"There are plenty of respectable reasons to kill yourself, but I've never had any." So opens Raleigh author Melody Moezzi's memoir, Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life. Raised in a vibrant Islamic-American community in Dayton, Ohio, Moezzi felt loved and supported, never more so than when a physical illness landed her in the hospital at 18 and her hospital room filled with flowers and get-well wishes. But when her bipolar disorder surfaced, leading to a suicide attempt, sanitarium visits and a stunning array of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics, Moezzi's community turned colder. By turns truth-telling and humorous, Haldol and Hyacinths recounts the ways that psychological illness is judged or disbelieved along cultural and social lines. Ultimately Moezzi finds healing and inspiration in perseverance, embracing aspects of her condition while pushing through others: "Here is the problem with madness. How do you sort out the ocelots from the creative breakthroughs, or the elephants from the nail-biting cessation? You don't."