What do you think?
Rate this book
The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar
“Killing yourself at any age is a seriously tricky business. But when I was seven, the odds felt insurmountable.”
As a young girl, Terri Cheney’s life looked perfect. Her family lived in a lovely house in a tranquil Los Angeles suburb where the geraniums never once failed to bloom. She was pretty and smart, an academic superstar and popular cheerleader whose father doted on her. But starting with her first suicide attempt at age seven, it was clear that her inner world was anything but perfect.
“There’s something wrong with her,” her mother would whisper, her voice quivering on the edge of despair. And indeed there was, although no one had a name for it yet. Hostage to her roller-coaster moods, Terri veered from easy A-pluses to total paralysis, from bouts of obsessive hypersexuality to episodes of alcoholic abandon that nearly cost her her life. Throughout Terri’s chaotic early years, nothing was certain from day to day except this: whatever was so deeply wrong with her must be kept a secret.
Thirty years later, Terri wrote Manic, a harrowing memoir that revealed her adult struggle with bipolar disorder. It became an instant New York Times bestseller and received passionate critical acclaim. But it didn’t tell the whole story. The mystery of Terri’s childhood remained untouched— too troubling, too painful to fathom. The Dark Side of Innocence explores those tumultuous formative years, finally shattering Terri’s well-guarded secret. With vivid intensity, it blends a pitch-perfect childlike voice with keen adult observation. The Dark Side of Innocence provides a heart-rending, groundbreaking insider’s look into the fascinating and frightening world of childhood bipolar disorder, an illness that affects a staggering one million children. This poignant and compelling story of Terri’s journey from disaster and despair to hope and survival will serve as an informative and eye-opening tale for those who would trust a flawless facade.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
125 people are currently reading
4819 people want to read
About the author
Terri Cheney
6 books155 followersAfter graduating Vassar College with honors, Ms. Cheney attended UCLA School of Law. After years of secretly struggling with manic depression, Ms. Cheney decided to leave the law and devote her advocacy skills toward a cause that is closer to her heart: writing about her illness, and encouraging the mentally ill to tell their own stories.
--from the author's website
--from the author's website
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 198 reviews
March 15, 2018
This is a compelling memoir by an author who is able to pull readers right inside her head, she writes with such intensity and intimacy. It is about her childhood and teenage years and is ostensibly about growing up with childhood bipolar disorder, though it is just as much about growing up in a very dysfunctional family, to the point that I wondered how much the atmosphere contributed to her mental health issues. The parents are obsessed with keeping up appearances, their relationship is fractured at the best of times, each has a favorite child with whom they sometimes side against the other parent, and the author and her brother don’t seem to have a real relationship with each other at all.
Meanwhile the author has mental health issues from a young age, which she never discusses with anyone. Part of this book I think is a skillful portrayal of how childhood works for everyone – you live in a weird private world that you probably don’t talk about, and you lack the perspective and judgment to know what’s normal. In other ways it’s very specific to her family and the place where she was growing up (suburban southern California in the 1960s and 70s): as an adult she realizes that her youth was littered with warning signs, from frequent, prolonged absences from school to poetry about suicide that she wrote from a young age, which somehow never resulted in an intervention.
I found this to be a really interesting memoir, well-written and a fast, compelling read. The author perhaps sells it short by writing that it’s aimed at parents of bipolar kids; while it may provide insights for those parents, I am not one and still enjoyed it. It’s a good read for anyone who wants to know what life looks like through someone else’s eyes – and isn’t that one of the primary reasons we read?
Meanwhile the author has mental health issues from a young age, which she never discusses with anyone. Part of this book I think is a skillful portrayal of how childhood works for everyone – you live in a weird private world that you probably don’t talk about, and you lack the perspective and judgment to know what’s normal. In other ways it’s very specific to her family and the place where she was growing up (suburban southern California in the 1960s and 70s): as an adult she realizes that her youth was littered with warning signs, from frequent, prolonged absences from school to poetry about suicide that she wrote from a young age, which somehow never resulted in an intervention.
I found this to be a really interesting memoir, well-written and a fast, compelling read. The author perhaps sells it short by writing that it’s aimed at parents of bipolar kids; while it may provide insights for those parents, I am not one and still enjoyed it. It’s a good read for anyone who wants to know what life looks like through someone else’s eyes – and isn’t that one of the primary reasons we read?
December 30, 2012
Wow. At first I kept thinking that from what I've read, people with bipolar disorder have too much intelligence for their own dang good, and just use it to hurt themselves and others. I was going to rate the book at three stars though, because I found it interesting (my scale is mostly based on how hard it is for me to put the book down).
As I continued reading, Terry Cheney's descriptions of how her bipolar disorder manifested riveted me.
page 2: "When I was depressed, I was completely paralyzed, literally hiding out under my desk. But when I was manic, I made up for the lost time with dazzling productivity, charisma, and boundless energy."
page 5: "Manie brings euphoria, agitation, grandiosity, recklessness. You feel invulnerable, ecstatic, as if you could move the world without a lever. And yet, surprisingly, mania is not that much fun. Your senses are too acute; other people think and move too slowly for your pleasure. You blithely bulldoze over them in search of the next sensation.
