Live Through This: Interview with Melody Moezzi (Interview by Dese'Rae L. Stage) →

Melody Moezzi is a 34 year old Iranian-American lawyer, writer, and human rights advocate in Raleigh, NC. She lives with bipolar disorder and attempted suicide when she was 25. She maintains a weekly blog for Bipolar Magazine and has written for the New York Times and CNN, among others. Her memoir, Haldol and Hyacinths, was published in August. It’s an amazing story of bipolarity in culture and mind. Melody was one of the first people to believe in Live Through This and agreed to share her story back when I had nothing but an idea. She ended up being the 50th person I interviewed.

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The Huffington Post: When Reader Inspires Author →

To the joy and horror of authors everywhere, it’s never been easier for readers to reach us. And given the value so many publishers now place on platform, celebrity and branding, very few authors can afford to be reclusive. So we do the professionally responsible thing. We make ourselves available to our readers — through websites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and the list goes on.

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BookRiot: A Useful List of Books about Depression... (List by Josh Hanagarne) →

And at last, something lively and irreverent.

From the Amazon page: With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim woman chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity.

As a friend of Melody’s, I can say that this description is insufficient.

She’s even more complicated than that blurb makes it sound like she is, and there’s no way to convey how intelligent she is outside of actually conversing with her. But this book is a great start.

The Boston Globe: Haldol and Hyacinths Review (Review by Kate Tuttle) →

 Mental illness is serious business — “bipolar disorder is a legitimate and lethal illness that has nearly killed me on several occasions,” author Melody Moezzi writes. Yet the dominant tone in Moezzi’s memoir of battling the disease, including manic episodes that took her over that “fine line between eccentric exuberance and madness,” is an infectious, freewheeling humor. The whipsmart but whimsical daughter of Iranian immigrant doctors, Moezzi details a series of maladies that befell her even before mania set in: First among them was the cultural dislocation of “enduring the seventh grade as the staggeringly skinny, flat-chested brown girl in Ohio, with a budding unibrow and a faint mustache.”

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The Huffington Post: A Better Way to Remember Robin Williams →

While many have speculated that Robin Williams struggled with bipolar disorder, the Oscar-winning actor and comedian who lost his life to suicide on Monday never publicly stated as much. In fact, he outright refuted it in a characteristically quick-witted interview with Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross in 2006. In response to being “branded” a manic-depressive after volunteering to be on the cover of an issue ofNewsweek about medication, Mr. Williams said, “‘Um, that’s clinical. I’m not that.’ Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.”

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NAMI: Facing a Double Stigma (Interview by Hanem Ali) →

Mental Illness stigma is universal, although it may appear differently across countries, communities and religious groups. The pervasiveness of mental illness stigma is often higher in ethnic minority and religious communities. This is mainly because of the stereotypical views about mental illness in general, the double stigma that these communities already face because of their group affiliation and the cultural tendencies that associate shame with seeking mental health services.

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WFDD: Melody Moezzi's "Haldol and Hyacinths" →

Melody Moezzi is an Iranian-American lawyer, activist, and award-winning author.  Her latest book is titled Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life.  The memoir chronicles Melody's road to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  In it she talks about an early battle with pancreatitis, she addresses psychotic breaks and manic episodes, details the project of writing her first book, War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, and comments on the stigma associated with mental illness.  Melody brings out the humor and humanity in it all.  This month, Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, the book was released in paperback.

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The Huffington Post: Why Forcibly Medicating the Mentally Ill Is Dangerous →

In a 9-2 vote on Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved Laura’s Law, which allows judges to order involuntary outpatient treatment, including forced medication, for certain patients with a history of psychiatric illness. While adopted in 2002, Laura’s Law requires authorization by local jurisdictions, so this vote made San Francisco the third jurisdiction and first major city in California to approve it. Los Angeles County is slated to decide on full implementation in the coming week.

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Iranian Alliances Across Borders: Dialogue with Melody Moezzi (By Dina Ajalli)

The energized campers then attended an Emory auditorium for a Skype call with Melody Moezzi, an activist, lawyer, and the author of Haldol and Hyacinths. A thoughtful and eye-opening Q&A followed before campers praised Moezzi with a well-deserved standing ovation. Campers left with a sense of understanding and awareness about mental health in the Iranian community.

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Disability Intersections: A Conversation with Melody Moezzi (Interview by Brendan McHugh) →

Human rights activist, attorney, writer, Iranian American, and Muslim American feminist: Melody Moezzi is all of these. She is the award-winning author of War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims and published her memoir Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life last September. She also blogs for the Huffington Post, Ms., and BP Magazine and has provided commentary for CNN, NPR, and BBC, among others. Her memoir is a frank account of her journey with bipolar disorder, her times in and out of mental health care facilities, as well as her life as an Iranian-American woman in Middle America and the South. Written with grace and often hilarious, Moezzi’s book fills a gap in mental illness memoirs, in that is told from her perspective as a Muslim American feminist activist and attorney.

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