Palisadian Pens Powerful Mental Health Memoir

By GABRIELLA BOCK | Reporter

Palisadian-born author Dyane Harwood woke up one day and couldn’t stop writing.

What would be deemed as a gift to those of us working in the newspaper business or to novelists suffering from yet another bout of writer’s block, Harwood’s never ending need to scrawl and scribe nearly cost her a life.

In her new book, “Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder,” Harwood provides, in both humor and pain, an intimate account of her struggles with hypergraphia—a rare behavioral condition characterized by the intense desire to write—and how giving birth to her second child induced a life-altering disorder she never thought she’d develop.

“My father has bipolar disorder, so of course there is that family history right there,” Harwood told the Palisadian-Post. “But I was in my late 30s by the time it came for me.”

In her book, Harwood writes about her upbringing in the “beautiful seaside town” of Pacific Palisades. A graduate of Palisades Charter High School, the Highlands native grew up much like her peers: Her mother was a former actress turned speech therapist and her father was a violinist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

But despite their open and sweeping surroundings, the family housed an air of secrecy around her father’s disease, a mistake, Harwood said, that would later forestall her ability to recognize that she herself was suffering from symptoms of the chaotic mood disorder.

“It began almost instantly after I had my second daughter, Marilla,” she revealed. “At first, my mania was mislabeled as ‘mother’s elation,’ but eventually things got to the point where I would stay up all night writing—on any surface I could find—jotting down every single thought in my head. I would write while I fed my daughter, I would write while I used the bathroom. I literally couldn’t stop.”

Aware that her newly developed compulsion was rapidly becoming a burden on her family, with baby Marilla losing weight from not receiving enough of her mother’s milk, Harwood began searching for answers.

As she would soon discover through the help of author and Harvard-trained neurologist Dr. Alice Flaherty, the mother-of-two had developed full blown bipolar disorder, a realization that would ultimately shape the next 10 years of her life.

In “Birth of a New Brain,” Harwood lets us join her on a journey to recovery and mental health management, sharing her memories and offering practical, real world guidance to the 20.9 million Americans diagnosed with a mood disorder.

“It’s time that we break the stigma and begin talking,” Harwood, a UC Santa Cruz graduate in English, told the Post. “I’m here to prove that we can live a full and happy life.”

Already receiving rave reviews from doctors and mental health advocacy groups, with Comedian Jay Mohr, spokesperson for the “Keep Oregon Well” mental health campaign, hailing the book as “the most impressive mental health book” of his lifetime, “Birth of a New Brain” is available now on Amazon and at dyaneharwood.com.