Clickety Clack

by Mcdiarmid, Joy S.

• ISBN13: 9781926577029
• ISBN10: 1926577027
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-10-06
• Publisher: Blue Butterfly Book Pub Inc

Summary

This is Joy McDiarmid's self- portrait of bipolar mental illness & one of the most ambiguous sexual identities imaginable for a woman coming of age in the 1950s. Amidst gender & sexuality confusion, this Winnipeg woman began to look for romantic love & sexual fulfilment: sometimes wanting to dress as a man, sometimes as a woman, sometimes attracted to men, sometimes to women. In candid accounts of this paralysing complexity, which McDiarmid tried valiantly to understand & express despite oppressive social stigmas & parental strictures, her insights about human sexuality & "living the lie" are startling even in this age of open commentary about sex. Along primitive frontiers of treatment for bipolar disorders & dramas of shock therapy in psychiatric wards, entire years of McDiarmid's life would slip by even as earlier years were being erased from her memory. Yet there came triumphant accomplishments in her competitive & stimulating world of advertising, university work, private enterprise, photography, travel, touring in her MG sports car, skilful tennis, & love. Such juxtaposed experiences of despair & defiant courage, supplemented at the end of each chapter with medical commentary by Joy's psychiatrist Dr. Frances Edye, make "Clickety Clack" a rare road map to life.