Depression is more familiar to most people. It's not just the blues, it's so much worse; a bleakness beyond reason. There is no light, there is no hope, there is only this moment of inarticulate despair that you know at your core will last forever. When I'm depressed, I simply can't move...There are other mood states in between mania and depression: hypomania, for example, which is that glorious period that sometimes precedes mania. You're charming, creative, and energetic, without mania's impaired judgment. You seem to cast a magic spell whever you go: other people are drawn to you, and you're absolutely fascinated by everything and anything they have to say. It's the best part of being bipolar.
But there's also the bizarre "mixed state," where the worst of depression and mania collide."
page 139: "But the Black Beast didn't operate that way. He feasted on feelings, gobbling then up and swallowing them down in a wild feeding frenzy. I was so overcome by the swirl of emotions coursing through my body, I had to sit down and put my head between my knees. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to die. No, worse -- I wanted to kill."
page 168: "Deep down, I knew the truth, or rather, the several truths: in a town and a time of life that prized conformity, I was too different from the other girls..."
page 197: "What flips the swtich between mania and just a really great joyride? For me it was the sense of desperation pulsing through my body, like the beat behind the music. I felt as if I were fleeing terrors that became more real, more vivid, with each passing mile. The farther and the faster I drove, the more I felt like something was after me. And yet in spite of the fear, it was thrilling. Mania is always great grand fun, right up until that point when you exceed your limit."
page 213: "Only one early draft of "The Game" has survived, but I remember well the conceit: I suddenly realized that the integrity of everything around me was hanging by a thread, the tenuous thread of compliance. We had all agreed to play the same game and abide by the same largely unwritten rules. Teachers would teach, and students would listen; cheerleaders would always outrank stoners; stoners would always outrank nerds. Parties and proms mattered far more than politics, even in our tumultuous times. And good looks--not beauty; never beauty--could buy you the entire world."
page 214: "...writing could sometimes calm the Black Beast."
page 226: "Each new thought flowed into another, and another, and yet another, until there was a liquidity to the universe that I've since experienced only in full-blown mania. Everything connected." [Sounds like ___.)
page 263: "You can't get better until you hit bottom, or so the wise men say. But my life was like a magician's cabinet, full of many false bottoms: several unsuccessful suicide attempts, followed by several ineffective hospitalizations. Yet I don't think I hit my personal nadir until my father died when I was thirty-seven. By then I had finally been diagnosed--first with major depression; then at last, properly, with bipolar disorder. But my father's long and brutal struggle with lung cancer made a mockery out of my own inveterate skirmish with moods. I remember looking at him in his hospital bed...'Top that,' I said to the Black Beast, and he slunk away in shame.
But oh, did he come roaring back after my father died."
As I continued reading, Terry Cheney's descriptions of how her bipolar disorder manifested riveted me.
page 2: "When I was depressed, I was completely paralyzed, literally hiding out under my desk. But when I was manic, I made up for the lost time with dazzling productivity, charisma, and boundless energy."
page 5: "Manie brings euphoria, agitation, grandiosity, recklessness. You feel invulnerable, ecstatic, as if you could move the world without a lever. And yet, surprisingly, mania is not that much fun. Your senses are too acute; other people think and move too slowly for your pleasure. You blithely bulldoze over them in search of the next sensation.
Depression is more familiar to most people. It's not just the blues, it's so much worse; a bleakness beyond reason. There is no light, there is no hope, there is only this moment of inarticulate despair that you know at your core will last forever. When I'm depressed, I simply can't move...There are other mood states in between mania and depression: hypomania, for example, which is that glorious period that sometimes precedes mania. You're charming, creative, and energetic, without mania's impaired judgment. You seem to cast a magic spell whever you go: other people are drawn to you, and you're absolutely fascinated by everything and anything they have to say. It's the best part of being bipolar.
But there's also the bizarre "mixed state," where the worst of depression and mania collide."
page 139: "But the Black Beast didn't operate that way. He feasted on feelings, gobbling then up and swallowing them down in a wild feeding frenzy. I was so overcome by the swirl of emotions coursing through my body, I had to sit down and put my head between my knees. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to die. No, worse -- I wanted to kill."
page 168: "Deep down, I knew the truth, or rather, the several truths: in a town and a time of life that prized conformity, I was too different from the other girls..."
page 197: "What flips the swtich between mania and just a really great joyride? For me it was the sense of desperation pulsing through my body, like the beat behind the music. I felt as if I were fleeing terrors that became more real, more vivid, with each passing mile. The farther and the faster I drove, the more I felt like something was after me. And yet in spite of the fear, it was thrilling. Mania is always great grand fun, right up until that point when you exceed your limit."
page 213: "Only one early draft of "The Game" has survived, but I remember well the conceit: I suddenly realized that the integrity of everything around me was hanging by a thread, the tenuous thread of compliance. We had all agreed to play the same game and abide by the same largely unwritten rules. Teachers would teach, and students would listen; cheerleaders would always outrank stoners; stoners would always outrank nerds. Parties and proms mattered far more than politics, even in our tumultuous times. And good looks--not beauty; never beauty--could buy you the entire world."
