A Pedigree for Bipolar Disorder

Kay Jamison discusses her family pedigree.

One of the things that is most striking in many families is how sane one part of your family tree may be and how disturbed another part of your family tree may be. So that my mother is sort of like "mother normal" in many respects, she was brought up in an extremely normal family, had no exposure to anyone who had major problems, psychiatric problems. There was utter certainty and stability within everything that she knew. And she married into a family history that was absolutely the opposite, and so it's one of those situations where you just see the stark contrast in the stability of the mind and the instability of the mind.