Manic, Terri Cheney
Manic, Terri Cheney
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Manic
A Memoir

Author: Terri Cheney

Narrator: Coleen Marlo

Unabridged: 6 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/10/2018


Synopsis

On the outside, Terri Cheney was a highly successful, attractive Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer. But behind her seemingly flawless facade lay a dangerous secret—for the better part of her life Cheney had been battling debilitating bipolar disorder and concealing a pharmacy's worth of prescriptions meant to stabilize her moods and make her "normal."

In bursts of prose that mirror the devastating highs and extreme lows of her illness, Cheney describes her roller-coaster life with shocking honesty—from glamorous parties to a night in jail; from flying fourteen kites off the edge of a cliff in a thunderstorm to crying beneath her office desk; from electroshock therapy to a suicide attempt fueled by tequila and prescription painkillers.

With Manic, Cheney gives voice to the unarticulated madness she endured. The clinical terms used to describe her illness were so inadequate that she chose to focus instead on her own experience, in her words, "on what bipolar disorder felt like inside my own body." Here the events unfold episodically, from mood to mood, the way she lived and remembers life. In this way the listener is able to viscerally experience the incredible speeding highs of mania and the crushing blows of depression, just as Cheney did.

About Terri Cheney

Terri Cheney, once a successful entertainment attorney representing the likes of Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, now devotes her advocacy skills to the cause of mental illness. On the boards of directors of several mental health organizations, she also facilitates a weekly community support group at UCLA's Semel Institute. Her writings about bipolar disorder have been featured in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and countless articles and blogs. She currently resides in Los Angeles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Loripdx on February 24, 2008

I asked my local library to order this book so I could read it. Boy, what an eye-opener! I sat down on my couch with this book last night...and 3 hours later, I was done with it. Amazing. I was practically out of breath, fatigued, all by this woman's words describing her life. I can't even begin to i......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on August 01, 2009

2.5 stars. Memoir about a bipolar woman. Although she states from the beginning the reason the book is told in non-linear fashion, and though this format does indeed give a deeper context to her disease, I found it off-putting. I guess I must like my memoirs linear or something. I just found her rea......more

This is an intense memoir by a lawyer with bipolar disorder. Terry Cheney is very smart and successful but also very ill, and this book throws the reader into some awful experiences from page one – where she’s manic, determined to kill herself, and momentarily thwarted in her suicide plan when she’s......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on May 12, 2009

At its best Manic offers insight, albeit through salacious voyeurism, into mental illness. My main issue with this book though is that I simply did not like the writer. By constantly referring to her own beauty, sexiness, successful education and career, well-to-do family (led by "daddy"), she compl......more

Goodreads review by David on October 11, 2008

It feels too personal writing a review of such a revealing autobiographical book, as though criticizing any aspect of the writing would amount to criticizing the life of a person who has obviously suffered a great deal from mental illness, which would not at all be my intent. I would guess, though,......more