page 214: "...writing could sometimes calm the Black Beast."
page 226: "Each new thought flowed into another, and another, and yet another, until there was a liquidity to the universe that I've since experienced only in full-blown mania. Everything connected." [Sounds like ___.)
page 263: "You can't get better until you hit bottom, or so the wise men say. But my life was like a magician's cabinet, full of many false bottoms: several unsuccessful suicide attempts, followed by several ineffective hospitalizations. Yet I don't think I hit my personal nadir until my father died when I was thirty-seven. By then I had finally been diagnosed--first with major depression; then at last, properly, with bipolar disorder. But my father's long and brutal struggle with lung cancer made a mockery out of my own inveterate skirmish with moods. I remember looking at him in his hospital bed...'Top that,' I said to the Black Beast, and he slunk away in shame.
But oh, did he come roaring back after my father died."
June 17, 2011
This seemed like a money grab. What I mean by that is, this book did not add anything to my knowledge about children with bi-polar. Actually, even her title is out of touch with current mental health standards of talk-- you don't define someone by their illness. "growing up bi-polar" should be "growing up with bi-polar." It's incredible how much difference one word makes between being sensational and stigmatizing and being respectful of the whole person.
I'm not gonna say that she's lying about her "Black Beast" that told her to stab her brother's hand with a fork. Nope, not gonna say she's lying. But I will say I had a hard, very hard, impossible time believing her because of the sensational way she described it. So take that how you want.
I wanted a lot more from this book. And I don't mean to come off smug or whatever. I'm sorry that she has had a lot of pain in her life due to her illness. I just wish that she would have had more substance for her readers who are parents, or who themselves have bi-polar.
I'm not gonna say that she's lying about her "Black Beast" that told her to stab her brother's hand with a fork. Nope, not gonna say she's lying. But I will say I had a hard, very hard, impossible time believing her because of the sensational way she described it. So take that how you want.
I wanted a lot more from this book. And I don't mean to come off smug or whatever. I'm sorry that she has had a lot of pain in her life due to her illness. I just wish that she would have had more substance for her readers who are parents, or who themselves have bi-polar.
May 2, 2017
New York Times bestselling author of MANIA, Terri Cheney pens a highly personal and powerful account of growing up with Bipolar disorder.
I'll admit it: MANIA has been on my to-read list for some time now (it was originally published in 2008). But at the time, I was in the throes of raising two very busy toddlers and...dealing with my own bipolar mother. The subject matter just didn't seem to 'jive' with me. In fact, it pushed me away. I wanted an escape, not something that would remind me of the torturous disease, wrecking havoc on relationships and other places of one's life.
And then, the unthinkable: my mother died.
It's taken a couple of years to gain strength and momentum, but where one door opens...
Curious at heart, I've always wanted to know 'why' and 'how' and so Terri Cheney's books have come to the forefront. THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE is masterful. It tells a story of a young girl (beginning with Terri is about seven) and reaching through her adolescence and finally, acceptance to Vassar. At seven, she tried killing herself for the first time (a handful of her mother's diuretics), but of course didn't succeed. She did, however have an insatiable need to pee.
Curious if her own life in southern California mirrored my mother's in southern Missouri, I kept flipping the pages. There were some uncanny similarities. Cheney writes with such raw, authentic honesty that makes it hard *not* to turn those pages. She's a natural-born storyteller and I wanted to know more.
One reviewer talks about Cheney's 'dysfunctional' family, but I would go so far as to say *every* family is dysfunctional, at least in some regards. Could more dysfunctional families have the propensity to churn out more mental health diagnoses? Perhaps, but that's not my place to say or Cheney's goal in THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE. It's also not her aim to diagnose childhood bipolar, or to say if your child is indeed suffering from it.
THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE is a memoir told from the POV of an astute adult with bipolar looking back on her childhood and gently pointing out the pieces that were a little 'off.'
I so enjoyed this.
For all my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay.com
I'll admit it: MANIA has been on my to-read list for some time now (it was originally published in 2008). But at the time, I was in the throes of raising two very busy toddlers and...dealing with my own bipolar mother. The subject matter just didn't seem to 'jive' with me. In fact, it pushed me away. I wanted an escape, not something that would remind me of the torturous disease, wrecking havoc on relationships and other places of one's life.
And then, the unthinkable: my mother died.
It's taken a couple of years to gain strength and momentum, but where one door opens...
Curious at heart, I've always wanted to know 'why' and 'how' and so Terri Cheney's books have come to the forefront. THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE is masterful. It tells a story of a young girl (beginning with Terri is about seven) and reaching through her adolescence and finally, acceptance to Vassar. At seven, she tried killing herself for the first time (a handful of her mother's diuretics), but of course didn't succeed. She did, however have an insatiable need to pee.
