"The Sun King: A Mother, Her Son, and Mania", by Allison Lee Palmer

​      A man with mania.   An exhausted mother. Who saves whom?

   Throughout Allison Lee Palmer’s book, “The Sun King:  A Mother, Her Son, and Mania”, Jack displayed a natural high intelligence and curiosity for learning.  Having a serious mental illness of bipolar disorder intensified this ten-fold.
   Jack had a love hate relationship with college.  He loved researching topics that were of interest of him but didn’t like the structure of the classroom setting and felt the teachers were incompetent so neglected to attend his classes.  He must have had some natural attraction to people as he constructed a self-inspired and detailed cardboard spaceship, in a spare room, and others unbelievably skipped class to assist him.

   Jack struggled very hard mentally; hallucinations, mania, depression.  This combined with chemical dependency and not complying with his medication regime headed him straight to hospitalization.  Sadly, the poor medical health care system failed Jack by not keeping him until he was stabilized, releasing him over and over to an exhausted and frustrated mother.

   Allison was at a loss.  Where was the loving little boy who was now this corrosive man?  She was now broken and confused herself.  Allison starts self-medicating with alcohol and Jack’s prescription medication.  Deeper and deeper she crawls into herself, reliving the past, and shatters.

   Surprisingly, it is Jack that saves Allison.

   I connected with Allison Lee Palmer’s story as I can clearly recall how my negative mood changes impacted my girls and sadly remember some of the hurtful things I said, like what Jack sad to his mother.  I’m fortunate my girls knew it was the disorder speaking and have forgiven me.
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   “The Sun King:  A Mother, Her Son, and Mania”, is a fictionalized memoir, using references to tarot cards, which gave it a unique writing style.