key -- SAD -- Nearly Normal -- Memere Stories: Baseball -- Stigma -- What It Is For -- Happy -- Alnôbawôgan.
Summary:
Out of the Crazywoods is the riveting and insightful story of Abenaki poet Cheryl Savageau's late-life diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Without sensationalizing, she takes the reader inside the experience of a rapid-cycling variant of the disorder, providing a lens through which to understand it and a road map for navigating the illness. The structure of her story - impressionistic, fragmented - is an embodiment of the bipolar experience and a way of perceiving the world. Out of the Crazywoods takes the reader into the euphoria of mania as well as its ugly, agitated rage and into "the lying down of desire" that is depression. Savageau articulates the joy of being consort to a god and the terror of being chased by witchcraft, the sound of voices that are always chattering in your head, the smell of wet ashes that invades your home, the perception that people are moving in slow motion and death lurks at every turnpike, and the feeling of being loved by the universe and despised by everyone you've ever known. Central to the journey out of the Crazywoods is the sensitive child who becomes a poet and writer who finds clarity in her art and a reason to heal in her grandchildren. Her journey reveals the stigma and the social, personal, and economic consequences of the illness but reminds us that the disease is not the person. Grounded in Abenaki culture, Savageau questions cultural definitions of madness and charts a path to recovery through a combination of medications, psychotherapy, and ceremony. -- From dust jacket.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.