Curious if her own life in southern California mirrored my mother's in southern Missouri, I kept flipping the pages. There were some uncanny similarities. Cheney writes with such raw, authentic honesty that makes it hard *not* to turn those pages. She's a natural-born storyteller and I wanted to know more.
One reviewer talks about Cheney's 'dysfunctional' family, but I would go so far as to say *every* family is dysfunctional, at least in some regards. Could more dysfunctional families have the propensity to churn out more mental health diagnoses? Perhaps, but that's not my place to say or Cheney's goal in THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE. It's also not her aim to diagnose childhood bipolar, or to say if your child is indeed suffering from it.
THE DARK SIDE OF INNOCENCE is a memoir told from the POV of an astute adult with bipolar looking back on her childhood and gently pointing out the pieces that were a little 'off.'
I so enjoyed this.
For all my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay.com
May 8, 2020
KIND OF SPOILERY
I completely immersed myself in this memoir. The way the author conveyed her "black beast" was fascinating. As though it's the puppeteer constantly pulling at your strings with no care of your creaking wooden joints slowly stiffening then springing in constant movement
an intruder in your mind a moody voice whispering and screaming instructions on how to speak how to act how to feel. However Terri's symptoms were so exposed so extreme. They were very present in her family life. I personally have been experiencing symptoms for a long time I know my triggers and limits and how to avoid major manic episodes and suicidal depression. The appeal of self harm is also common in bipolar patients. I self harmed as a way of punishment when my overbearing self loathing had to be expressed she saw it as a release as a way to control herself. This book was so raw and true it hurt me to see a version of my own childhood written by some ones else's hand it pains me to know that other people experience this constant feeling, too. The feeling of not wanting to feel anything at all.
Trigger warning for suicide idealization and attempts, self harm and kinda rapey/ sexual assault involving young children.
I completely immersed myself in this memoir. The way the author conveyed her "black beast" was fascinating. As though it's the puppeteer constantly pulling at your strings with no care of your creaking wooden joints slowly stiffening then springing in constant movement
an intruder in your mind a moody voice whispering and screaming instructions on how to speak how to act how to feel. However Terri's symptoms were so exposed so extreme. They were very present in her family life. I personally have been experiencing symptoms for a long time I know my triggers and limits and how to avoid major manic episodes and suicidal depression. The appeal of self harm is also common in bipolar patients. I self harmed as a way of punishment when my overbearing self loathing had to be expressed she saw it as a release as a way to control herself. This book was so raw and true it hurt me to see a version of my own childhood written by some ones else's hand it pains me to know that other people experience this constant feeling, too. The feeling of not wanting to feel anything at all.
Trigger warning for suicide idealization and attempts, self harm and kinda rapey/ sexual assault involving young children.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2016
I had a hard time with this one. Having been diagnosed as bi-polar I was curious to read someone else's take on life. I could not relate very well. She speaks of her childhood but it comes across as overly diagnosed and analyzed as an adult. When reading about the experience of a young child I want to understand how they felt THEN. Not what the comprehend us a more mature, educated adult who has had time to come to terms with their behavior. So that was the first disconnect.
The second was how dry this was. I was bored! I was constantly forcing myself to stay awake to read this. I wasn't tired. I picked up other books and was fine. Just this one. Even downed an energy drink just in case. Nope, eyes still drooped and brain decided anything else but reading this book was more stimulating. So ultimately this book was not for me. It is still something I would love to get someone's take on more though, but not through these memoirs.
The second was how dry this was. I was bored! I was constantly forcing myself to stay awake to read this. I wasn't tired. I picked up other books and was fine. Just this one. Even downed an energy drink just in case. Nope, eyes still drooped and brain decided anything else but reading this book was more stimulating. So ultimately this book was not for me. It is still something I would love to get someone's take on more though, but not through these memoirs.
April 3, 2019
Nothing really new here when it comes to memoirs about bi polar disorder. I found myself growing impatient with her story and wondering how much of it was honest. Hmm - that's not very kind it it? If the author is a true believer of "chemical imbalance theory" then why rip into one's history. Everyone is an individual and each personal history is theirs and theirs alone.
November 12, 2020
My only beef with this whole book is how she calls her bipolar her black beast. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say this but for most of us who have bipolar disorder we never saw it as a dirty little secret inside of us. For most of us the Beast was us. It was always a part of us and why would we differ in seeing how it was if we never had anyone else to compare it to? Aside from that though as I can only assume she saw it as something separate in herself because of her upbringing, I found the book relatable in many ways. The fast pace of speech, the ugly woes of our lows, addictions as a means to medicate, the glorification of suicide, as a means to escape... the Mania that was ever a current that helped keep us going and that was a little bit more then the usual exuberance. All was very familiar in that regard. Although I was never popular like this woman was, her trials were very similar to mine. It's an easy enough read too, although I did have to put it down in the beginning when she was preparing her ritual for her suicide. Mostly because it triggered me a little bit about my own suicide attempt. Once I was able to get past that part though I found that I hadn't been talking enough about my own experience. So in that regards it was helpful.
