Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me - A Graphic Memoir | Inspiring Mental Health Journey & Artistic Exploration | Perfect for Book Clubs, Therapy, and Self-Discovery

Ellen Forney's "Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me", is a brave, funny and self-revealing work exploring how an artist can make peace with bipolar disorder without losing the creative spark. It has been called a graphic novel, and it even was selected for a list of "top graphic novels" compiled by Time Magazine, but its form is actually that of a memoir rather than a novel.Forney, a graphic artist working out of Seattle, opens her work with a tattoo technician inking her back. The big design, of Forney's making, embodies energy, transformation, joy, a whale, plumes of water, smoke, a skeleton, the spiritual connection with water, and other emanations of a manic epiphany she had experienced about one year earlier. The tattoo artist is taken aback when Forney--exultant at finishing the long session, and shirtless--swings around and lunges to kiss him, "tongue & all!"The next chapter relates Forney's first visit to a psychiatrist, shortly after the tattoo, who proposes a diagnosis of bipolar I disorder, DSM 296.4 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association), known in the past as "manic depression." With this exact sounding diagnosis (reminiscent of the Dewey Decimal System for library books), she contemplates a revised life, alternately as the alienation of a lunatic or the glory of artistic initiation into "Club Van Gogh." Her imaginary membership card in Club Van Gogh offered a "sense of heaviness...alleviated by a backhanded sense of cred" (caption: "ECCENTRIC! PASSIONATE! TORTURED! SCARY! DEADLY! FIRE! ICE! UNMOORED! UNBRIDLED! UNPREDICTABLE! DANGEROUS!").Forney lists almost innumerable distinguished creative persons with diagnosed or "probable" manic-depressive illness or major depression. Here are some of her examples: Artists: Gaugin, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Munch, O'Keefe, Rossetti, Pollack, Rothko. Poets: Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Poe, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, Whitman. Writers: Samuel Johnson, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ibsen, Henry James, William James, Tolstoy, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf and Mark Twain. Among manic depressives, the rates of attempted and successful suicide are appallingly high (see p. 44). Although Forney emphasizes artists, a number of great leaders have shown signs of serious mood disorder, including Lincoln and Churchill (Churchill called his depression "the Black Dog"). I also think of the great social scientist Max Weber, alternating between superhuman research and writing spurts and vegetative paralysis.Bipolar disorder is notoriously difficult to treat. Lithium [lithium carbonate, a salt], the oldest scientifically accepted pharmaceutical treatment, doesn't work for everyone, can cause lethargy, nasty acne and weight gain, and it carries a danger of acute liver damage that must be monitored by regular blood serum testing. Ms. Forney tried lithium, along with almost a pharmacy of alternative and adjutant medications, including Lamictal, Tegretol, Depakote, Nuerontin, Zyprexa and Klonopin.Ms. Forney's self-described bisexuality entails, in this rendition, numerous romps with her girlfriends, both straight and gay, as she acts out themes for her comic books, celebrates her thirtieth birthday and seduces a female yoga novice.An intriguing aspect of this memoir is the depiction of the psychiatrist-patient relationship. For a long time, Forney hides from her doctor her cannabis habit, which for her is more important than alcohol. She cherishes this connection with her beloved "stoner mother." When she finally reveals this use to her doctor, she feels guilty for having kept the secret but also unburdened.As Forney credibly shows, much great art is not merely a metaphor of extreme psychic states but often a direct expression of them. I was startled by Edward Munch's vivid diary entry of the experience that evoked his masterwork, "The Scream" (see p. 121 for the remarkable words).Forney's exercise regimen, including swimming, seems to give short-term relief at least. Yoga, recommended by her psychiatrist, offers some respite from anxiety and also insight. But the author brings out the trickiness, subtlety and seeming impermanence--and at the same time, apparent necessity--of the pharmaceutical treatment combination. She credits her psychiatrist with high intelligence, cunning and patience. She also finds support from her friends and parents, particularly her (lesbian) mother.If this book were a drama, it has elements of comedy, but the comic resolution is incomplete. The heroine comes away with new self-knowledge, achieved through quite a lot of suffering--understanding of herself and perhaps about many other artists past and present with whom she shares aspects of this malady. She has discovered that, at least for her, the lows but also the extreme highs of her disorder do not bring artistic productivity. By keeping her mood swings within a narrower ambit, she can continue her craft more regularly and fruitfully. But any such success is tactical, not strategic--more of a war of attrition than a clear-cut victory. The goal--hard fought for and elusive, but sometimes gratifyingly achieved--is balance. Her closing image is a self-portrait, with fluffy bathrobe, bedtime hair, toothbrush in hand and half-smile, and the caption, "I'm OK."In the graphic novel format, Forney has found an ideal form for telling her story. Samples of her drawings, undertaken during major depressive or manic episodes-- shared with the reader to convey her long dog-sled rides of sadness and Olympic ski take-off ramps of joy--express convincingly her underlying emotions.This highly original memoir moved me. The author enjoys indubitable gifts as a comic artist; she write unabashed; she wins over the reader, who roots for her unreservedly, despite all revealed breaches of decorum. This book would be of compelling interest to anyone diagnosed with bipolar disorder or major depression (and family/friends) but also to almost any person interested in human psychology or artistic creativity. After reading it, I found myself going back to savor some exceptional sections again. I'm giving this book five stars, because it fully realizes the potential of its form.(Originally posted at MindBodyForce.com by Andrew Szabo.)Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and MeMarbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir