In this 200-page narrative memoir, Ruth Manning, PhD shares her deeply personal and informative four-decade bipolar I disorder journey, requiring more than a dozen psychiatric hospitalizations, to exemplify how success, failure, mania, and psychosis can occur in tandem.

When Brilliance and Madness Collide gives readers an up-close-and-personal look at what it's like to live with bipolar disorder. The book's most unique aspect is the in-depth account of her 2018 psychotic episode, which she wrote during the six weeks after she returned home from a psychiatric hospital, drawing on the copious notes she’d made during the episode and subsequent hospitalizations.

The chapters about her manic psychosis and recovery, which comprise the longest section of the book, are framed in the larger context, beginning with a brief backstory about her life with bipolar disorder, then a closer look at the two years leading up to the 2018 episode and the warning signs that were apparent (in retrospect). The book ends with a discussion about her life since the episode, notably Ruth’s experiences managing bipolar disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her goal with this book is to dispel some of the stereotypes and stigma around bipolar disorder and provide hope and help to others who are struggling with this disease.

Softcover | 6 x 9 in | 202 pages | ISBN 978-1-960326-74-4

Available at Parson's Porch & Company, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

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RUTH MANNING, PhD is a blogger, writer, speaker, and advocate for mental health. She’s experienced more than a dozen severe manic psychotic episodes requiring hospitalization in her over-forty-year diagnosed history with bipolar I disorder. Ruth’s a retired professional with a varied career path—founder and CEO of a biotech DNA sequence analysis software company, supercomputing consultant, US national laboratory scientist, university mathematics professor, and co-founder and market analyst for a small investment startup.

In 1979, Ruth earned a PhD in mathematics with a concentration in computer science from the University of Tennessee. She lives in Charlotte, NC, near her two children and four grandchildren.