August 6, 2016
This book was one I found myself trudging through, only in hopes that it would get better as Cheney aged throughout each section.
The early chapters are largely focused on Cheney's family dynamic. So much so, that I was starting to feel like this book should have been entitled "growing up in a dysfunctional family" as opposed to "growing up bipolar".
As I was reading the beginning I couldn't help but feel like the book would become interesting for a few pages and then slowly dim out—every time I found a climax, it would end faster than it began. I also found that it seldom focused on what I was expecting it to focus on.
The pace didn't really pick up until Cheney hit sixteen years of age in the book. We start to see true symptoms of bipolar disorder emerge and I was finally able to read with curiosity. We start to see Cheney branch out into other aspects of her life apart from her family's many quarrels. There is also a level of dark wit in these sections that is very jocular despite the circumstances it was used in.
The epilogue made me emotional and by far, was the most powerful part of this book. It tied up all the loose ends that made you wonder. This section is what made me want to read Cheney's other memoir Manic in the future.
Overall, this book didn't quite meet my expectations but the last couple of sections were enjoyable. If there is one integral thing to take away from this book, it is Cheney's tear-filled scribble that read, "believe your child".
The early chapters are largely focused on Cheney's family dynamic. So much so, that I was starting to feel like this book should have been entitled "growing up in a dysfunctional family" as opposed to "growing up bipolar".
As I was reading the beginning I couldn't help but feel like the book would become interesting for a few pages and then slowly dim out—every time I found a climax, it would end faster than it began. I also found that it seldom focused on what I was expecting it to focus on.
The pace didn't really pick up until Cheney hit sixteen years of age in the book. We start to see true symptoms of bipolar disorder emerge and I was finally able to read with curiosity. We start to see Cheney branch out into other aspects of her life apart from her family's many quarrels. There is also a level of dark wit in these sections that is very jocular despite the circumstances it was used in.
The epilogue made me emotional and by far, was the most powerful part of this book. It tied up all the loose ends that made you wonder. This section is what made me want to read Cheney's other memoir Manic in the future.
Overall, this book didn't quite meet my expectations but the last couple of sections were enjoyable. If there is one integral thing to take away from this book, it is Cheney's tear-filled scribble that read, "believe your child".
December 11, 2015
remarkable. I was truly touched by her struggle. very courageous and brutally honest.
February 2, 2022
An excellent memoir with a surprising amount of humor for so dark a subject.
March 7, 2022
O carte care te lasă confuz. Dintr-o parte imaginea unei eleve cu performanțe de invidiat, de cealaltă parte însă o fetiță mică care se luptă cu o creatură interioară.
June 4, 2023
I thought this was a good book about growing up with bipolar. I read it for continuing education credits because it sounded interesting, which it was. I may have to read her other book called Manic.
May 27, 2017
Better written, I thought, than Manic, which I found disjointed, though possibly reflective of a manic personality. Now I feel I should read Manic again
July 11, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed.
June 4, 2018
This was a required book for my Abnormal Psychology class. The book felt like it had been dramatized and some of the things the author said in the book made me feel like she wasn’t the most reliable narrator. During the prologue she mentions that her memory is fuzzy, which immediately makes me question the validity of the events of the book. In one of the last chapters, she described a scene where she was supposed to be giving a speech. Throwing caution to the wind while influenced by the “Black Beast” she discards her notecards and gives an unconventional speech that should have gone over poorly. Instead she receives a straight out of a 90s rom-com slow clap. This made me doubt that the stories were wholly true even more. All doubts aside, the story was interesting and captivating in a I don’t want to look but I can’t not look way up until the epilogue. This is where she truly lost me. During an extensive wrap up that brings us into her adult life, she describes her father’s battle with an illness (I think it was cancer but I don’t truly remember). Though I cannot remember the exact quote, she makes a statement along the lines of that her struggle with mental illness was nothing compared to her father’s physical illness. Mental illness is so frequently considered to be less severe than and less valid than a physical illnesses, so it was truly disappointing to see a person who seemed to be working towards opening up the conversation about mental illness to fall into that trap.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2012
I am tempted to compile my life into a joural of stories called "Raising a household Bipolar Positively and Meaninfuly":-)
My faith is what holds together our family and continuously learning and trying new communication methods as everyone ages and their needs change. Add in the child school setting, after school programs, home life, life with family and friends, life with our church community, and my relationship strength and forgiveness with my husband. Always alert and on my toes with my needs of being normally challenged world with those in the family members in a bipolar world. Its genetic so what ever gene pool it came down than those interactions with non bipolar genepool is like oil and water. not worth making it mix but just being together and teaching patience all the time. Accept your love is stronger and a larger outcome of their lives is in store. Yes they are higher IQ but not necessarily smarter as communication is always challenging. Baby steps every day as looking at the big picture will make you crazy literally. Love each other like no tomorrow and be a good listener with lots and lots of energy.
