Memoir

Abandon: A Half-Life Lived Bipolar

Abandon follows Donelle McKinley on an epic journey of positive change, as she climbs a mountain she couldn’t see for thirty years. Inspired by the illumination of Bipolar Type II diagnosis at age 46, and the subsequent process of healing, her memoir offers hope of recovery from “incurable” illness and lights the way for others.

In deft literary style, Abandon provides insights into a relatively common mental illness that flies under the radar of general awareness, while driving sufferers to emotional extremes that can derail their lives repeatedly if left untreated. It shares the personal experience of an unorthodox approach to therapy, which burrowed beneath the symptoms of ignorance and extracted the cause of suffering.

Along the way, it examines the role of home, place, cultural heritage and the arts in the author’s efforts to hold fast to her foundations. Capturing poignant moments of her life and travels, from Stratford-upon-Avon to the Shanghai Bund, from the heart of Turkey to earthquaked New Zealand and the ivory towers of Oxford, riding a rollercoaster of hypomania and depression to diagnosis and beyond, her memoir celebrates the power of the humanities to enrich our life and understand its complexity.

Comprised of thirty stories that illustrate a pattern of flight and fresh starts, Abandon is structured chronologically in five parts, taking the reader from the “wilderness” of the author’s late teens to the “summit” of restored mental health at age 48. With different points of view and approaches to storytelling subtly applied to serve dissociation, reinvention, and reflection, stories revisit pivotal events, capture emotional impressions, and explore themes of vocation, love, spirituality, integrity, and freedom.

Poetic, uplifting, and unflinchingly honest, Abandon honours the precious, the painful, and the extraordinary in a half-life lived bipolar.