What is the main conflict in Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness by Patty Duke?

A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness is an illuminating combination of the personal story of Patty Duke's fight with this mental illness and a clinical approach that helps define some of the medical aspects of the illness. Patty Duke has suffered episodes of mania as well as depression since her late teens, but did not know the name of her illness until she was thirty-five. The diagnosis could have been a time of great stress for Patty Duke, but instead it was a time of celebration because she finally had a name for her moods and definitive proof that she was not insane. Patty Duke's illness not only had a name, but a treatment that brought calm and stability to her life for the very first time. Patty Duke shares her story to help others who suffer in the dark of the same symptoms that ruled her world, at the same time sharing the authorship of this informative book with Gloria Hochman, a medical writer whose job it was to offer a broader perspective to this oft misinterpreted disease.