My faith is what holds together our family and continuously learning and trying new communication methods as everyone ages and their needs change. Add in the child school setting, after school programs, home life, life with family and friends, life with our church community, and my relationship strength and forgiveness with my husband. Always alert and on my toes with my needs of being normally challenged world with those in the family members in a bipolar world. Its genetic so what ever gene pool it came down than those interactions with non bipolar genepool is like oil and water. not worth making it mix but just being together and teaching patience all the time. Accept your love is stronger and a larger outcome of their lives is in store. Yes they are higher IQ but not necessarily smarter as communication is always challenging. Baby steps every day as looking at the big picture will make you crazy literally. Love each other like no tomorrow and be a good listener with lots and lots of energy.
September 26, 2012
I seem to be on a growing-up-with-undiagnosed-mental-disorder book kick lately, for which I have no explanation except that I find it to be a heart-wrenching, yet fascinating topic. I think what makes this so captivating is that it makes me reflect on how many children must be out there suffering, feeling alone, and living with these unexplainable demons within them. It’s nothing less than tragic.
Growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles, Cheney’s life looked peachy from the outside. She earned good grades, was on the student council, was a cheerleader, and enjoyed a popularity that most kids would envy. Yet she still made her first suicide attempt at age seven. Shocking.
Cheney’s story is full of violent ups and downs, obsessiveness, and alcoholism. While it’s difficult to read, it also provides a much needed look inside the thoughts and experiences of a child with bipolar disorder. With more knowledge, perhaps we can learn how to better assist these children so that they don’t have to suffer all alone.
Growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles, Cheney’s life looked peachy from the outside. She earned good grades, was on the student council, was a cheerleader, and enjoyed a popularity that most kids would envy. Yet she still made her first suicide attempt at age seven. Shocking.
Cheney’s story is full of violent ups and downs, obsessiveness, and alcoholism. While it’s difficult to read, it also provides a much needed look inside the thoughts and experiences of a child with bipolar disorder. With more knowledge, perhaps we can learn how to better assist these children so that they don’t have to suffer all alone.
August 6, 2014
This book was absolutely chilling. I suffer from Bipolar disorder and mine was early onset like Ms. Cheney's so I could relate a lot to her story. The way it's written, it reads like fast and edgy fiction but it is the absolute truth. for anyone who has ever felt like "something was wrong with them" or their children, I would suggest this book.
July 20, 2014
Not nearly as interesting as I expected it to be. Nevertheless, the epilogue is definitely worth reading if only because it asks the critical question - why did no one see how troubled this child was and how desperately she needed help.
March 12, 2017
I didn't get as much out of this, personally, as I did out of Cheney's other book, Manic. It was still worth reading.
There are a couple of aspects to this story that make it hard to review/assess, and they may just be the nature of the beast. Cheney, deliberately, I think, keeps her own assessments out of the story. She does not try to insert much of her adult sensibility into the story, instead attempting to tell the story as if she were filming it. This must have been extraordinarily hard to do, and just in respect for the difficulty alone, I'm tempted to bump it up a star. At the same time, the perspective of a 5- or 15-year-old leaves a lot lacking in the tale, leaves us flat in a lot of ways. Cold.
It's also hard not to judge just about everyone in the story, except the brother, who seems to have got a really hard deal here. And yet, I also get the feeling that Cheney might still be looking at her parents through the eyes of a 5- or 15-year-old--how can we tell? She is so rigid in not letting her adult perspective into the tale, that we can't even be sure she ever acquires an adult perspective. So many people I know, particularly those who never have children of their own, are still angry at their parents for this or that, without ever realizing what their parents may have been dealing with. The relationship between the father and the daughter was so sick, and I can hardly blame the mother for her own anger, and even for her anger at the daughter for what must have seemed a sociopathic manipulation of the weakness in the relationship between the parents.
And maybe there was some of that.
Because that brings me to the other matter I'm disturbed by in this book. It's really hard to decide, and I say this as someone also afflicted with child onset bipolar and also afflicted with a family even more fucked up than this one, what is causing what in the family Cheney described. Maybe Cheney really is a very sensitive and brilliant child who is channeling the dysfunction in her family. Maybe the bipolar disorder, very real in itself is triggered much earlier than it would have been, or aggravated into a much higher level of severity, because of the family situation. Perhaps the genetic proclivity would never even have been expressed were it not for this family situation.
So you get this horrible feedback loop that is highly evident here, where the dysfunction in the family drives the disorder, and the disorder in turn contributes to the family dysfunction, and so forth. Because Cheney's untreated illness is definitely making the family worse. The family shouldn't treat the child JUST to cover its own dysfunction. On the other hand, without treating her, it may never recover, either.
So, I would like to have seen her reach some of these conclusions, perhaps in an afterword, herself. I was bothered by the absence of insight.
Note: I read the trade paperback, and the margins were all ragged on the right. This drives me nuts in the Kindle versions, and there is no excuse for it in print. I don't pay for a manuscript, I pay for a book. Bring back typesetting!
