A Can of Madness

Product Description "A Can of Madness does what it says in the... er can. A brilliant memoir of mania; all the pain, humour, fear and despair is chronicled here in prose of clarity and distinction. Unforgettable and important" - Stephen Fry "This book will help people to understand one of the greatest issues of our time, how to treat those who are mentally disturbed, as human beings" - Rt. Hon. Tony Benn MP "The author has done all of us a service by writing about how it feels, not just to be manic depressive, but to have a life of fraught and edgy encounters with just about everyone" - The Times Literary Supplement Description A vivid, honest and sometimes disturbing memoir about the experience of having a diagnosis of manic-depression. It was in two stages (not using a diary that i collected as it says in the Mind Press Release 2002. After i read Prozac Nation in 1998 i wrote two pages. Knowing i had something amazing to say i was paralysed for two years with the thought of writing it. Then when i was given my own flat in Vauxhall after my last hospitalisation in St Thomas's Hospital in 2000 i wrote every day for about 12-16 weeks and got it all of my chast. From that moment i felt that i had written the book that had saved the Ecstasy generation although it turned into a mental health crusade to give other people a voice. Like other books in this genre, the author is often painfully honest about his experiences. He recounts a dizzying, dark and sometimes euphoric journey through a world of elation, despair, binge drinking, drugs, raves and psychiatric wards. As well as attempting to educate the reader, the book also provides optimism and hope, showing that it is finally possible to learn to live with, and accept, having a mental health problem. Writing A Can of Madness saved my life and alot of other people have told me that it has helped their lives. About the Author Jason Pegler is 33 and lives in London. Jason was diagnosed with manic depression in 1993 and wrote 'A Can of Madness' to stop other seventeen year olds going through what he went through. Graduating from Manchester University in 1998 he founded Chipmunkapublishing the mental health publisher which aims to help mental health sufferers. Pegler is a mental health activist, journalist, rapper, public speaker and consultant on anything that promotes a positive image on mental health. In 2005 Pegler won the New Statesman's Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is a key figure in the mental health movement. Book Extract As I was being driven off in the back of a police van in a space suit, I thought I was Donovan Bad Boy Smith being driven to a rave. I could hear music in my head and flashed back to another night at The Brunel Rooms in Swindon. The Brunel Rooms, a hard-core Mecca for druggies from Gloucester and surrounding areas in the early to mid nineties. Donovan was so hardcore when I saw him there that he'd refused to turn off his set at 3. He'd carried on until 3.30 when someone finally turned off the electricity mid flow. Talking of flows (as opposed to stable mindsets), just how the fuck do you live with a mental illness? Don't ask me, I'm still trying to find out now. After all, it's not something you plan, let alone something you'd ever expect to have. As we all say: it won't happen to me. But it can. And in this case, it did. And if Hercules and Ajax couldn't hack it, how the hell could I? Unsurprisingly, I didn't - and that's why I wallowed in self-pity for so long. So, do you want to know what it's like to be crazy, mad, loopy? Well I'm about to tell you. I'm also going to tell you how it feels to be suicidal for months on end - the fate of the manic. One thing, however, is for sure: The sooner you kill mania the better. For you're a danger to yourself and other people when you don't know what you're doing.