 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
“Sometimes it's as if I'm living in a dream I can't wake from. Sometimes I'm so high I could almost touch the sky. ” Pamela Filip |
|
book |
|
What is the Book About? More Serotonin, Please! With Lots of Lithium and a Twist of Prozac on the Side. Lord! I'm Black and Bipolar! More Serotonin, Please! is the first book of its kind to tell the story of an African American woman, author Pamela Allen Filip, who is battling schizoaffective, bipolar and obsessive-compulsive behavior disorders—all at the same time—in modern-day America. Because of the stigma still associated with mental illness, the author has had to fight for her chance to live a normal life. Filip provides an intimate portrait of her life and a touching glimpse into the life of her mother, Sister Minnie Ella “Minzie” Allen, from whom Filip inherited her diseases. More than once, Minzie’s illness took her from the cotton fields to the Austin State Hospital in the ’60s. Her therapy often included electric shock treatments, even when she was pregnant with Filip. The author called her oldest sister “Mama” until their mother finally came home. Although Sister Minnie found her way back to sanity for a while, her demons plagued her once again during the last years of her life. Both mother and daughter went on compulsive cleaning binges during manic phases of their illnesses. Today, Filip fights her diseases with the help of her doctors and prescription medicines. Neither Sister Minnie nor her family and friends ever understood the problem, any more than Filip did before she found the right doctors. Just as with her mother, Filip’s disorders went untreated throughout much of her early life. She had few friends because of her and her mother’s sometimes-odd behavior. The author’s closest friends, “The Little People,” were voices she heard before she was diagnosed and later when she quit taking her medications. The voices usually kept her entertained. On occasion, they pushed her into dangerous situations, such as encouraging her to jump into the nearby pond although she couldn’t swim. Three abusive marriages, the earliest at age 16, ended in divorce. During this time, Filip’s compulsiveness about her housekeeping and her appearance grew more intense, then lessened as her illness raged then subsided in its typical cycles. Through several manic phases, a mood she feels is very dangerous, she admits she used poor judgment and acted compulsively. She went without much-needed sleep, spent wads of money on stuff she didn’t need or want and for a little while became a prostitute—until she landed in jail because her john was an undercover cop. Whenever her mood shifted from the manic phase, the dark clouds of depression rose above her. She became antisocial, pulling the shades down and taking the phone off the hook. She couldn’t get out of bed or hold a job or care for her children or herself. She was unkempt—no shower, no grooming, not even a change of clothes for days. All she could do was wonder how she could go from running on sheer energy to drooping with overwhelming hopelessness. From childhood into adulthood, music was the only constant, positive influence in the author’s world. Moving from singing with the church choir into her career as a professional blues and jazz singer, she still faced bouts of madness. In her early 20s, she sang with a blues band, trying to make a living for her children by her second husband and herself. She got her start in the early ’80s when the owner of Park Place Hotel heard her singing while she scrubbed bathroom floors; he offered her a job in the hotel’s club after an audition. Overjoyed, Filip accepted at once because she felt she was overdue to start her music career. She soon was the lead singer in a blues band. Because the band performed locally nearly every weekend and sometimes during the week, people heard about her and started hiring her to sing at social events. She didn’t anticipate her second husband’s reaction to her singing career. In the beginning, he accompanied her to some gigs and took publicity photos of her. After she lost over 100 pounds and started looking better and was taking better care of herself, he felt threatened. He was a great provider but grew very jealous. He would provoke arguments and hit her, making sure to smear her makeup so she would have to redo it and be late for work. Filip worked day jobs to earn enough to pay for her divorce herself and to be able to support her children. With help from co-workers, she escaped to a battered women’s shelter with her children. She also went back to school and continued her singing jobs. Her misunderstood illnesses made it almost impossible for her to care for her children. Because of the vulnerable state she was in, she lost her children for 14 years. People who knew nothing about her or her undiagnosed illnesses cruelly labeled her an unfit mother. Years later, while undergoing professional help, she realized she had not been an unfit mother—just a very sick mother who needed help. As she says, “My illnesses were, and are, much more than just accidentally putting the sugar bowl away in the freezer—they are something far more sinister.” Her third marriage didn’t last as long as the second one but was just as disastrous for her. Husband #3 was as jealous of her as her ex, #2, had been. She began putting away money on the side without his knowledge. One day before he returned home from work, she managed to arrange for movers to help her and her youngest daughter escape from the apartment. When her illness was finally diagnosed correctly in the ’90s, doctors put her on lithium and Prozac. At first, she was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the resulting silence in her mind. She thought The Little People had abandoned her. She learned over time that the quiet simply meant that the medication was at work and leading her on the path to sanity. All the things she couldn’t do before were possible now. She began to develop relationships with her two older children. She held a job—writing this book, earned accreditation as a legal assistant, and married a loving, patient husband. All told, her life became as balanced and peaceful and normal as anyone else’s. |