There are a couple of aspects to this story that make it hard to review/assess, and they may just be the nature of the beast. Cheney, deliberately, I think, keeps her own assessments out of the story. She does not try to insert much of her adult sensibility into the story, instead attempting to tell the story as if she were filming it. This must have been extraordinarily hard to do, and just in respect for the difficulty alone, I'm tempted to bump it up a star. At the same time, the perspective of a 5- or 15-year-old leaves a lot lacking in the tale, leaves us flat in a lot of ways. Cold.
It's also hard not to judge just about everyone in the story, except the brother, who seems to have got a really hard deal here. And yet, I also get the feeling that Cheney might still be looking at her parents through the eyes of a 5- or 15-year-old--how can we tell? She is so rigid in not letting her adult perspective into the tale, that we can't even be sure she ever acquires an adult perspective. So many people I know, particularly those who never have children of their own, are still angry at their parents for this or that, without ever realizing what their parents may have been dealing with. The relationship between the father and the daughter was so sick, and I can hardly blame the mother for her own anger, and even for her anger at the daughter for what must have seemed a sociopathic manipulation of the weakness in the relationship between the parents.
And maybe there was some of that.
Because that brings me to the other matter I'm disturbed by in this book. It's really hard to decide, and I say this as someone also afflicted with child onset bipolar and also afflicted with a family even more fucked up than this one, what is causing what in the family Cheney described. Maybe Cheney really is a very sensitive and brilliant child who is channeling the dysfunction in her family. Maybe the bipolar disorder, very real in itself is triggered much earlier than it would have been, or aggravated into a much higher level of severity, because of the family situation. Perhaps the genetic proclivity would never even have been expressed were it not for this family situation.
So you get this horrible feedback loop that is highly evident here, where the dysfunction in the family drives the disorder, and the disorder in turn contributes to the family dysfunction, and so forth. Because Cheney's untreated illness is definitely making the family worse. The family shouldn't treat the child JUST to cover its own dysfunction. On the other hand, without treating her, it may never recover, either.
So, I would like to have seen her reach some of these conclusions, perhaps in an afterword, herself. I was bothered by the absence of insight.
Note: I read the trade paperback, and the margins were all ragged on the right. This drives me nuts in the Kindle versions, and there is no excuse for it in print. I don't pay for a manuscript, I pay for a book. Bring back typesetting!
August 17, 2017
Sometimes all we want is just to be seen. But if you have a disorder known as "bi-polar", then what you really want is hard for you to even know. Sometimes being seen is the last thing on earth you really want. What you really want is to "get the heck out of here". Terri's battle is just that, caught in the complex world of highs and lows, ups and downs, love and hate, over-elated and severely depressed. How much of the outside world do you want to allow into your private life? What parts of us are we willing to share? Who knows our deepest darkest secrets? And how on earth do we deal with the overwhelming pain of existence? A girl ravaged by her dark thoughts, harboring a "Black Beast", tormented by her tormentor and at a tender young age the pain becomes too much. Terri is born with a chemical imbalance, unspoken and undiagnosed; the 70's were not accustomed to "bi-polar" and depression as a diagnosis, especially as a child. Her lows are so low, she cannot lift a finger after a writing rampage. So tired, she cannot get out of bed. Her highs are so high, she is driven to the ends of her sanity. Is she even sane? She is brilliant, no doubt, but several suicide attempts tell a different story. Her behavior is unforgivable at times, but she is cunning and knows just when to turn on her charm. Terri does terrible things, running a fork through the top of her brother's hand; it is alarming and shocking to read. This is a graphic and at times demonically sexual depiction of a child battered and torn by the demons held hostage in her mind and the manic behavior that comes along with this mental imbalance. She goes to great lengths to be seen, then recoils in object fear; a consummate liar, spinning story after story. Her outlet becomes her writing, dark, haunting and chilling, her poems tell the story of death and wanting to leave a world she can not reckon with and a life she cannot bear. I recommend to anyone who wants to know more about "bi-polar" and how it affects the sufferer and the ones in their midst.
August 23, 2021
Hey, I'm not the only one! I have forever believed that I didn't wake up one day as an adult... and Poof!... I'm now bipolar. This book instills a new sense of comradery among bipolar sufferers when they see someone else in a published book forum can attest that bipolar is evident from an early age, way back into childhood. She talks about bipolar from age 7, which is probably as far back as any of us can realistically remember! (I'm sure it's even evident from birth, if the parents knew what to look for.) Her account opens the eyes of bipolar sufferers and those without a mental health struggle alike to how the condition can manifest itself in childhood. It is very important material. I haven't found anything like it, either in written form or in media.
Terri Cheney is a thoughtful advocate for mental health in real life and as down-to-earth as you will ever encounter.
Manic, her first memoir, and An Owner's Manual: Modern Madness are also awe-inspiring reads that deserve mention.
I recommend this book very highly. Give it a read, and you won't be able to put it down.
Terri Cheney is a thoughtful advocate for mental health in real life and as down-to-earth as you will ever encounter.
Manic, her first memoir, and An Owner's Manual: Modern Madness are also awe-inspiring reads that deserve mention.
I recommend this book very highly. Give it a read, and you won't be able to put it down.
March 5, 2020
Terri-Lynn does an eloquent and emotion fraught job in this introspective journey of her earliest struggles with bipolar. As with many folks who struggle with mood disorders, everyone around her feels less during their most passionate moments than she does on any given Tuesday. She cycles between crushing depression that leaves her bedridden for weeks at a time to mania that feels good at first but slips quickly into frenetic risk taking. So much compassion and recognition flowed through me as she brings up trying to cope through performance based self worth and shameful secret keeping. Although she externalizers her bipolar by personifying him as the Black Beast, she tells no one of his existence, fearing the alienation and stigma that would result. What did strike me by surprise was how devastatingly early her first attempt at suicide was, and how if her contemporary society as well as family had been more open about mental health, she might have had help with her Black Beast much earlier.
May 30, 2020
I'm shocked at how many positive reviews there are! This book just couldn't do it for me.. I'm not entirely sure how genuine of a portrayl this is of a childs mind who suffers from bi-polar. She uses large words for her age and has such an adult way of processing things, it feels awkward trying to imagine this as a 6 year old. An example is her odd jeaousy of her mother, watching her dress and describing her full body and curves. She's perplexed at how unfair it is, compared to her scrawny body, her mother could have any man she wanted. *shudder*, she is 6. Why does she care?
I felt some of her descriptive methods to be almost just a way of adding to the word count.. They just didnt feel to be nessecary and stole from the story.
I really don't recommend this book, I'm curious to try Manic as I feel it will likely be a proper representation. My mother suffered from bi-polar my entire life, so I was interested in hearing an internal outlook.. Sadly the black beast and a daddy obsessed, brother abusing 6 year old who wants A+s and a model body just felt like fiction.
I felt some of her descriptive methods to be almost just a way of adding to the word count.. They just didnt feel to be nessecary and stole from the story.
I really don't recommend this book, I'm curious to try Manic as I feel it will likely be a proper representation. My mother suffered from bi-polar my entire life, so I was interested in hearing an internal outlook.. Sadly the black beast and a daddy obsessed, brother abusing 6 year old who wants A+s and a model body just felt like fiction.
August 16, 2017
Very informative look inside the past experience of a child in the grips of serious mental illness. The story is relatable even if you did not experience something similar growing up. It did not pick apart situations or angles it merely told the stories as they unfolded for the child. Definitely a great read for anyone who has been through a tough time and wants to know how others have felt during a serious struggle in their mind. Parents can also use this to see how someone else's child fought with their inner issues and can maybe question what is happening to their own child in a genuine and loving way. One real eye opener is the decision making process the child uses; this can help many people understand the point of view of someone who is making destructive decisions because they are in of need help.
February 19, 2022
I was conflicted on what to rate this book because my main gripe with it is the editing. This is a 277 page book with 5 chapters. It felt impossible to get through at times because after being halfway through the book I was still one chapter 3. That being said, this is the first book that said out loud things I had always kept secret, even into adulthood, and it was so freeing to read. As someone with bipolar, this book was such a vivid and real tale of what having such big emotions, so young, feels like. The black beast is a full grown adult in a 10 year old's mind and the 10 year old is not ready for those thoughts, concepts, and feelings yet there they are. The emptiness of depression, the suicidal ideation, the complete loss of control of mania, and the relief of booze is something I think everyone who has struggled with this can relate to.
February 20, 2022
The book uses big, uncommon words at times, but I'd say it's generally an easy read. I read it in about two weeks and it felt a bit anti-climatic. As it relates to being bipolar, I believe a person has to have general knowledge of the disorder to notice all the symptoms she mentions because she doesn't explicitly list it as a symptom of the disorder, just as something she experienced. I like that she writes from a lens based in experience rather than a clinical perspective. She explores the ups and downs of the disorders and her odd relationship with her parents. She touches on suicide and self-harm and I like that she didn't get too graphic or allow that to become the focus of the book. I worked with a child who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and reacted in ways similar to Terri. I think this is a book that's read to fill time rather than to learn more about the disorder.
June 16, 2017
Mental illness is such a stigma for many societies around the world. I believe in educating our population since a very young age and this book might fit in that educational category.
The way Terri shares her illness with the world takes a lot of courage, being so young and hunted by the Beast must have been hard.
It had been a while since I had a book that actually made it hard for me to put it down, and this was it.
There is nothing else to say but to thank the writer for her extraordinary work and for putting into words feelings that are so hard to grasp.
The way Terri shares her illness with the world takes a lot of courage, being so young and hunted by the Beast must have been hard.
It had been a while since I had a book that actually made it hard for me to put it down, and this was it.
There is nothing else to say but to thank the writer for her extraordinary work and for putting into words feelings that are so hard to grasp.
April 13, 2019
This took me quite awhile to slog through unfortunately. I wish I had read it closer to Cheney’s first book Manic as I had some difficulty recalling her overall life story. I would have liked for it to be broken up into more chapters as parts were really engaging and parts were slower. It was also really sad to see the amount of people who interacted with her and never helped her from a mental health perspective. If anything, it is a clear warning that parents should ask and talk with their child if they feel something is wrong.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 198 reviews