Manic Episodes and the Dark Side: a Memoir of a Bipolar Life

Manic Episodes and the Dark Side draws the reader in with an autobiographical sketch of a misspent youth, then plunges into the terror of bipolar illness. Rich Patton travels the rocky road from the darkness of seemingly hopeless depression to the frightening experiences of manic psychosis.

Following the sometimes humorous, but more often tragic, thirty-four years of the author’s experiences with psychiatric wards, a state mental hospital, arrests, criminal incarcerations and trials, broken...