During her senior year of high school, Jamison underwent her first episode of hypomania, followed by a prior of depression, nonetheless passing as neurotypical.

Against medical advice, Jamison went off lithium several times, sometimes to avoid its side effects, but often due to denial about her diagnosis as bipolar.

Months after her suicide attempt, Jamison founded the Affective Disorders Clinic and applied for tenure at UCLA, which she won.

After the end of her first marriage, she falls in love and starts dating a man named David, a British psychiatrist with the Army Medical Corps.

She tells her account of witnessing the first evidence of a genetic component to bipolar disease, and sitting with Jim Watson talking about mood disorders and family trees.

Jamison calls not having her own children "the single most intolerable regret of [her] life", but describes her relationship with her niece and nephew and how she enjoys it.

She is apprehensive to disclose her illness to her new coworkers but does so to not jeopardize the care of her patients and make her superiors aware of the legal risk.

Despite her fears, she describes being very accepted and supported in her work environment in Hopkins, as well as maintaining an optimistic view of the future of her illness.

[3] In 2009, Melody Moezzi, an Iranian-American attorney who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, reviewed An Unquiet Mind for National Public Radio.